This is a wonderful, enjoyable and thought-provoking debut and I can’t wait to read Anita Rani’s next novel. The story of a girl who never fit in and the woman she became - an incredible first memoir from Anita Rani.

She covers issues ranging from boys falling behind in education, porn addiction, and the rise in online misogyny, as well as male friendships, banter, body image and fashion pressures. Join the Women's Prize newsletter for a chance to win a stack of all 6 brilliant 2023 shortlisted books, and get the latest book news, author features and exciting competitions!

Anita shares the lessons she wishes her younger self could have known: 'Freedom is Complicated', 'You Will Fall In Love and Be Loved' and, most importantly, 'Your Anger is Legitimate'. When Baby finds some love letters between her grandfather and someone who is very clearly not Baby's Nana, she needs to know more. What the story highlighted very well is that in Indian culture there are a lot of family secrets that are never spoken about or acknowledged. With themes around partition, grief, fitting in, glass ceilings, toxic work environments and so much more, I found this a compelling read from start to finish.

It doesn't get too heavy but shows us a time when men turned into monsters and destroyed their neighbours of long acquaintance whilst the women coped in their own ways although inevitability unrecorded as they did so. She has intelligent things to say about colonialism – not least that it brought in Victorian attitudes to sex and homosexuality to India: “We took that colonial legacy and ran with it”.Nolan’s sophomore novel is set in a London council estate and mainly follows the story of the Green family, who turned up mysteriously a decade ago. One name that is synonymous with children’s publishing in the 21st century is Julia Donaldson, whose lyrical picture books have sold over 17 million copies worldwide and become undeniable modern classics – including The Gruffalo, Room On The Broom and What The Ladybird Heard.

Baby didn't know her grandfather had been married before, but remembering him as a mean drunk, she's obsessed with the fact no one has ever talked about Naseeb and that the Ranjeet of her letters was nothing like the grandad she knew.She feels marked out as ‘different’ because she is an Indian living abroad, whilst discovering that she is equally guilty of having incorrect regressive assumptions about modern day India, as well as ignorance of its past.

I loved this part of the book, with Baby’s assumptions about life in modern India being challenged at every corner, and the way that her aunt and cousins immediately enveloped her in love and acceptance. And if you enjoy reading her as much as I have enjoyed bringing her to life, we are going to have a good time.She's fed up with her job and her colleagues, her love life is permanently casual, and underpinning everything is the grief of losing her much-loved dad.