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The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer

Published August 17th 2016 by Harper Collins

336 Pages

Everyone has heard of Amy Schumer, and whether you are a fan of her or not, there is no denying she is a talented woman. Personally, I love Amy Schumer. I find it refreshing to see someone who is beautiful and smart and funny without feeling as though I would need an entire team of stylists to achieve her look. 

If we take away her celebrity when looking at this book, you still feel the humour in the pages. I never used to be one to enjoy celebrity life-stories, but Amy Schumer has done something slightly different. It is not so much discussing her fame, as discussing who she is, and what she thinks about the world. 

The pages are chock full of hilarious stories as expected, but she writes them with a real flair for words and insight that is often missing from traditional actress memoirs. Schumer is honest, raw and unashamed. She speaks of her family and friends with a deep love that translates to the reader.

I knew very little about Schumer before reading this book, and although she doesn't exactly lay out every moment of her childhood, she really gives a sense of the people around her, and so to an extent reflects herself in the depiction of her loved ones. 

Overall, I adored this book, especially the audible edition. I would hate to spoil all the stories within it's pages because part of the charm is that you have no ideas what she could possibly say next. But there is only one way to find out...



You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads and Facebook. Until then...Happy Reading.

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The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
257 Pages

Guess who discovered Audible?
Guess who very much enjoys Audible?

I swear I'm not trying to sell you Amazon. I am just sort of in shock that listening to a book can be even more evocative than reading at times. Not with fantasy, not for a moment can I enjoy a fictitious story voiced by anyone other than my own consciousness. Non-fiction, however, that I love to have read to me.

In the times of Jane Austen people would read aloud to each other all the time. I think audiobooks are trying to do the same thing and having the author reading their work - emphasis where intended and stories known like the scars on the back of your hand. It's pretty amazing really, I found myself totally absorbed by Fisher - and only now have I discovered what an amazing person we lost last year.

I will make this very plain. I have never felt as though I am "like everyone else." I'm too vulgar and harsh for the girly girls and too girly for the tomboys. So where the hell we're my people? The people who had to say what was on their mind because if not, that thought will rot and burn inside me until I falter like a lunatic. I've really never felt so understood than I did listening to Fisher's words.

She had brilliant comic timing, an exciting life that I can only dream of and was truly, truly honest about things I don't think many people are. She remembers what she thought as a teenager, the way her young mind logically led her places. It is so detailed I almost begin to wonder if anything she says is real, but that's half the fun.

 I think I might be mourning. I was never a huge Star Wars fan and even now I cannot fully enjoy the films without scoffing and laughing at its expense...but something happened with this book. I think became a Carrie Fisher fan. A woman who was sexual and vulgar and eloquent and educated (even though she refused to accept that.) A woman who was funny, and knew that was her weapon.

It is a brutally revealing story - brutal to herself and to people around her. (Sorry Harrison!) But it's also beautiful and it feels fitting that this, the ultimate telling of her life. A book so concerned with its author I can almost feel her breath on the pages. It's fitting that this was her last book and terribly tragic at the same time.

If only I had got on the Leia Bandwagon all those years ago when my father tried to drag me onto it.