{"id":45162,"date":"2025-09-05T11:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T11:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45162\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T11:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T11:36:10","slug":"when-the-urge-to-cut-loose-strikes-better-to-read-about-other-women-whove-blown-up-their-lives-so-that-you-dont-have-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45162\/","title":{"rendered":"‘When the urge to cut loose strikes, \ufeffbetter to read about other women who\u2019ve blown \ufeffup their lives so that you don\u2019t have to’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone is keen to instil good behaviour in their children, but \u2018being good\u2019 can be taken too far and in my experience it\u2019s in midlife where it really takes its toll. Keeping your house clean and fragrant, smiling at work, doing your pelvic floor exercises, making sure your parents are taking their statins, making sure you\u2019re taking your meds, stopping the teenagers from vaping, eating 30 plants a week\u2026 OH MY ACTUAL GOD. <\/p>\n

Don\u2019t you just long for a day that starts with tequila for breakfast, takes in a rave, a tattoo parlour, an unsuitable man 20 years your junior and ends with you taking a golf club to the hanging baskets? But of course we don\u2019t, because: consequences. When the urge to cut loose strikes, better to read about other women who\u2019ve blown up their lives so that you don\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n

If you ever feel sick of putting yourself last, you need Becky Sharp, the scheming social climber at the rotten heart of William Makepeace Thackeray\u2019s 1848 housebrick of a novel Vanity Fair. Born into Bohemian poverty and determined to rise to the very top of society, Becky Sharp is the OG bad girl of literature. Manipulative, sexy, clever; she even trains herself to blush, to seem demure when she\u2019s anything but. She betrays her husband and friends and commits the ultimate taboo, abandoning her child \u2013 but it\u2019s the relish with which she does it that will have you rooting for her.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Vanity Fair (Clothbound Classics) by William Thackeray <\/p>\n

\"Vanity<\/a><\/p>\n

Lovers of contemporary historical fiction will devour Alex Hay\u2019s two books, one about a Victorian heist (The Housekeepers) and the other about an Edwardian con (The Queen Of Fives), both helmed by ballsy, wisecracking, complicated women who operate within the corset-tight restrictions of their times and still beat the boys at their own game. They\u2019re brilliantly plotted, immersive fun.<\/p>\n

The Queen of Fives by Alex Hay<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

A gritty, modern-day equivalent can be found in Jia Khan, the (anti-) hero of Saima Mir\u2019s Vengeance. A barrister who leaves London to helm her family\u2019s criminal empire, Jia lives by the maxim \u2018be twice as good as men, and four times as good as white men\u2019, which in her world means twice as tough. Plus, she goes to cage fights. The very definition of moxie.<\/p>\n

Vengeance by Saima Mir<\/p>\n

\"Vengeance<\/a><\/p>\n

For me, autobiography is where the really juicy bad-girl writing is. These women have actually been there, done that, stripped off the T-shirt. Beauty writer Cat Marnell\u2019s addiction memoir, How To Murder Your Life, is one of my favourite books of all time. Self-aware and self-deprecating, it\u2019s way funnier than a book about psychiatry and mouse-infested studio flats has any right to be.<\/p>\n

Ebury Press How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell<\/p>\n

\"How<\/a><\/p>\n

Like all normal people, I believe that books can be friends with each other. US essayist Claire Dederer\u2019s midlife memoir Love & Trouble is a searingly honest look at responsibility versus teenage wildness. She discusses impatience, lust and guilt with a frankness that female friends only usually manage after the fourth bottle of Whispering Angel. <\/p>\n

Love and Trouble: Memoirs of a Former Wild Girl by Claire Dederer<\/p>\n

\"Love<\/a><\/p>\n

Love & Trouble is best friends with novel All Fours by Miranda July. The narrator lies to her husband, fantasises during sex and takes a road trip across the States, curtailed by an encounter with a sexy petrol-pump attendant. The scenes between the two in a motel bedroom combine honesty and wish fulfilment in a way I\u2019ve never read anywhere else. <\/p>\n

All Fours by Miranda July<\/p>\n

\"All<\/a><\/p>\n

The House Of Mirrors by Erin Kelly is out now in paperback<\/strong><\/p>\n

The House of Mirrors by Erin Kelly<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Related Story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everyone is keen to instil good behaviour in their children, but \u2018being good\u2019 can be taken too far…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[266],"tags":[359,2320,33930,343,18,117,346,19,17,342,33929],"class_list":{"0":"post-45162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-content-type-default","10":"tag-contentid-f9f4d725-6ba5-466f-821b-96efa5244e0f","11":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-hasproduct-true","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-locale-gb","18":"tag-shorttitle-erin-kelly-shares-her-favourite-rebellious-reads"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}