The Best Things: The Sunday Times bestseller to make your heart sing

As a lowly NHS worker living in Hertfordshire having to serve patients with eye watering wealth and absolutely no manners, respect or self awareness, this book is my new favourite companion. I feel like anyone who wants to see unpleasant wealthy idiots taken down a peg or two needs to read this book immediately. It’s the best antidote to those days when, despite your best efforts to be a benevolent and empathetic adult, you just want to scream “food fight” and smush metaphorical pie into the faces of the greedy corporate elite.The book is about the Parker family. The central character Sally is tragically funny - she wants to be a kick ass modern independent boss bitch but instead she spends her time hiding in her wardrobe listening to wellness podcasts or escaping to the gym. Sally’s journey throughout the book, to finally put her big girl pants on and step up to parenthood and self sufficiency is really compelling. You find yourself caring so much about Sally and feeling so proud for her when she finds her voice.Meanwhile Frank, Sally’s husband, is an incredible portrait of a modern man. Despite the laughs, Mel manages to writes an incredibly raw and honest description. She brings together elements of his working class history, the pressures of disapproving in laws and his toxic gang of braying male friends to build a surprisingly empathetic picture of an outwardly dislikable buffoon. Mel clearly understands the spectrum of men and masculinity and manages to treat it with warmth and understanding, whilst holding it to account.Another thing I want to mention, is Mel’s awareness of pressing modern issues and the expert way she manages them. Firstly, there is a lesbian character and a trans character. If romcoms think to include LGBT at all in their books, it tends to be the odd male gay best friend. As a queer woman, I loved the nonchalant inclusion of these characters, and the way they were handled was beautiful. Furthermore, Mel nods to a lot of pressing issues facing young women in her character Cleo who “was born instagram ready”. Another aspect I loved was Mel’s inclusion of male mental health through the character of Ammerjit. Having an author who is happy to include and platform modern issues without getting up on a soap box and shouting about it is really refreshing and goes to show how in touch and caring Mel clearly is as a person.I have read this book cover to cover 7 times now and I still adore it and laugh out loud. I am really shocked by some of the negative reviews on here and I wonder if those people simply don’t get the humour? This book is a painfully accurate character study. It expertly finds the flaws in the social elite that they would rather not face up to. Maybe the reason some folks are writing negative reviews is because they are themselves the type of people this book is about… I am a 25 year old woman and I found the book very relatable and I got all the jokes. I will say, I think having the audiobook read by Mel does enhance the comedy, as her reading highlights the dry humour in a way that could be lost on the page

Easy, funny reading. Loved Sally, hated Frank, at times, . But he grew on me....eyes up to heaven emoji...men...love Mel,doesn't over expose herself if you know what I mean, ooh matron.. would recommend this book to friends for sure. Looking forward to, perhaps, a sequel..see how Sally and Frank turn lives around and the children. Well done Mel, thoroughly enjoyed.

Read this in a day. Initially I found the characters very irritating and I found myself wanting Sal to stand up for herself but the characters did grow on me and it kept me interested until the end.

A very well written book full of humour and laughter. Cheered me up will look out for other titles by her

Took me a while to settle into this book.Dysfunctional family all going in different directions being bought together by their elderly relative but it works very well

Bought this book thinking here we go another actress who thinks they can write a novel, (I’ve read a few) but I was in for a huge surprise. This book is well written, easy to read and the story is absolutely brilliant, loved the characters, they were funny larger than life, if you only buy one book make it this one. I’m now impatiently waiting for her next book.

This is very much a disappointment - I think the set up is probably quite good, but the whole thing is so fast paced and off-the-wall that it's frankly exhausting. Lots of things happen at breakneck speed for no apparent purpose, but I remain unconvinced of the point of it all. I think it would be better with a lot fewer characters and if there was just the immediate family to focus on. This might have been a much better book if written by a far more skilled novelist but, sadly, that wasn't to be.

I read lots of books and this one was just ok. I’m surprised it got published but I suppose that’s because of who wrote it.I do like the author as a comedian but I think she needs to stick to what she does best.

Excellent book! Great delivery!

Das Buch will witzig sein. Die Logik bleibt dabei auf der Strecke.

Quite a fun story and I can see why it got good reviews.

I read this from start to finish in a day, and spent much of that time wondering why. The characters are not particularly well drawn, and the history sketched out for them is mentioned at times but then seems to have no bearing ontheir actions throughout the book. There seems to be too many additional characters added as plot devices, and most of the main characters feel like caricatures. I was glad when it was over, and wasn’t sure what if anything I’d gained from reading it. Some more aggressive editing might have removed some of the irritating repetition and improved the flow. Perhaps.