{"id":140867,"date":"2018-06-14T00:18:07","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T00:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/the-book-that-could-make-you-rethink-your-relationships\/"},"modified":"2018-06-14T00:18:07","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T00:18:07","slug":"the-book-that-could-make-you-rethink-your-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/the-book-that-could-make-you-rethink-your-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"The book that could make you rethink your relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"
Media playback is unsupported on your device
Media captionAuthor Holly Bourne explains how to write a best selling book<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rarely does a novel change your whole perspective on dating and friendship. But for me, How Do You Like Me Now? did just that.<\/p>\n

This is young adult author Holly Bourne's first foray into adult writing, and it perfectly addresses the storm of emotions you go through as a young woman, growing up in a world where you need to have the best boyfriend, best career and best group of friends.<\/p>\n

(And it's all got to be displayed beautifully across your social media profiles.)<\/p>\n

The novel follows the life of Tori Bailey, a successful self-help author in her early 30s, who constantly compares herself to her friends and seeks validation from social media. <\/p>\n

At the forefront, though, is the dysfunctional long-term relationship that she can't bring herself to leave, with a build-up of events played out over nine months. <\/p>\n

"Month by month I was testing the reader's patience," Bourne tells the BBC.<\/p>\n

"Each month you'd be like, 'She's still not left him', and I wanted to explore all the reasons why a woman would not leave a relationship that was so clearly making her unhappy and you could argue was massively damaging her."<\/p>\n

The author describes Tori's relationship as "at the mildest unhealthy and, in my mind, abusive" and says this issue is something she wants to "blow the lid off".<\/p>\n

"I wanted to show that women in these types of relationships aren't battered, world weary, meek or have let themselves go. <\/p>\n

"Abuse is actually attracted to strong and confident women and there is this huge juxtaposition between the Tori she presents to the world and who she is behind closed doors."<\/p>\n

Bourne did a lot of research before writing the book, and was frustrated to speak to women who seemed powerful but had relationships that were "eroding and sucking them dry".<\/p>\n

Image copyright Hodder & Stoughton
Image caption Holly Bourne has written her first adult novel <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The author is best known for her young adult series The Spinster Club and is credited for introducing feminist talking points to a teenager audience.<\/p>\n

This is a concept Bourne wanted to explore in her adult writing too.<\/p>\n

"I feel like the fourth wave of feminism has been really interesting and woken a lot of women up, because we've been socialised into a particular way of being," she says.<\/p>\n

"We think, 'You're still nobody unless you've got a man', and there's a lot of cognitive dissonance going on and that causes discomfort and I wanted the book to explore that.<\/p>\n

"There is this gap between it being normal as a heterosexual woman to want to find a man, but now that we're 'woke' it's quite hard to find a man who is at your level."<\/p>\n

Bourne also wanted to explore how feminism works in female friendships too, and found that competition was more often on the cards than camaraderie. <\/p>\n

"Women to some degree feel like success in any given field is limited and therefore you'll have to fight other women for it," she says.<\/p>\n

"I have this poster in my room that says 'Her success is not your failure' - because I feel whether it's 'getting a boyfriend' or 'getting your dream job', women have been socialised to compete.<\/p>\n

"If you can build each other up its really empowering and important rather than tearing each other down. But it is so hard.<\/p>\n

"I do feel like women feel they are constantly in competition with each other - even their friends who they love and adore and do want to be happy."<\/p>\n

Image copyright Hodder & Stoughton
Image caption How Do You Like Me Now? <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bourne says social media has exacerbated the problem because it "pressures women to hit certain milestones by certain ages in order to be deemed successful".<\/p>\n

She says: "You used to not know that the girl from school that you didn't like anyway had a beautiful wedding and has a child or has got the dream job - but now you have a constant reminder."<\/p>\n

Bourne also says a lot of authors don't want to write about social media because the platforms date so easily - but she "had to go there".<\/p>\n

"It's part of everybody's life and it's changing the way we think, feel and behave," she says.<\/p>\n

"For my young readers this is all they've ever known and I kind of feel sorry for them. <\/p>\n

"The school bell would go at 3.30 and that was it, I didn't have to deal with anything the next day, whereas they're just immersed in that all the time."<\/p>\n

And there's one last thing Bourne wants to get across to her new adult readers too - the importance of looking after your mental health.<\/p>\n

"There are a lot of therapists in my young adult books because I want to show that actually going to talk to somebody about the quicksand you can't get out of is a massively empowering and positive thing to do.<\/p>\n

"My personal belief is that everyone needs a bit of therapy and if everyone hit 25 and had like 12 compulsory sessions and asked, 'Why do I do the things I do?' then the world would be much better.<\/p>\n

"I feel like I try very hard in my life not to tell people what to think, feel or believe and you write stories that you hope ask the right questions for themselves."<\/p>\n

How Do You Like Me Now? is out now. <\/p>\n

Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Media playback is unsupported on your deviceMedia captionAuthor Holly Bourne explains how to write a best selling book Rarely does a novel change your whole perspective on dating and friendship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}