There's More To Life Than Cupcakes

by Poppy Dolan

[Leah]

When Kerry, the PR for Novelicious Books, emailed me and asked me if I wanted to take part in Poppy Dolan’s blog tour, I was chuffed to bits! I remembered first hearing about her novel a while ago and thought it sounded amazing, especially with the title There’s More To Life Than Cupcakes (there isn’t). I couldn’t wait to receive a copy of the novel and as soon as it pinged into my inbox, I had to start reading it immediately!

There’s More To Life on Cupcakes introduces us to Ellie Redford, who now that she’s in her 30s, finds that the only question people ask her is when she’s going to pop out a sprog. The trouble is, Ellie doesn’t know the answer to that question, despite her husband Pete’s wishes to become at dad tout suite. There’s a part of Ellie that really wants to be a mum, but on the other hand she’s terrified, so in a bid to figure out her feelings she decides to start a blog. She also decides, with the help of her friend Lydia, to go to a baking class, where she meets the handsome Joe, but is there more to their friendship than meets the eye and is Ellie about to press the explode button on her entire life?

There’s More To Life Than Cupcakes sorta confused me. On the one hand, I did really enjoy it. Poppy’s a wonderful writer, and there were times where I was chuckling to myself whilst I was reading; but on the other hand, I desperately wanted Ellie to stand up and tell everyone in her life to eff-off with all the baby questions! Is that really all ANYONE in Ellie’s life had to talk to her about? Seriously? I also wanted Ellie to stop having such a split personality when it came to the whole baby question because she didn’t actually help matters. On the one hand, she loves babies, thinks they’re squishy goodness and is desperate to have one, but then two minutes later they’re the bain of your life who do nothing but wee, poo, and scream, and will be a drain on your bank account. There were times I couldn’t keep up. I presume that’s how it goes when you’re thinking of having a baby, but I’ve never come up on the predicament as of yet. So her flip-flopping could well be entirely normal and I missed the point!

But for the most part I enjoyed the book. As I said before, Poppy Dolan is quite the talent and despite the baby issues, I enjoyed the novel. I loved reading about Ellie’s work at Crumbs magazine, and I enjoyed her friendship with Hannah, a girl she meets at her baking class. I really loved reading all about all of the baking goods Ellie made and Ellie loved, and it definitely made me want to start baking. Or, er, get my sister to start baking because she does it quite a lot better than I do. I can’t wait to go back and read Dolan’s first novel The Bad Boyfriend’s Bootcamp and I’ll certainly be looking out for her next book as she’s a very talented writer!