Make It Make Sense: From Shit You Should Care About's Lucy Blakiston and Bel Hawkins

by Lucy Blakiston, Bel Hawkins

The debut book from the authors behind the global media sensation Shit You Should Care About.

Shit You Should Care about was launched as a WordPress blog by three best friends in the back of a political science lecture. Today it's a global ecosystem of content - two podcasts, 3.5 million Instagram followers and a daily newsy. They are your culture vultures, news agents and (reluctant) agony aunts all rolled into one.

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE is a collage of cultural analysis, anecdotes, personal essays, poems and lists, interplayed like a conversation between friends. So sharp they'll make you wince, so honest that you might feel uncomfortable with what's reflecting back at you, so funny you'll want to take a photo and send it to your best friend.

It's the bedside table essential for women who've felt their way through life and want that experience reflected back at them. When everything feels like it's whooshing away in an endless scroll, MAKE IT MAKE SENSE holds the answers (or questions) to what to do with all these big feelings.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Audiobook, Memoir, Self Help, Biography

279 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 11, 2024

Reviews

[Hana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actually, this book couldn’t have come at a better time. It provided me the exact reassurance I’ve been seeking and guidance on topics and conversations I’ve been having with friends around tables, on walks and on couches for this whole year. Bel and Luce feel like friends too - and the way they articulate their thoughts and feelings are just relatable and lovely and straight to it.

I want to buy a copy of this book and give it to everyone I love.

A book on navigating friendships and grief and work and love and heartbreak and making sense of things, especially your twenties.

I was nodding along and giggling at points and then found myself sobbing a few minutes later. The lot. Big big recommend.

[Grace Lawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved it - little bias , but ALSO just will make you feel better about still figuring it all out in your 20s 🥹

[Caity’s Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

INCREDIBLE. I loved everything about this book. It made me laugh, cry, and reflect but ultimately it made me feel so seen. So relatable and so beautifully written.

[Florence McIntosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

it all makes sense now

[Jordan Oppert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure what I was expecting.. but I found this book really random/all over the show?? That being said I did get a lot of the chapter on grief.. and did enjoy some of the little personal anecdotes.

[Hannah Brake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars for my kiwi girlies. I don't know them but I'm so proud of them! Their writing and vulnerability made me cry and feel all the feels. The friendship parts were my favourites. If you liked everything I know about love by Dolly Alderton then I think you will love. I listened on audiobook and I think it would be better read rather than listened to because some of the nuanced writing styles (i.e. The essays/poetry type parts that were lots of short sentences) would be better understood being able to see where the full stops were.

[India · Rating 5 out of 5]

incredible!! cried multiple times at the realness of lucy and bel’s thoughts and found a lot to relate to and learn from. will definitely be a re-read when i’m stuck in rut.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely would have got a lot more out of this book if I’d been 23 when I read it instead of 38, but I would never presume that I can’t learn anything from people who are younger than me. This is a joyful book about life and love and friendship and the internet and I very much enjoyed reading it.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for people who make friendships their everything

This book is for people who relate a little too much to Jo March

This book is for people who want to delete the internet but can’t get off Instagram

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Precies wat ik nodig had.

(Niet lang meer voor mijn boekendoel dus in een soort hyperfocus aan het lezen, denk niet dat ik het ga redden. Mijn Goodreads app zal boos op me zijn?? Waarom doe ik dit??)

[Aimee Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very nice book to read. It gave me the same vibes as reading Dolly Alderton's 'Everything I know about Love'.

[Ailin · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In among the disappointment of what was categorically meant to be the loneliest time of my life, I became the most alive I'd ever been. Down there in the ashes of realising the person I had chosen was not the person I needed, I found what I'd lost along the way: who I wanted to be."

Right book-right time, forever grateful for launching my rat girl winter

Reading this felt like a long overdue catch-up with a bestie, a meandering conversation in glittering candlelight over bottles of cheap wine, a pep talk and a 20-second hug.

Perfect for dipping in and out of, more of an extended blog post than a book. Any millennial in the Western world will have plenty of moments of recognition and validation, from platonic and romantic relationship milestones to moving abroad (or not), unsuccesfully attempting a work-life balance to imposter syndrome, feat. handy quizzes like "Should I escape my life or am I just tired?" or "you know you're burning out when you're fantasising about burning your workplace down".

[Chantal Sequeira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love love love. Laughed out loud, sobbed, paused for thought. Already recommended to everyone I know!

[Seb J · Rating 5 out of 5]

A huge thanks to Beatrix for recommending this in our book swap.

For everyone that’s a fan of ‘Everything I know about love’ this book gave me the exact same feeling of receiving a warm hug.

It’s so nice to have a book that puts into words everything you’ve felt about being in your 20’s. Everything is so earnest and I love that. I loved how this book was written, utilising so many formats. I couldn’t put it down.

