Life In Pieces
Dawn O’Porter
Dear 2020 – can we just start over?
Dawn O’Porter has been thinking about life. In lockdown. Mostly from a cupboard.
From reflections on grief and identity, bad hair and parenting, sleep and spirituality, to the things we can control and the things we cannot, Dawn’s daily diaries track the journey – for a hilarious, heartbreaking and highly entertaining glimpse into the new normal.
LIFE IN PIECES is a book for anyone who’s been thrown into a life they didn’t plan, or who just wants to stick it to 2020. When it looks like everything’s falling apart, we’ll piece it back together.
Love Dawn x
My Thoughts
I am a fan of Dawn O’Porter’s fiction writing so I was excited to read her new book Life In Pieces which are non-fiction diary entries from March 2020 onwards.
It is the first ‘lockdown diary’ I have read and I found Dawn’s version of lockdown in LA with two very young children an entertaining read. Strangely even authors with a huge following and married to famous actors had the same problems as everyone else during these testing times.
Dawn stresses over how much she is eating and drinking, will she run out of toilet rolls? and how to keep the children occupied.
There are some funny moments and Dawn’s observations on life in lockdown are honest, witty, and relatable. It has to be said that at the time of writing Dawn was also grieving the loss of a dear friend who tragically died. Her sadness is clear and might explain why she uses alcohol as a prop at times. Caroline Flack’s death just before the lockdown was a shock to everyone, even people who didn’t know her, so I can’t even imagine how close personal friends and family felt at this time.
Parents who experienced tight restrictions will find the book most relatable. From constant bodily fluid eruptions and homeschooling guilt, Dawn describes it all with absolute honesty.
I feel that the publisher and Dawn assumed that by the time the book was on the shelves the pandemic would be over and we would all be looking forward to Christmas. Sadly, this isn’t the case and the virus is still creating heartbreak and huge disruption. I’m sure that if the Corona Virus pandemic had passed it would have been a very different read for me. However, we are still living with all the stress and worry so this book is not the lighthearted, nostalgic account it was meant to be.
Thank you to the publisher (via NetGalley) for a copy of the book, which I have reviewed honestly.
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