The Regulars by Georgia Clark was such a breath of fresh air. A nice gripping but light read to follow my arduous struggle with Go Set A Watchman, but enough about that. The book came into my periphery after wonderful YouTuber/novelist/musical theatre performer Carrie Hope Fletcher made a video about the 5 books that she definitely wanted to read in 2017, in general I appreciate and trust her book recommendations and so I added The Regulars to my ‘want to read’ shelf on Goodreads. I hadn’t really expected to be getting to reading it so soon but my lovely pal Kaylin gave it to me for Christmas. After hearing Carrie speaking about it my curiosity was piqued and I was really feeling the need to read some chick lit after the recent laborious read (eye roll, another story for another time).

Initially it was giving me all the romance, drama and girly goodness of chick lit that I had wanted and it was refreshingly easy to read (definitely not a bad thing), the characters Krista, Willow and especially Evie (an opinionated, optimistic blogger who wants to make a difference in the world) were relatable and felt very real. I found myself wanting to know what would happen in their lives, then along comes the magical twist. The supernatural idea that makes this more than just a pedestrian love story gone wrong for a group of best friends. The purple ‘Pretty’ potion turns the novel into a question on society’s pressures and the power of how we look in relation to how we are treated. When the girls turn ‘Pretty’ it brings them job opportunities, relationships and a lot of attention but the whole point of the novel is what do we sacrifice in the hopes of becoming a desirable person?

I found myself thinking about my own thoughts about my looks and how society has shaped us, women, into never really being 100% happy with how we look because the ‘correct’ way to look has been dictated and those ideals are so ingrained into our brains that we can never achieve such a combination of perfection. I’m sure everyone has little things they want to change about themselves, but at the end of the day, that’s all they should be. Little things. Not a huge concern or influence on our daily life because otherwise we could never be happy or focus on what’s more important.

The drama unfolds throughout the book and I found myself gripped to the story, I couldn’t put the book down and found myself reaching for that rather than other forms of entertainment. I particularly like that the novel is divided into many, small chapters as this makes for reading on my bus journeys to uni and work a lot easier – there is nothing worse than not being able to find an appropriate resting spot in the book when you really have to stop reading and get a move on. It only took me about 4 days to read and that’s along with my busy schedule!

I finished The Regulars this evening and am pleased that things ended on a happy note, which left me feeling pretty good and hopeful for women and society. There are some real ‘hell yeah!’ feminist moments in there and although it may seem like a light read it can prompt some real, important thought. 10/10 would recommend a read.