It feels like a book I’ll come back to many times.

I couldn’t recommend more 10/10

[Court · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucy and Bel have done such a fantastic job of writing about all the unspoken things we think we’re dealing with by ourselves, and having that written and validated by someone else does amazing things for a wee brain. I cried, I chuckled, I cried some more and will be popping this one on the bookshelf for times of need and reassurance 🤍
Do not recommend reading whilst ovulating if you’re prone to being overly emotional 😂 But aside from that, I will be recommending that every female I know in her 20’s & 30’s to pick up a copy.

[Isabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of it was great 10/10 would recommend to a friend, so relevant, feel the feels etc. but most of it wasn’t and it was like reliving teenage angst, but someone else’s angst ygm?

Finished on a Sunday morning in bed xoxo

[Dayna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the concept of SYSCA and the girls behind it, so when I saw this book it was a must read. Loved the topics covered in this book, and I’m sure we would all relate to something and it makes us all feel better about figuring things out in our 20s/30s.
“What’s your secret?” And I will say, “Say no. Take rest. Ask for help. If you’re sacrificing parts of yourself, make sure there’s an end date. Go to work, and then come back to everyone in your other life, the one that loves you, the one that loves you back”

[Holly Fleet · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved it these girlies are so sweet this book gave everything i know about love vibes in the best way possible

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a *delicious* read

[Eloise Reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any1 who has or will be in their 20s should read this. Esp if ur a girl boss and just trying figure it all out . Chur for real

[Ruby M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been a SYCSA fan for a long time so I couldn’t wait to read this book, and safe to say it did not disappoint. This book is so well written and a bible for anyone in their 20s. It was candid, raw, honest and funny. It also made me cry multiple times.

[kitty · Rating 1 out of 5]

the worst shit i have ever read. a perfect reflection of how self-centered and deeply boring SYSCA is. it's embarrassing how poorly this book is written — "book" and "written" are both very generous terms here. it's very obvious that annabel and lucy (sorry, not going along with the cutesy nickname shit, we are not friends) have inauthentic text conversations because they think it will read as funny in the "book". lucy thinks lists = literature for some reason and that the key to good writing is repetition. i did not buy this, or i would be demanding my money back (i read it at the bookstore, thank god). an insult to the fact that some people work so hard all their lives to get book deals, and these girls get one handed to them on a silver platter and completely butcher it. one star because me and my friends got a really good laugh out of mocking it.

[Charlotte Barber · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely gorgeous, devour-in-one-day read. Very Kiwi coded 🥝 Bel and Lucy are so wise without being preachy. There were a few grammatical mistakes - missing full stops, extra spaces etc but nothing that detracted from the overall read. I’ll definitely be revisiting to annotate ❤️

[Mozima · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t go into this book with the notion of it being a self-help book, or a deep dive of NZ’s new media of the way Shit You Should Care About paved the way for many.
I read this book with an open mind, ready to immerse myself and support fellow NZ authors who have already accomplished so much (please accept this compliment in the first go).

It made me self-reflect and adore the learnings from simple things like watching a tv show, fangirling over a specific boy band or travelling.
We learn from everything we do, and it’s awesome to see how that shapes people and how people can curate these experiences into learnings.

I ended up annotating the heck out of this book because there were so many passages where I feel like I would love to re-read, little reminders that I would need on a bad day.

This book feels like a great big hug with a love story devoted to life itself 🫶🏽

[Tayla Deadman · Rating 5 out of 5]

every woman on the planet should read this book

[elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a gorgeous, gorgeous book - love your work luce & bel!!! (especially the content on shit you should care about)

[Melissa Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought this would be a fun, light read but it was so much better than I anticipated. It’s witty, it’s deep, it makes you think and reflect, it’s clever, it’s relatable, and I wish I had this in my 20’s. Loved it, and I Love Lucy (and Bel!).

[Dannii Gardiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stayed up until 1am to finish it. Will I be exhausted for work? Yes. Was it worth it? A BIG YES. Gorg read helping make sense of the world. J’adore Luce and Bel.

[Casey Caminos · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book fell a bit flat for me 😬 I’d say 80% of the essays/stories didn’t stick while 20% did. And the 20% that did really did stick! So much so that I made little comments in my notes app lol. But overall I felt like it was a bit disjointed. Nonetheless love these girls!! Solid ⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Meisha S · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve never rated anything a one star, literally the worst couldn’t even finish the book. after reading the first few chapters and realising it was going absolutely no where, I flicked through the rest hoping it would go somewhere, was completely all over the place with so much completely irrelevant and random add in that to me felt like had nothing to do with the book. May as well just be an autobiography. Very misleading. Don’t waste your time if you’re looking for a self help book.