My Review for Joe Nuthin's Guide to Life by Helen Fisher
“Instead of fearing a thing, try to understand it. Because understanding can change everything about the way that you feel.” 💙
I read this book for May's read for the #NeglectedFaithfulsReadingChallenge, which I actually received as an ARC quite a while back now. I have no excuse for not reading it sooner other than life just getting in the way! 📚✨
Joe Nuthin's Guide to Life is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. I love a neurodivergent read, and I can always see little parts of myself in every character I read about. Joe is adorable, brave, and nothing but honest as he learns to navigate life and all the complications it brings — especially when you throw other people into the mix! 🥹💛
The blue and yellow notebooks that Joe’s Mum has written for him are invaluable. But how can you possibly write about every eventuality that might happen in a person’s life? You can’t — and that’s where good friends who truly understand Joe come in. I loved how his friends guide him and help point him in the direction he needs to make his next big life decision. 💙
I’m immediately going to check out Helen’s other books and add them to my TBR because this one completely stole my heart. 📖✨
A very belated thank you to Helen Fisher and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read Joe Nuthin's Guide to Life. 💛
About the Book
A thoroughly uplifting novel about a neurodivergent young man who unexpectedly builds a community and saves a friend in need by following—in a way only he can—his mother’s words of wisdom.
Joe-Nathan likes the two parts of his name separate, just like dinner and dessert. Mean Charlie at work sometimes calls him Joe-Nuthin. But Joe is far from nothing. Joe is a good friend, good at his job, good at making things and at following rules, and he is learning how to do lots of things by himself.
Joe’s mother knows there are a million things he isn’t yet prepared for. While she helps to guide him every day, she is also writing notebooks of advice for Joe, of all the things she hasn’t yet told him about life and things he might forget.
By following her advice, Joe’s life is about to be more of a surprise than he expects. Because he’s about to learn that remarkable things can happen when you leave your comfort zone, and that you can do even the hardest things with a little help from your friends.
About Helen by Helen
I wrote my first complete novel at 44 when a friend bullied me into it. Bored of hearing me say I wanted to do it, she told me to write a chapter a week and send it to her. Clocking in with her was a great incentive to keep going. But at 30,000 words, I panicked, realised I didn’t know what I was doing, and bought a useful book called How to Write, by Harry Bingham. It helped; in fact, it even told me I would probably panic when I got to 30,000 words.
I never published that book (read my first blog to find out why), but a year later I wrote Space Hopper. Seventeen agents rejected me over three months, so I gave up, cried a lot and eventually got over it. Then a bit of fate intervened in the form of my ex-husband’s wife, Sarah, who had read Space Hopper before I even submitted it to agents. Months after giving up, I received a message from her saying I just read a book that makes me feel a bit like your book did. That’s nice, I thought. But then I checked the book out, discovered who the agent was and sent it to her with no expectations at all (except rejection). However, Judith Murray, at Greene and Heaton, loved it.
Cutting the story short: Judith became my agent and secured me a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster (S&S) after it had gone to auction with Pan MacMillan.
I wrote the second book in the two-book deal within four months, and my agent and UK publisher loved it, but ultimately, about six months later, it was turned down by the American side of S&S, it just didn’t have the vibe they wanted to publish at the time. I was shocked, having thought for ages that it was in the bag, however they adored one of the characters, so I suggested a new novel all about her. It received praise (and it’s one of my favourites), but sadly, three of my novels were turned down before I hit upon Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life. It just seems to be the kind of story and character the world needs.
Coming next – coming soon - will be a novel that I’ve carried with me a long time. It’s a story that has percolated for years, bubbling in the background, even while I wrote and completed other novels. I’m quite a fast writer but this one just spilled out of me in record time once I’d started, and feels like it’s very much a part of my soul. Where Space Hopper centres on the connection between an adult daughter and her mother, and Joe Nuthin has a grown-up-son-and-mother relationship at its core, my next novel is centred around an adult son and his father. I didn’t plan for this pattern, but there it is. I’ll update you on things like the cover reveal for the new book, what it’s about and when it will be available, as soon as I’m able to.
Buy on Amazon UK | Buy on Amazon US
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