All I Know Now by Carrie Hope Fletcher

322 Pages:

Rating: 4/5

Format: Hardcover

Buy it: thebookdepository

All I Know Now, which came into existence through Carrie Hope Fletcher's blog alliknownow.com, is, quite literally, all Carrie knows now and wishes she could tell her younger self. It is less a guide, more of a helping hand through teenage years. Carrie, following her self-proclaimed role as 'honorary big sister', has, in my eyes, provided big sisterly advice in the form of this book on almost all topics a teenager would turn to a big sister for.

I really wish I'd read this book 3 years ago when I felt completely alone and had nothing but issue after issue with my friends. While I've left that stage of my life now, I still found Carrie's words on the friendship issues in particular very comforting, as she writes in a way that just screams 'you are not alone in feeling these things' at you. People can tell you to ignore people as many times as they like, but sometimes all it takes is reading someone else's experiences to prove to you that actually that can, and probably will, work.

While the content of this book was great, what I really loved about it was Carrie's writing style. As someone who has been watching her YouTube videos for years and has watched her online presence blossom, I'm fairly used to the way she speaks and I found that her voice really came through in her writing. Reading her book with a cup of tea in hand really felt like you'd sat down for a chat with Carrie as she offers you friendly one to one advice. There was something that felt really personal about this book and I'm fairly sure a large part of that was down to Carrie's writing voice.

I really enjoyed this book. As you can just about see in the photo, my copy is now covered in little pink sticky tabs for when I want to flick back to something. I always feel that it speaks volumes when I can't help but underline something in a book, especially because I am the type of person who likes to keep their books looking like new, and I underlined a lot in this book. While it didn't blow me away, probably because I'm ever so slightly out of the target age group, I wouldn't hesitate to pass this on to someone younger than me who was feeling alone. If I could give this book to 13-year-old me I would do it in a heartbeat.

Have you read All I Know Now? Did it make you feel like you'd sat down for a cup of tea with Carrie? Let me know what you thought of it in the comments below!

Lucy x