I’d thought it was girls who were meant to be nightmare teenagers and that boys simply went mute for the duration. But Betsy wasn’t bad at all and Jeffrey has been full of… well … angst. In fairness, by dint of having me as his mother, he’s had a roller coaster of a time of it, so much so that when he was fifteen he asked to be put up for adoption. After she recovers she makes some really odd decisions. A lot of things that are preposterous happen including how she "writes" a book. She has an ex-husband that's an idiot, a daughter who lives in the clouds and a son who hates her. She makes her life so much harder for herself. Funny yet?

Is this all because of one ill-advised act of goodwill? Was meeting Mr Range Rover destiny or karma? Should she be grateful or hopping mad? Stella Sweeney, the protagonist, does not make sense. She is married to a horrible man and her 17-year-old son is a nightmare. I cannot believe any woman would tolerate their disgusting behaviour. I’d cut out the carbs and dropped five of the stipulated ten pounds, then there was a sit-down where she was persuaded to settle for seven pounds and me wearing Spanx whenever I was on TV. I loved the first half of this book and thought i made a great choice. It was funny and engaging, and it had depth. But as the story progressed it seemed to get more shallow and predictable. It was very well read throughout.I’d never liked Phyllis – she was a terrifying little bulldog of a creature. But I wasn’t supposed to like her – she was my agent, not my friend. But I won’t be all washed up for long. No indeed. Because I’m working. You only have to look at me here at my desk! Yes, I’m working. For she meets a man who wants her telephone number (for the insurance, it turns out). That’s okay. She doesn’t really like him much anyway (his Range Rover totally banjaxed her car). Stella is the main character telling us about her life - after developing Guillain–Barré syndrome and spending a year paralysed in hospital she writes a book and her life spins off into lots of different directions.

International bestselling author Marian Keyes is bringing you another masterfully told story full of wit and charm. By the time I emerged from this phase and started reading more widely, Marian Keyes was well established, and when I started working in bookshops she had her own section on the shelf. But somehow, though people kept telling me I should give her a try, I never got around to it until now. I don’t like chic-lit where everything is happy, and the conflict is the same from book to book. I want a read to keep me guessing, to keep me interested, to surprise me. First Sentence: Can I make one thing clear – no matter what you’ve heard, and I’m sure you’ve heard plenty – I’m not a full-blown Karma-Denier. Oh my goodness! I have not laughed so hard in a long time. This book was hilarious. I haven't read Marian Keyes in a long time and I have read most of her books. I think this one by far was her best. God, was it funny. I do have to agree with the other reviewer on Goodreads that the trip to the States just kind of drug the story out. There was absolutely nothing funny and it really added nothing to the story. Unless the author wanted to talk about the stress the tour put upon the characters and I seriously think that could have been done in about two or three paragraphs. While Jeremy was a little brat, he did have some pretty good one liners as well.No, bad idea to mention the skintness, I’d better take that out . . . I hit the delete key until all mention of money has disappeared, then start typing again. It is! In he comes, slamming the front door and throwing his wretched yoga mat onto the hall floor. I can sense every move that yoga mat makes. I’m always aware of it, the way you are when you hate something. It hates me too. It’s like we’re in a battle over ownership of Jeffrey. And Phyllis was right: we did go a long way with that book. A long way up, then a long way sideways, then a long way off the map. So far off the map that I’m sitting here at a desk in my small house in the Dublin suburb of Ferrytown, which I thought I’d escaped for ever, trying to write another book. For the first time real, honest-to-goodness happiness is just within her reach. But is Stella Sweeney, Dublin housewife, ready to grasp it? After recovering, Stella finds out that her neurologist, Dr. Mannix Taylor, has compiled and self-published a memoir about her illness. Her discovery comes when she spots a photo of the finished copy in an American tabloid--and it's in the hands of the vice president's wife! As her relationship with Dr. Taylor gets more complicated, Stella struggles to figure out who she was before her illness, who she is now, and who she wants to be while relocating to New York City to pursue a career as a newly minted self-help memoirist.

Suddenly I realized that he was very angry and in an instant I’d got him – one of those good-looking spoilt men, with his expensive car and his well-cut coat and his expectation that life would treat him nicely. I liked the intrinsic love story and the tale of Stella's rise and fall. The thing I liked least was the way that almost everybody treated Stella with contempt, especially her appalling (ex) husband Ryan and her precious spoilt son, Jeffrey. Actually, most people seemed to put her down and blame her personally for getting ill - what on earth? The publicity is more than gruelling, and Stella can never quite trust that her ex-neurologist, the quite amazing Mannix, really loves her. Were it not for the support and friendship of Gilda, Stella’s gorgeous personal trainer and nutritionist, the frenzy of her schedule might make her life implode. The darkness we saw in Keyes latest clutch of novels has gone. The Woman who Stole my Life is laugh out loud funny, yet its full of substance and wisdom. It looks at friendship, parenthood, loyalty and disappointment, and it’s great at dissecting the vagaries of love. Stella recoils from Mannix’s more ardent declarations. If I could marry a book, this would be it. Charming, heartfelt, and humorous. Marian Keyes at her absolute best!I need to start by saying this was the only author I could come-up with that had the same initials as me. I very rarely read romance - because I don't like it.