Never could this book be more relevant than right now in 2023. Home should be that safe haven away from the madness of the world, a place that provides all our creature comforts, something that we’re not afraid of losing. Marginalised groups such as working-class immigrants, transgender people and single mothers must deal with discrimination. And landlords can outsource the labour of finding new tenants to existing tenants, in a process known as “churning”. I had to endure months of housemate auditions. Sometimes there were group interviews like a Lord of the Flies-style social experiment I loved hearing about Yates' life, I especially loved hearing about her mum. Although, I know this was not the point of this book, I would have loved to hear more about her mum and the relationship they created. We definitely got a feel for their relationship but I would've liked to know how creating a home differs when you are a mother, the pressure to create a home for others even when you do not want too. Maybe a potential idea for a sequel?

I came up with the idea for Door Stepping when I was doing something that felt momentous last summer, although people do it all time – moving home. Maybe it felt especially significant as I was leaving the first house I’d ever bought, with my boyfriend, who was now my husband, and we were leaving it with our son, who had arrived when we’d lived there. Warm and funny. A powerful call to action against bad landlords, gentrification and class inequality in Britain' -- Symeon Brown, author of 'Get Rich or Lie Trying'

The intimate stories of childhood and belonging hit deep into my own personal experiences of never truly finding a home, redefining what we know and perceive ‘home’ truly as.

All the Houses I've Ever Lived In" is my favourite form of non-fiction, part memoir, part investigative journalism, Yates takes us through all the houses she has ever lived in. Recounting the memories she has had in these homes, relationships she has created and the struggles she has faced in finding a permanent home in the UK. Yates' homes act as a starting point for her to investigate the problems in the UK housing market, which at the moment, is basically everything. She discusses social housing, Grenfell, landlords, mould and the effects on our health - so much is covered but it never felt like too much. Sometimes, I do think the memoir and the investigative journalism could have been better blended for example, Yates speaks about doors which moves onto 'creating the perfect secure door' which somehow segues into surveillance and for me, it was difficult to connect all these things together. However, when it worked, it worked and the majority of the time it really did. In the book you touch upon how housing ownership has become an unattainable dream for most. Do you think we should put effort towards making it a possible reality, or invest in alternative modes of housing and living? But we should also look for answers beyond government to how we dig ourselves out of this quagmire. The state might provide social housing, but it does not grant freedom from inequality. Policy may be a starting point for change, but it is a place rather than the place to focus our attention. We could focus on community solutions, such as joining tenants’ unions or simply teaching young people about housing admin. We should invite radical housing design solutions, through collectives such as Decolonise Architecture, the DisOrdinary Architecture Project, and initiatives ensuring our homes can commit to green targets as we face down the climate emergency. Creative Access book club at Simon & Schuster office! The author Kieran Yates joined us for an interview and Q&A before our wider book club discussion!You’ve lived in a number of homes and places across the country, spending some of your childhood living above a car showroom in Wales. Do you feel the current conversations around the housing crisis focus too much on London? A powerful, personal and intricate tour of our housing system ... exposing who it works for and who it doesn't' -- Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP

All the Houses I've Ever Lived In is probably one of the best books to describe how perfectly the UK is failing many people and the many ways in which the housing system is designed to work against you and not for you. Kieran takes us through the different houses she has lived through in her life and how in turn each government/system has repeatedly failed her. This is a really good memoir not only does Keiran take us through her life and struggles with the housing system but she educates the reader on how it all works. From explaining laws to dealing with bailiffs and landlords and how to make home anywhere. She also highlights housing in regards to class, inequality and gentrification, racism and major negligence and explores Grenfell. This book is amazingly written and resonated with me deeply everyone should read this book. That’s not to say that rehousing people is just about giving them new sets of rooms, walls and utilities. Homes are also about memories and relationships, about fundamental human ties that can, with horrific speed, be lost overnight. They are also about the schools, jobs and amenities that bind us to the communities where we live our daily lives. There’s no way that you can talk about gentrification in our cities [...] without talking about rural gentrification too, and thinking about the impact of second homes or Airbnbs on smaller local economies ” But home can be a complicated place. When Yates’ mother was effectively disowned by her family aged 19 after filing for divorce, she and Yates began their peripatetic journey to building a future that didn’t yet exist, away from Southall and into uncertainty. And when I lived in a mouldy room, I thought that was completely normal to be demonised and to be told that you should just open a window.

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This is a book that explores how it feels to move and some of the reasons we feel a sense of nostalgia about our old homes. We inhabit the spaces we are in. They give something to us and we give something to them, too.'

It’s important not to be blind to the “community and looking after each other that we have had to do because the government has not done it for us”, she explains. A moving and urgent expose of the housing crisis' -- Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism Project Being in this flat made me realise, more than ever, that a home is not just about a house but about the networks that surround it. Dan, the young father of this family, was born and brought up in Dalston, his mother living in social housing nearby. Homelessness had happened suddenly to him, his partner and child, and the distance they experienced from support, in all senses, was tough. Millennials are half as likely to own a home at the age of 30 as baby boomers were, thanks to higher prices and low earnings growth. In the 1980s, it would have taken a typical couple in their late 20s about three years to save for an average-sized deposit. Today, it would take 19. Renters are getting older, too, with a 239% increase in 55- to 64-year-olds looking for house shares between 2011 and 2022.

I feel like I talk about wanting balance in these information based memoirs, of which I be read a few in the past few years. A number I’ve read feel like two separate books - one that is memoir and another that is a text book. All this to say that Yates strikes the balance perfectly here.