Women Like Us
Amanda Prowse
(Little A, £8.99, published Tuesday)
WHAT kind of woman is Amanda Prowse? Well, as we learn in the opening pages of her memoir, the author is someone who grows epic spider plants, loves Duran Duran and prefers the taste of Diet Coke to champagne.
She makes great Yorkshire puddings, owns two stinky dogs and enjoys swearing loudly in the car. Her blood type is Americano with an extra shot. Oh, and her prolific back catalogue of contemporary fiction, romance novels and psychological thrillers have been read by millions around the globe.
Yet that is merely scratching the surface. Women Like Us is a riveting deep-dive into the backstory of Prowse, whose bestsellers include What Have I Done?, Perfect Daughter, My Husband’s Wife, The Girl In The Corner and The Things I Know.
As an author, Prowse is adept at creating immersive worlds and life-affirming characters. As it transpires, her autobiography is every bit as enthralling and unputdownable as the gripping plotlines conjured in her books.
Women Like Us is her second non-fiction title to date. In 2020, she co-authored The Boy Between with her son Josiah Hartley, charting the serious depression and debilitating mental health struggles that he has faced as a teenager and young man.
Prowse has now put pen to paper to write about her own journey, laying bare her working-class beginnings and revealing how a painful congenital defect marred her teenage years, leading to endless rounds of surgery and lengthy hospital stays.
She recounts excitedly landing her first Saturday job at the age of 14, working on a market stall “selling plastic jewellery and other tat”. From the outset, her boss – a vague acquaintance of a neighbour – gave her “the creeps”. Prowse remembers being too “naive, young and immature” to voice concerns.
On her third weekend in the job, the stallholder offered her a lift home. He stopped the van and masturbated in front of her. “I spent weeks, months in fact, trying to process it,” she writes. “It was odd, confusing and scary.”
Prowse cites it as an early example of how she taught herself to lock away negative experiences within the deep recesses of her mind. In a later chapter, the author reels off a long list of the inappropriate sexual behaviour and near-misses she has encountered throughout her life.
It makes for jarring and unsettling reading: a fake taxi driver whose clutches she only managed to escape as the cab idled at traffic lights; men pressing themselves up against her on packed public transport; the drunken stranger on a train who urinated on her jeans and trainers.
Almost without fail, says Prowse, she found herself returning to spirit-crushingly familiar territory. “Every time I was back in that bloody van with that despicable creature,” she writes.
Her unflinching honesty, tenacity and verve make Prowse a hugely relatable and likeable narrator. She deftly taps into a universal theme of what it means to be a woman in a world where beauty, slimness, popularity and youth all remain desirable currency.
Prowse reflects candidly on the self-destructive impact of emotional eating and the watershed moment that finally saw her address it. Her take on grief – from mourning lost friends and lovers to navigating the emotional quagmire of multiple miscarriages – is powerfully raw.
Although Women Like Us is packed with often dark and thought-provoking subject matter, there are plenty of lighter moments too. Prowse is a warm and funny writer – a natural born storyteller – who doesn’t shy away from celebrating the foibles and imperfections that make us all human.
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