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Busy Being Free: Starting Again on Your Own
'Beautiful' Nigella Lawson
'I adored it' Dolly Alderton
'Wonderful' Lisa Taddeo
'Intoxicating' Abi Morgan
What happens when your story doesn't end the way you thought it would?
When you realise - after getting married and having a baby - that you chose wrong?
When the life you dreamt of becomes something you must walk away from?
And when you then find yourself not lonely, but elated - elated to be alone with yourself?
'I adored it' Dolly Alderton
'Wonderful' Lisa Taddeo
'Intoxicating' Abi Morgan
What happens when your story doesn't end the way you thought it would?
When you realise - after getting married and having a baby - that you chose wrong?
When the life you dreamt of becomes something you must walk away from?
And when you then find yourself not lonely, but elated - elated to be alone with yourself?
326 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 18, 2022
39 people are currently reading
872 people want to read
About the author
Emma Forrest
9 books152 followersEmma Forrest is a British-American journalist, novelist and screenwriter. She currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
January 9, 2023
I will start by saying that this memoir is witty and raw and for the most part feels honestly and beautifully written.
At times I laughed out loud but I also nearly gave up on the book two or three times because the name dropping and superfluous vocabulary became irritating.
For example:
1.“Ben will often perseverate over a song.”
2.“I got the denouement of the video wrong.”
3.“I could recoil at his sangfroid all I liked but that didn’t undo last nights multiple orgasms.”
I love words as much as most avid readers. I did an English degree and especially enjoy poetic writing on topics that resonate with me such as this one, but the context in which these words were used (i.e. talking about her husband’s obsession with a Kanye West song or her toyboy being ridiculously cool) just annoyed me. We get it. You can use uncommon, fancy words. You know famous people. It took away from the real life situations she was describing rather than add anything to them and this grated on me at times.
Having said that, there were parts of the book that I really enjoyed and that also made me reflect on my own experiences in a new light. She redeemed herself for the fact I had to keep looking up words.
Some things she wrote beautifully about : how we can think our life is going one way and ends up going some where different and how the place you grow up is the source of all shame.
It made me laugh when she highly recommended being creative without having to worry about paying the bills. I wish. She moaned about not being able to afford to buy a place in London with a garden. Most people can’t even afford to live there period. But I tried to stay with her frame of reference and could see that coming from a huge Californian house would be a huge adjustment and I accepted her invite into her assimilation and transformation, warts and all.
This memoir reflects on so much more than just divorce; it explores her formative experiences, raising her young daughter with and without a partner, her relationships with her parents, music that impacted her, writing and fashion, the self esteem rollercoaster, making it through lockdown and her first sexual encounters after years of choosing celibacy.
Forrest pours herself into the pages of reflection on identity, sexuality and living an illusion. I sensed her empowerment when experiencing zero intimacy and willingly living her sexual prime alone, she realised that energy “doesn’t just vanish, it alchemises” and described those as the most fertile years of her life.
I took comfort in many of the things she revealed she processed post divorce and her exploration of shame and disappointment.
To end, here are a few of my favourite quotes from the book that I feel represent it’s flavour.
“For someone whose career has started in journalism, I didn’t ask anybody anywhere any of the most basic questions. I asked some interesting abstract ones. I think this made for good interviews and less successful life choices.”
“I was at the cemetery, admiring the flowers and books at the graves of Karl Marx and Douglas Adams. The thing found most painful about divorce is that there was no Mark spot at which to leave offerings…. Songs are the place to leave offerings by everything you lost and everything that stayed - and they’re the flowers too.”
About relationships: “… to be seen, to have witnesses, is the most you can ask.They don’t have to stay forever. They can stay a decade or a year or six months or three months or one night and what they saw with you will not go away just because they have. It was real.”
At times I laughed out loud but I also nearly gave up on the book two or three times because the name dropping and superfluous vocabulary became irritating.
For example:
1.“Ben will often perseverate over a song.”
2.“I got the denouement of the video wrong.”
3.“I could recoil at his sangfroid all I liked but that didn’t undo last nights multiple orgasms.”
I love words as much as most avid readers. I did an English degree and especially enjoy poetic writing on topics that resonate with me such as this one, but the context in which these words were used (i.e. talking about her husband’s obsession with a Kanye West song or her toyboy being ridiculously cool) just annoyed me. We get it. You can use uncommon, fancy words. You know famous people. It took away from the real life situations she was describing rather than add anything to them and this grated on me at times.
Having said that, there were parts of the book that I really enjoyed and that also made me reflect on my own experiences in a new light. She redeemed herself for the fact I had to keep looking up words.
Some things she wrote beautifully about : how we can think our life is going one way and ends up going some where different and how the place you grow up is the source of all shame.
