Probably Nothing by Lauren Bravo

 

Today it is my stop on the blogtour for Probably Nothing by Lauren Bravo.

Bryony doesn't actually mind being single. So she doesn't understand why she keeps seeing (ok, sleeping with) Ed, who is perfectly fine, but also only okay. After developing the ick on their fifth date, she resolves to end things – only to receive a call the next day telling her Ed has died. 

Worse yet, he seems to have represented her to his family and friends as his great love. Obviously, it would be cruel to correct them. Then she's invited to the funeral. It would be equally rude to refuse... right? 
 
Before she knows it, Bryony has been drawn in by the charisma and chaos of Ed's eccentric family and tangled in a web of her own lies. She's been guilted into signing up to his sister's pyramid scheme, she's in far too deep with several of his nearest and dearest – and to make matters worse she's experiencing a lot of physical symptoms that are becoming harder and harder to ignore…

The start of Probably Nothing is actually quite funny as we are introduced to our main character Bryony who seems quite happily single, she has been loosely dating Ed for the past three months but after their last night together Bryony decides that she is going to call it a day.

When she receives an unexpected call from his family to tell her Ed has died and that they want to embrace her, the love of their beloved Ed's life she feels awkward and goes along with the assumption that she has lost her loving boyfriend!

I was cracking up at this point because I am a typical people pleaser so I can often find myself in awkward situations but wow Bryony really takes the biscuit and gets swept along with this one and before she knew it she was in so deep that there never seemed a safe place to extract herself from the situation.

As the book moved along the witty element fizzled out and it came a little more real in the issues the storyline explored, as expect grief features in this storyline but also many health issues too from fertility, anxiety and hypochondria to name a few.

We briefly get to know the supporting characters who are Ed's family and the book is actually split between Bryony and Ed sister in-law Kelly's POV so we get to know Kelly really well too and where Bryony is really soft and people pleasing, Kelly is more matter of fact.

I was so surprised to see my home town of Orpington crop up a couple of times in this book too it is weird how a small reference like that always makes me feel like I have more of a connection to the book!

This was a good read that wasn’t what I was expecting at all and just goes to show how awkward people pleasing can become!