Reading this book feels a bit like eating a cupcake. It’s entertaining social critique.

My favourite aspect of the book was it’s subject matter. I’ve always firmly believed that there should be a national prize given to women who celebrate and enjoy being single. There’s so much social pressure for a woman to attach herself to a man, it’s truly a revolutionary act to say, ‘Actually, I’m complete. I’m enough. I enjoy my own company. I love being by myself.’

It’s high time we reclaimed the word spinster as a label to be worn proudly, in the way that men look like the cat who caught the mouse when you call them a ‘bachelor’.

Bolick takes you not just on her own journey but through the lives of her 5 awakeners as she calls them; fascinating women from history who – through becoming familiar with their lives – woke her up to the fact that it might not only be ok, but actually desirable to be a woman living on your own without partner or children in tow.

Also – as a total aside – my favourite new found fact came from this book. It’s this; ‘Of the tens of thousands executed for witchcraft in central Europe from 1450 to 1750, three-quarters were widows ofter fifty who lived alone. Which is to say: their crime was the audacity of existing without a husband.’