I threw myself in the deep end with this one! I had no idea what to anticipate in the life of malorie blackman, but this woman has so much resilience. 

I did not expect for this to be the memoir that hit home the most for me so far, many of our life experiences  unexpectedly interconnected. There were times when I would start the audio book and immediately begin crying. 

One experience I'm willing to share. When I was 17, I met writer Juno Dawson for the first time. She talked about her own books, but also the importance of ones with queer characters in them. I'm only 25 and it may seem bizarre to hear, but hearing her talk about it was the first time I had even thought of that as a possibility. She had printed out paper lists of books with queer characters written by queer writers for us to take home, and she knew why that was needed. As I began to devour the entire list, I reconciled with the reason why books like twilight and the hunger games made me feel such an emptiness. 

The second time I met Juno, I was able to thank her at a book signing. And the funny thing was, she barely remembered the list! 

the ways that malorie searched for so many years for her representation absolutely broke me. Her resilience and drive filled me with so much admiration that I have seen before. Writers and books truly can, and do save lives! 

Mix that with her tales of poverty, homelessness, medical negligence, sexism and racism in every corner and industry, her love of learning, her analysis of the uk school system and it's funding cuts, her struggle to get a publishing contract, her reflections on her lost cultural connections, the impact of growing up with parents from the Windrush generation, the most horrifying miscarriage, and the societal perception shift she started receiving after marrying a white man. I'm only scratching the surface. 

So much love to malorie: an incredible, stubborn, fire-fuelled inspiration.