It made me laugh when she highly recommended being creative without having to worry about paying the bills. I wish. She moaned about not being able to afford to buy a place in London with a garden. Most people can’t even afford to live there period. But I tried to stay with her frame of reference and could see that coming from a huge Californian house would be a huge adjustment and I accepted her invite into her assimilation and transformation, warts and all.
This memoir reflects on so much more than just divorce; it explores her formative experiences, raising her young daughter with and without a partner, her relationships with her parents, music that impacted her, writing and fashion, the self esteem rollercoaster, making it through lockdown and her first sexual encounters after years of choosing celibacy.
Forrest pours herself into the pages of reflection on identity, sexuality and living an illusion. I sensed her empowerment when experiencing zero intimacy and willingly living her sexual prime alone, she realised that energy “doesn’t just vanish, it alchemises” and described those as the most fertile years of her life.
I took comfort in many of the things she revealed she processed post divorce and her exploration of shame and disappointment.
To end, here are a few of my favourite quotes from the book that I feel represent it’s flavour.
“For someone whose career has started in journalism, I didn’t ask anybody anywhere any of the most basic questions. I asked some interesting abstract ones. I think this made for good interviews and less successful life choices.”
“I was at the cemetery, admiring the flowers and books at the graves of Karl Marx and Douglas Adams. The thing found most painful about divorce is that there was no Mark spot at which to leave offerings…. Songs are the place to leave offerings by everything you lost and everything that stayed - and they’re the flowers too.”
About relationships: “… to be seen, to have witnesses, is the most you can ask.They don’t have to stay forever. They can stay a decade or a year or six months or three months or one night and what they saw with you will not go away just because they have. It was real.”
May 19, 2023
This book just really didn’t do what it said on the can..
It was well written and funny at times, and I liked the introductory chapters, but quite a bit of it seemed like empty good writing, sort of beautiful, and it felt like she was trying to make it profound, but ultimately meaningless.
For a memoir that is meant to show the freedom she gained by being alone, I don’t understand why it was essentially just a list of every single interaction she’s ever had with a man, most of which are romanticised. Especially frustrating is that there’s no growth in this respect- she decides to be celibate for five years, and then needs her ex-husband to draw her out of her obsession with her new boy toy once she’s ready to date again. Plus there’s a weird focus on sex (seeing the moon while you shower turns you on? Hearing a new song or writing new material makes you rip off your pants? Seriously?) which feels a bit forced and over the top.
I did like her descriptions of the women in her life, and that some bits were very honest and emotional, with real pockets of insight (just annoying that they were always shortly followed by something shallow or vapid).
It was well written and funny at times, and I liked the introductory chapters, but quite a bit of it seemed like empty good writing, sort of beautiful, and it felt like she was trying to make it profound, but ultimately meaningless.
For a memoir that is meant to show the freedom she gained by being alone, I don’t understand why it was essentially just a list of every single interaction she’s ever had with a man, most of which are romanticised. Especially frustrating is that there’s no growth in this respect- she decides to be celibate for five years, and then needs her ex-husband to draw her out of her obsession with her new boy toy once she’s ready to date again. Plus there’s a weird focus on sex (seeing the moon while you shower turns you on? Hearing a new song or writing new material makes you rip off your pants? Seriously?) which feels a bit forced and over the top.
I did like her descriptions of the women in her life, and that some bits were very honest and emotional, with real pockets of insight (just annoying that they were always shortly followed by something shallow or vapid).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 20, 2022
Begrudgingly into it
September 19, 2022
I absolutely LOVED this book. I was encapsulated in this world Emma describes so beautifully and looked forward to reading more every night before bed. There are many parallels to my own life the last few years and to feel seen like that wasn’t something I was prepared for. The main thing I respect about this book is the raw honesty and beauty emanating from literally feeling free enough to share her story in exactly the way she wanted to. Didn’t want it to end.
December 1, 2022
Both darker and filthier than I expected (what did I expect from a divorce memoir?) — made me uncomfortable at parts but also opened my mind, overall enjoyable read
September 12, 2024
Is it possible to know too much about Emma Forrest? Yes, yes, it is.
September 25, 2022
pretty addictive
I enjoy Emma’s writing a lot but that might be because everything she refers to from city to Sandles are all part of my life’s journey too. So it feels so familiar and cozy eg I started reading the sample and got furious trying to work out how to read the full book. But now.
You might find it a bit full of itself but hey if you don’t toot your horn who’s gonna hear ya coming ( Mae West probably )
Read the sample I promise you’ll have to stay on the bus.
gorgeous lush writing mixed with enough of life’s ugliness to get you thinking ‘hey wait a minute, I never thought of it like that before ….lots of these little frenzied attacks of sheer raw self observation but coupled with as many “I fucking rock” mirror moments loll but very witty, and madly funny always. I like that she takes herself seriously it’s about bloody time we all did.
