Girl's Best Friend by Liz Young

'Dogs are better than men, because?'
So says the poster on Izzy Palmer's fridge, and she's only half joking. At a long-planned murder party, Izzy has to play scheming little tart Emerald without her boyfriend, Leo, who's let her down yet again. Cast in fiendish skullduggery with Nick, who would have been improved by a spot of murder himself, Izzy can only grit her teeth and play along.
Not content with insulting her dog and telling her to hold her stomach in, Nick then has the gall to turn halfway human just as Izzy's decided she can't stand him. Still, at least he makes Leo just a little bit jealous at last, but that's all that can be said for him. Until she faces the one heartbreak she'd never imagined...

I was all over the place reading this book. Laughing, crying, sobbing, giggling, pressing it close to my heart, smiling like an utter fool. I'm actually really struggling to write a coherent review of this book, because it just hit home with me. so. hard. I loved it. Love is a big word in reviews (or at least it should be) but this book just genuinely struck a chord and touched me in all the right places (you'd think I was talking about something much raunchier like Fifty Shades).

So how can I tell you about this book in a way that won't make you want to slap me over the head with it? Well, for starters it's well written. I really enjoy Young's style (I've also read Asking for trouble) and the amount of humour in her books. Dry British sardonic slightly dark humour. It's basically opium to me.
Second of all, it features a brilliant lead character whose main trait is that she has a dog and he's her entire world. And I know that feeling, as I feel the same way about my cat. Young takes you through this whirlwind of emotions as relationships shatter, as friends struggle, as something new blossoms and as tragedy strikes. There is just so much going on and it's so tangible and real.

It's basically a true escapology and the kind of book you'd really like to crawl into and live in. In it, life is real and hard, but there are also rewards and happy endings and tough decisions where some pay off and some don't.
If you haven't read anything by Young yet, but fancy books like Bridget Jones' Diary and PS I love you, and films like Notting Hill and About a Boy, definitely give her a try. You might just fall in love <3

GIRL'S BEST FRIEND by Elizabeth Young ISBN13: 9780099460343 400 pages /Published in 2003

Review by Iben Jakobsen, Borough of Books, 2016