Title: Nothing I Wouldn’t Do

Author: Sara-Ella Ozbek

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Publication Date: 22nd July 2021

Rating: 5/5

Cover:

Summary:

How far would you go to protect a friend?

Jax Levy is an almost thirty-year-old low-paid ‘journalist’ with no hope of progression. She has a love life only ever centred around a bad decision and a family too complicated to explain.

The one area of life that Jax has down are her friends – Clara, Omni and Alice are the loves of her life. So, when Clara announces her engagement to Ed, Jax hides all of her feelings of insecurity, and commits to becoming the perfect maid-of-honour. 

That is until she discovers something about Ed that will destroy everything. Panicked and irrational, Jax makes a snap decision to go on a wild mission to save her best friend from heartache. But the truth is far more complicated than Jax had imagined and that decision soon comes back to bite her . . .

Review:

I really, really loved Ozbek’s first novel, The High Moments so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to read her second. I was also slightly nervous, in the way I often get when reading a new novel from an author whose work I’ve previously loved, because how could it possibly be as good as the last one?! Happily, I definitely needn’t have worried because Nothing I Wouldn’t Do is every bit as brilliant as its predecessor. The story follows almost-30 year old Jax, whose love life is a bit of a disaster but who treasures her friendships above all else. When her closest friend Clara gets engaged it stirs up some very intense emotions in Jax and when she finds something shocking out regarding Clara’s fiancé things get seriously complicated.

I’m not sure I can pinpoint exactly what it is, perhaps the tone or cadence but there is something about Ozbek’s writing which I just love and truly make her books an absolute joy to read. Her characters are flawed and sometimes make truly terrible decisions and yet somehow are never anything other than completely relatable. They feel like real, very human people and it makes reading about them fascinating and utterly engaging. I laughed a lot and cried a bit too whilst reading Nothing I Wouldn’t Do. It is so sharp and witty but at the same time deeply moving. It’s also dead on in its depiction of the intricacies of female friendship and of the feelings many women my age get when it feels like everyone you know is getting married and you’re not. Nothing I Wouldn’t Do is funny, sad, honest and exceptionally smart – it is definitely up there with my favourites of the year. Ozbek has cemented herself as an auto-buy author for me and I can’t wait to read whatever she writes next. I couldn’t recommend this book any more highly!

Thank you so much to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for inviting me on this tour and organising it. I kindly received a copy of the book from the publisher. My review is entirely my own honest opinion.