I enjoy Emma’s writing a lot but that might be because everything she refers to from city to Sandles are all part of my life’s journey too. So it feels so familiar and cozy eg I started reading the sample and got furious trying to work out how to read the full book. But now.
You might find it a bit full of itself but hey if you don’t toot your horn who’s gonna hear ya coming ( Mae West probably )
Read the sample I promise you’ll have to stay on the bus.
gorgeous lush writing mixed with enough of life’s ugliness to get you thinking ‘hey wait a minute, I never thought of it like that before ….lots of these little frenzied attacks of sheer raw self observation but coupled with as many “I fucking rock” mirror moments loll but very witty, and madly funny always. I like that she takes herself seriously it’s about bloody time we all did.
May 8, 2025
I couldn’t finish this book, which is very rare. It was the most self-indulgent memoir I have ever read. A non-story. A middle-class privileged woman getting divorced and moaning about it. Waste of a holiday read sadly.
January 18, 2024
Repetitive all throughout. I got bored at the end and not interested. Waste of time.
July 2, 2024
the tone reminds me of the way dolly alderton speaks in Everything I Know About Love. maybe subconsciously because i saw on the cover that dolly alderton said she adored it. the author makes lots of references to so many famous people, movies, books that i don’t know which made it hard to follow sometimes. there were some good quotes, but felt like some of the stuff she could have kept to herself, but that’s just me. what i enjoyed most about the book was that i got to read india’s annotations and see her drawings.
June 18, 2023
3.5/4? a very easy read, i smashed this in two afternoons; i unashamedly love emma’s writing and as someone who was deeply invested in her marriage to ben mendelsohn, this was so so fascinating. i had no idea he hated whiplash that much.
August 31, 2022
I really enjoyed this. This book was very honest, almost too honest. It was honest to the point where there was at times I thought "Why would you admit to that" but I admire her honesty neverless. I could never. Unapologetically being yourself and all your weirdness. So I respect it. I had never picked up the authors books before but I'm definitely going to pick them up in the future, especially her other non fiction book. Emma has lived a very different life to me, so it was very interesting to learning about her life. She's a very talented writer.
December 28, 2022
Loved this book!
Painfully honest in her writing -I love This author. I wish she would add her own narration to this. I always wondered about how she was doing after her memoir. I find her to be very brave and vulnerable in her writing.
This is a great follow up and I look forward to her future books.
Painfully honest in her writing -I love This author. I wish she would add her own narration to this. I always wondered about how she was doing after her memoir. I find her to be very brave and vulnerable in her writing.
This is a great follow up and I look forward to her future books.
September 26, 2024
Emma can clearly write well. A few smatterings here and there were truly stunning. I just didn't really get much from the book as a whole. It was surprisingly lacking in what it purported itself to be.
The entire thing was primarily just I had this type of sex with this person and that type of sex with that person and then I just had sex with myself.
The entire thing was primarily just I had this type of sex with this person and that type of sex with that person and then I just had sex with myself.
January 13, 2023
Forrest writes excellent Non Fiction, I love how she describes ambivalence in a relationship. ‘Your voice in my head’ is one of my favourite books and she describes Love Addiction so well
April 14, 2023
Wow! What a breathless read… very raw and vulnerable and I couldn’t get enough. Such a gorgeous writing style and prose too…
November 22, 2022
I’ve loved Emma Forrest since her first novel, Namedropper. This is perhaps her strongest book. Her writing has deepened and certain lines grabbed my heart. Still, I didn’t give it 5 stars because the ending seemed rushed to be tidied with a nice bow. And her ex-husband was straight up abusive at points but those behaviors are sort of described as just personality quirks. I don’t know if that’s how it was edited or if Emma has blinders about that. Still, I really loved reading Emma’s honest, messy, beautiful thoughts on motherhood, aging, sex and more.
Some favorite lines:
“Especially for women. Especially as we are deemed, with each passing decade, to be of diminishing value. Because someone who is that crazy, someone who takes beyond their fair share with their broken energy, cannot be the one to tell you you no longer exist.”
“To be a woman is to balance between how much we want to have sex with a particular person and how our greatest fear is having sex against our will with a stranger. Sex can bring us closer to ourselves and sex can dissect us from ourselves. It contains, within its possibilities, total freedom and absolute fear.”
Some favorite lines:
“Especially for women. Especially as we are deemed, with each passing decade, to be of diminishing value. Because someone who is that crazy, someone who takes beyond their fair share with their broken energy, cannot be the one to tell you you no longer exist.”
