Things I have told 16 year-olds lately
that they have specifically asked to hear, actually💅
👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 Hi! Long story short: I’m a bestselling novelist who started investigating how to build a life in August 2024, because despite my supposed dream career I wasn’t ~vibing~ in the way I wanted to be. I felt like something was missing? Unpicking what it takes to build a life (like, a good one) led me to taking a job in a high school, just to see. Turns out books light up my brain but pastoral work with teenagers feeds my soul, so now I might be in the middle of a career change. I don’t know. I’m currently studying children and young people’s mental health, whilst also promoting my latest rom-com Love at First Sight. Turns out I contain multitudes. Don’t we all?
I’m proud to say that Grazia magazine once declared that I am a ‘general all-round-speaker of what-is-in-our-heads’, Stylist said my honesty and voice are unique, I was Marie Claire’s #BreakFree from Fear Ambassador many moons ago, and I’m a ‘Happiness Expert’ according to The Independent. I’m almost 40, a solo parent by choice, and I truly believe on going all in on the adventure of your own life. Knowing all this means you’re all caught up. WELCOME!!
Things I have told 16 year-olds lately
that they have specifically asked to hear, actually:
Love will never hit the same way it does at sixteen, so pay attention when it happens and enjoy the free-fall. Write everything down for your future self. She’ll thank you for it. She’ll want to remember this moment, you, exactly as you are.
Money talks, but luxury whispers: if you need a label to feel cool then you have a hole in your soul. Spend your time patching that up rather than your money on more stuff. Nobody should be able to tell where you got something. There is a difference between fashion and style. It’s not what you wear but how you wear it.
Your vibe attracts your tribe so be careful. Who are you attracting in your life? You are a product of who you spend your time with, so if you wanna be great you gotta keep great company. And if you wanna be the company that’s kept… be good company. You can be a radiator or a drain, you can add warmth to other people’s days or suck away the energy and be the vibe-kill. Be careful!
Andrew Tate is un-fuckable*. He’s got the muscles and the pout and the bulging forearm veins - in theory he should be a catch and yet I’d rather snog Trump. Andrew Tate is like a naughty boy trying to get his daddy’s attention by doing naughty things, and if your vibe attracts your tribe then his is not a tribe I wanna be in. He seems so boring! Like, you can’t actually have a laugh with Andrew Tate! Men like him are NOT invited to the park BBQ.