Bad Choices by Lucy Vine — Review

A warming, contemporary story of friendship and growth

This was a strange one for me because it’s a good book but didn’t quite land with me. I’m surprised by that because it had all the makings of something I should enjoy. Nat and Zoe have been best friends since they met crying in two side-by-side bathroom cubicles as teenagers.

From there, we follow their lives together through all the trials and tribulations that comes with your teens and twenties — finding your feet, relationships, sexuality, body confidence, motherhood, and so much more. It’s also the first book I’ve read where the pandemic features as we hit the year 2020 and that was interesting to think about, whether the over the years books of the future will include it or gloss over it.

The view we get of that is well done. It tells us a lot about the lurking insecurities and bravado we can put on during these years, even with the people that are closest to use. How much we have to deal with over a short few years as we try to get to grips with being out in the world. How sometimes that growth can be in different directions to the people youn love the most.

Somehow for me though, the characters just weren’t people I could warm to. I found a lot more to like in Zoe but Nat often frustrated me to no end. While I recognise that this was the journey she was on and the growing up she had to do, that frustration took me out of the book pretty often.

That said, I thought the pacing was fantastic and the path it took through their lives made perfect sense for their characters. It threw up enough obstacles to keep you interested but not so much that it was unrealistic. It was also properly funny throughout and a refreshing, warming read for the year that’s in it. I’d recommend it to many of my friends in their 20s because I think a lot of them will find something they relate to in this.

Bad Choices is due for publication on 10th June 2021 and it’s available to pre-order now.