Review: Is This It?

Is This It? by Hannah Tovey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ivy is a thirty-two year old welsh woman living in London. Last year, before the book begins (maybe in a previous book?) she split up with her fiancé Jamie, her beloved Grandpa died, and Ivy went off the rails a bit. Now she's come to realise that she's not got a proper job, while friends and family are getting their lives together. Ivy decides to stop wasting her inheritance and start her teacher training, which will require her to stop going out and getting wasted with her two best friends, Mia the extrovert actress and Dan the obligatory gay best friend who alternates between having loads of money and being broke. Ivy also decides to get over Jamie by joining a dating app.

Ivy is a bit of a Bridget Jones (from Bridget Jones's Diary) for the twenty-first century. Often shockingly hungover on a school night, horrendous dates with losers, nagging mother, perfect sister who has it all, not doing well at her chosen career etc, etc. Then she meets the perfect man while on a mates night out, good looking, funny, and seemingly interested in Ivy he seems like the perfect man, until he takes her number and never calls her back ...

I don't know if this is part of a series, it feels as though all the characters have a lot of backstory which isn't properly explained, eg the break up with Jamie and exactly what Ivy did. Also Mia and Dan are terrible BFFs, selfish and unsupportive, they never really seem to have her back. TBH they are the sort of BFFs you have at uni and then gradually loose touch with because they are still partying, dressing, and acting like eighteen year olds in their twenties and thirties.

This was pleasant enough but it felt like Ivy was dealing with too many issues on different fronts and the mix was wrong, like maybe it should have been 50% romance, 30% teaching, 10% parental issues, and 10% friends but instead it was 25% each, making it difficult to invest in the romance.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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