“To be a woman is to balance between how much we want to have sex with a particular person and how our greatest fear is having sex against our will with a stranger. Sex can bring us closer to ourselves and sex can dissect us from ourselves. It contains, within its possibilities, total freedom and absolute fear.”
April 16, 2025
Leaving aside some of the justified criticisms from other reviewers about the navel-gazing tendencies and the general unacknowledged position of priviledge that run throughout the book, I actually enjoyed and appreciated it overall.
It is an easy, pleasant read with beautiful and moving figures of speech that really resonated with me.
I felt empathy with and sympathy for a woman with very different experiences and (in some cases) values from mine, because the common ground was well established and developed throughout. The very personal, intimate tone helped, too.
For me its saving grace is actually the relationship between Emma and Ben, with the difficulties, imperfections and deep affection that underpin it. Which is the opposite of what the title tells me to expect on some level. I know this jarred for other readers, but in my case it was a welcome kind of circular ending.
It is an easy, pleasant read with beautiful and moving figures of speech that really resonated with me.
I felt empathy with and sympathy for a woman with very different experiences and (in some cases) values from mine, because the common ground was well established and developed throughout. The very personal, intimate tone helped, too.
For me its saving grace is actually the relationship between Emma and Ben, with the difficulties, imperfections and deep affection that underpin it. Which is the opposite of what the title tells me to expect on some level. I know this jarred for other readers, but in my case it was a welcome kind of circular ending.
September 8, 2023
Regardless of content a page turner deserves 5 stars because it was compelling enough to keep turning to find out what was next. This is really a divorce memoir and people really need to understand the burden and freedom in divorce. It's a fucking roller coaster. Particularly loved the divorce outfits chapter. Despite sometimes having to re read a sentence, I thoroughly enjoy the juiciness and honesty of Emma's writing. And who doesn't want to read about celebrity gossip and Hollywood Hills? Mild escapism with truism of life.
November 6, 2025
I was excited to read this book based on the title and what I thought it was going to be about: a woman embracing herself by choosing to be single and celibate. Unfortunately, I knew right away that I was probably not going to get much from this book as it turns out Emma wrote a memoir that I gave one star (and it takes a lot for me to publicly rate any book with a single star, let alone a memoir!)
It never got better. This author just isn't for me.
Does anybody else have any great reads along the lines of what I hoped this one was going to entail?
It never got better. This author just isn't for me.
Does anybody else have any great reads along the lines of what I hoped this one was going to entail?
July 9, 2023
Seductive and sexy easy-read, also warming and re-affirming - there is romance in solitude. Life lesson that it’s better to be comfortable and alone rather than uncomfortable with another.
Solitude is not a bad thing - it forces introspection and reflection, and gives the opportunity for one to find what they really want (need?)
Refreshing to read about a women in her 40s who is still living and not just surviving with a life based entirely around other’s needs.
Solitude is not a bad thing - it forces introspection and reflection, and gives the opportunity for one to find what they really want (need?)
Refreshing to read about a women in her 40s who is still living and not just surviving with a life based entirely around other’s needs.
February 6, 2023
I've been reading Emma Forrest's books since the 90s and I enjoyed her writing here.
The very short chapters and moving back in forth in time did make this feel fragmented at times.
I wouldn't say this book would be relatable for many readers as Emma is in a very fortunate position and definitely has an unconventional relationship with her ex-husband.
The very short chapters and moving back in forth in time did make this feel fragmented at times.
I wouldn't say this book would be relatable for many readers as Emma is in a very fortunate position and definitely has an unconventional relationship with her ex-husband.
October 18, 2023
I was constantly dog-earing the pages with divine and filthy quotes coming one after the another. Super easy to get through but the structure and timeline just wasn’t my fave.
Also, loved reading about another Fozz.
Also, loved reading about another Fozz.
January 4, 2024
I loved Your Voice in My Head and this did feel like its grown-up sequel in many ways. It is written in vignettes that felt repetitive at times and I couldn't keep the men straight, but maybe that is by design. Many pieces of clothing are described and I request pictures of all of them.
February 8, 2024
a novel as swell as the feeling of singleness.
an author who celebrates her solitude and rejoices in her freedom.
a reminder to start again on your own terms, in your own way, by yourself.
beautifully written; would love to devour more of EF’s works
an author who celebrates her solitude and rejoices in her freedom.
a reminder to start again on your own terms, in your own way, by yourself.
beautifully written; would love to devour more of EF’s works
October 19, 2022
😂 absolutely kooky 😂
Read
December 13, 2022Brilliantly written.
January 9, 2023
Finished on my 39th birthday in Canberra.
May 12, 2023
Brilliant, moving, inner life poetry kind of stuff. Hugely value the frankness and letting us behind the curtain of her romantic and celibate selves. Very entertaining too!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews