Trying for a baby is a huge one, but also trying to hold it together, trying to overcome trauma, trying to understand and manage our own minds. It was easy to pick back up after long breaks from reading and I found myself thinking and Jane a lot; it was gripping to begin with. Clearly this book isn’t the sort of thing I would usually read and so some of the blame for me not enjoying it does lie with me.

There's a mystery, something bad that happened in Jane's past - there may have been some eye rolling on my part when that is first mentioned but what is revealed is not at all the same sort of event as we might now expect. A few days in Southend with two female friends felt thrillingly exotic after being locked down in Camberwell, south London for the past 15 months. Her trauma in Room 3 was disappointing given how Jane avoided The Arch and made every attempt at ignoring Room 3 after she moved into the Arch. After finding out that her fiancé cheated on her, Jane finds herself back in her hometown and 'temporarily' sleeping in her childhood bedroom. I wish more time was spent on developing the characters so that they didn't feel like one-dimensional, aggravating stereotypes.

To me she was just a bit too self absorbed and passive, relying on others rather than making assertive choices, though she did evolve towards the end. This is a funny and sweet story about trying to start afresh when your past haunts you, and the realities of being an independent adult. Before my dad died, Elis had asked his permission to marry me, which was amazing, but then never produced a ring or officially proposed. There is a scene in One Day where Em is at a restaurant with her boyfriend, and moans that every menu item is the setup to a joke of his, and that even though he is a comedian, he isn't actually that funny. Kelly and Becca do point out that her situation will never be like theirs because of their socio-economic backgrounds, but rather than acknowledge her privilege, Jane behaves like a petulant teenager and proves to them that her struggles are valid by refusing her dad's financial support (which, again, is never fully explained why since she's meant to have had a successful career in London for several years!

I also enjoyed the ending, and how it didn't exactly follow the predictable ending I was expecting, but instead felt like Jane making some 'happy compromises', which felt like quite a wholesome ending. I SO rooted for Jane, and I really appreciated the character development given to the characters that you'd least expect. Health anxiety and OCD come from the same place, I think, which is a need for control and certainty. Beyond the battering her confidence took from the split, it’s clear Jane has other issues: she’s OCD and suffers anxious, intrusive thoughts.Seemingly every other line was the setup to a witticism or joke, and I didn't share the author's sense of humour at all. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. I was drawn to Jane Is Trying because of its synopsis, hoping it would be an honest, introspective depiction of what it's like to feel like for a woman to have to start over in her late thirties when her 'biological' clock is ticking and she's dealing with anxiety. I also wish that more time was spent on identifying the point of the story because, in its current form, there's a lot going on with a lot of waffling towards the middle. Then I read her latest memoir and found out she quite liked Trump when she was on The Celebrity Apprentice, but it was too late.

Her mental health issues make her more resilient, not more fragile and she’s charming and funny as well as troubled, easy to root for as each event takes her further and further off course. I loved some of the other characters who were well written and believable - especially Monica the hopelessly unprofessional therapist and Kelly a single mother who takes Jane under her wing.I thought that the big reveal of what happened in Room 3 would go some way to explaining Jane’s motivations and actions in her adult life but in the end it felt a bit of a let-down. Suttie has created a charming world of oddballs (and their even odder parents) I miss them all already! Nobody in the book was particularly likeable (apart from Kelly) and the course of events didn’t ring true. Suttie has a keen eye for supplementary detail, which makes her story seem all the more real, and an ear for a nice turn of phrase, which makes it delightful to read.