It's All In Your Head by Rae Earl

Rae Earl has created a fan in me years ago when my depressed, anxious and mentally unwell self found her books and then, TV series based on her life. Utterly relatable and both hilarious whilst remaining relevant with all things mental health.

This book takes us from the teen years to beyond on all things happening in our brains.

I can relate to so many aspects of the book that Rae talks about. All about our mental health and being aware of it whether it be OCD, depression, suicide, self harm or anxiety and other disorders, we can all take away something from this book. Whether it be tips about treatment options or just not feeling like it only happens to them and/or us.

Rae talks us through her own experiences with humour and a healthy dose of relatable reality.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

The Skincare Bible by Dr Anjali Mahto

Firstly, this book has a great simple yet unique stand out cover to me with the gold on pink girly vibe really drawing my eyes to it.

Being someone whom has tried a cleanse, tone, moisturize way of life everyday mixed up at times with a swipe of cotton pads with micellar water on or a hasty face wipe if not a flannel and water over my face for years now, this book really has opened my eyes to how much is involved in skin and caring properly for it.

After all, skin is our largest organ essentially and goes through a lot everyday and not just enduring cuts and bruises when they happen as we're reminded in this book, our skin constantly grows, changes and needs caring for.

With plenty of amazing scientific facts about skin and detailed diagrams to show us our skin's make up, we learn about skin types, colours and their differences and what each requires for optimum health. There's concise guides for what skin types prefer what products or just how pampering yourself can pay off for mental and physical health and happiness.

I liked how the author shared their on experiences of skin troubles such as acne and throughout the book talked about the mental health effects skin issues can bring be it acne, aging or stretch marks etc loads of us have the same common issues and need to stop judging others around us or worry what they think of us we are all doing our best but we can of course use the right products and have a healthy diet to help too!

We may take skin for granted but it's certainly been waiting for a book on the market to draw us to finding out what we should do for it sooner rather than later. I liked how the book is like a friend, there to guide, non judging where we may have gone wrong before but is comforting and busts the myths behind beauty industry jargon surrounding skin care.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this for them!

Body Positive Power by Megan Jayne Crabbe AKA Bodyposipanda

Megan is a girl with a huge following on Instagram where she posts and promotes body positivity which has resulted in this book coming to life.

As a young girl Megan suffered with anorexia and body image issues which she goes into in detail in the book. She shares her tips on body love and how to change your mentality by looking into the history of bodies and attitudes towards them.

She teaches us to challenge our mind set and dare ourselves to embrace who we are despite anything we may deem as imperfect.

This is a truly needed and helpful book for anyone ever affected by the power of their mind vs their body.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Pain Is Really Strange by Steve Haines

As a chronic pain sufferer since I was just fifteen, I have read a lot of literature about the subject and the different types of pain, from my Fibromyalgia to others like, rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus, Scleroderma etc. For me, my torn muscle became a widespread pain issue as my body got used to feeling the pain, aches, tiredness and developed with my pre-existing rheumatoid issues.

The pathways in our bodies are very sensitive to change, Pain Is really Strange is spot on!

In the book, the writing is limited but key to the point and is simply written as the diagrams do half the talking too. The colourful diagrams show us many images from nerve pathways in our bodies to the brain and navigate us through the journey of learning the way pain develops as a result of negative things happening to us. The book explains and expands on how overlapping issues in our brains can effect the person we are today as our history, previous life events or trauma, damage or threats to us can result in negative outputs from the stress it puts on our brains and bodies causing pain, stress and other things.

That part of the book may be negative but then we learn some good ways to help overcome and put a positive outlook on life back into our mind and alter our mind-set so we don't dwell on our problems as much. Developing creative hobbies you enjoy, habits and exercise can greatly improve our mind-set and help us feel better.

This book is super, short, to the point and illustrated in a way that isn't childlike but not too professional either so it isn't intimidating for anyone to read. A very handy little book to help anyone understand chronic pain and how strange it is.

Many thanks to Jessica Kingsley Publishers for sending me a copy to review!

The Lazy Girl's Guide To Life by Jennifer Byrne

The solution to your lazy procrastination days is here in a book filled with ways to get you doing your tasks and having them done asap. From your hair, make-up, exercise, dealing with people in any way at there's a friendly paragraph of advice set to help you out and feel less at sea with your issues!
This book speaks to us like a girl friend would do in giving us secrets and advice with the language being humorous and full of heart to push us forward and get that stuff done!

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Pretty Happy by Kate Hudson

In her book actress Kate discusses all about how being happy is to do with making our bodies and minds work together for not just harmony but optimal power.

Stop being self critical and trusting your body and how it feels, accepting what your body needs is a huge step. Kate tells us how pregnancy changed her body and mindset along with getting the right nutrition and exercise when she wanted or resting when needed anyway as she has such a busy workload and family life to contend with. This will resonate with most adults who will pick up the book I'm sure!

Working on her brand Fabletics, (a favourite of mine), she wanted the core message to be that anyone can be healthy and active and always change up things to keep it fresh and challenging your body. Kate tells us how tracking your feelings and journaling goals and changing negative energy to positive can benefit you so much more than staying unchanging and unchallenged.

The book is extremely detailed and well written even though Kate states many a time she's not trained to give this advice she explains everything thoroughly with quizzes and pictures throughout to aid her points.

How To Be A Bawse by Lilly Singh

Lilly has written about how to be a bawse by essentially conquering a lot of stairs to get up there to your dreams and making it happen.

She has amusing but relevant life lessons from Nintendo on never giving up, keep chasing and persevere in life to one day make the progress you want.

She includes many stories about meeting celebrity's she's a fan of and filling a day with everything to conk you straight out at night and get restful and fulfilling sleep to allow you to be a bawse tomorrow too.

Filled with lots of facts I didn't know about her like, she has a psychology degree, was an Indian dance company owner she truly can teach us to take control of our lives and conquer our mind and stop negativity and allow ourselves some hope that we can get to where we want to be.

Can I Tell You About Loneliness? by Julian Stern

In this book, set up for seven to thirteen year olds, we hear from Jan's perspective of how he feels when he's suffering from loneliness.

Jan is an eleven year old and describes how he feels in varying situations from at home, school, weekend clubs and when he's alone. His emotions when he's lonely vary from, worrying, nervous to feeling sad and cut off from everyone around him until the feeling passes.

It is common and totally okay to feel lonely!

It's natural and we will all feel loneliness one way or another and it will effect us in some way or form from situations we find ourselves in during our lives. It's easy to let fear of judgement win, but we all fit in somewhere and whether your interests are books, drawing, sports, music etc, there's people out there who love your favourite activity as much as you do too!

This book is here to show children that it's normal and to reassure them as they grow up too during these few years a lot of changes will be happening in emotions and hormones so that will probably cause more intensely felt emotions as well.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Llewellyn's Little Book Of Dreams by Dr Michael Lennox

In this book, Dr Lennox talks of his being inspired and enthralled by dreams and what dreaming entails. After studying Psychology and developing his knowledge on the subject of the brain and our more scientific make up he talk of how our clever brains can allow us to dream what we do.

He talks of the five stages of sleep we go through and the chemical process that goes along with that. As well as touching on the types of sleep we can go through from nightmares to anxiety influenced dreams and how they can impact our memory.

Dr Lennox covers what animals, colours and certain objects in our dreams can mean for us in what we recall when dreaming and he advises us to relax before sleep and leave pen and paper ready for any dreams to written down to allow us to self asses with assistance of his little handy guide here.

A very informative little book I guarantee will get multiple use by me as someone who often manages to guess little future snippets from my dreams a lot of the time!

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Grace Not Perfection by Emily Ley

Emily is a very busy woman, life with juggling kids, work and of course her husband and friends means time is precious for other activities as the circus of life takes place.

This book is all about enjoying what you do and approaching it your way no matter about achieving perfection but facing it with grace and your style taking matters into your own hands. However, it is also okay when you need to take a break as Emily learned by causing herself a serious health scare, nothing is worth breaking yourself for as without you imagine what the world would be like. Realise your worth and importance and accept that rest can be best and other times sure work is crucial but just make sure you enjoy it and if not manifest it into that.

The main aims of Emily's book is to allow us to realise what we need and don't need, appreciate everything we have whether it's big or small, enjoy life but don't allow it to take over and cause you unnecessary stress and most of all, face everything with Grace, perfection is overrated and you have your own perfection within you, trust yourself!

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Bunk 9's Guide To Growing Up by Adah Nuchi

Camp Silver Moon's bunk nine girls are here to teach you all about growing up what's ahead.

The girls discuss and compare experiences throughout the book as no one person's development will be a copy and paste story. Their diary talks us through the stages they went through to grow up in their early teens to now always set around the camp narrative.

Starting back at age twelve, early puberty calls for the essential development growth or lack of we each experience. The girls were sometimes jealous that others had developed faster, which is always okay, stages of change be it growing body hair, using deodorant, spots appearing, breasts appearing as well as your internal changes in hormones causing more emotions and feelings as well as causing your period to begin.

The book has styling tips for your hair type and how to keep it clean and healthy as well as beginning to use and have an interest in make-up and how to handle the varying acne types you may encounter as well as how to choose the perfect first bra for you.

The book talks about gender issues, how you feel vs what body you have been born into and how you should always ask a trusted adult in confidence to advise you if you feel you want to.

The best thing about this book is that every girl could benefit from it, it would also be useful for single parents or embarrassed about having the talk parents as they exist! My parents couldn't deal but I had my school sex education class from age nine to teach me and my parents were happy that way. This would just reassure parents their girls are sure of what's normal and ahead for them in a concise and friendly way!

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Find Your Awesome by Judy Clement Wall

Set over thirty days, to be completed by you a little bit everyday, this journal's focus is to make you fall in love with yourself and promotes self love through persistent activities.

From simply writing kinds things about yourself to encouraging your mind to get creative and draw too at points, colour designs you create, list positives vs negatives in your life and find what you appreciate and want to manifest in your life. The journal also encourages uncluttering your life by donating and binning or reusing for others benefit and your own.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!