Saturday, 11 May 2024

Better Left Unsent by Lia Louis


A woman accidentally reveals all her secrets in this witty and charming novel from the author of Eight Perfect Hours.

Two years ago, thirty-year-old receptionist Millie Chandler had her heart spectacularly broken in public. Ever since, she has been a closed book, vowing to keep everything to herself—her feelings, her truths, even her dreams—in an effort to protect herself from getting hurt again.

But Millie does write emails—sarcastic replies to her rude boss, hard truths to her friends, and of course, that one-thousand-word love declaration to her ex who is now engaged to someone else. The emails live safely in her drafts, but after a server outage at work, Millie wakes up to discover that all her emails have been sent. Every. Single. One.

As every truth, lie, and secret she’s worked so hard to keep only to herself are catapulted out into the open, Millie must fix the chaos her words have caused, and face everything she’s ever swept under the carpet.


When I read the synopsis of this, I couldn't understand why any of the draft emails would have addresses attached. I approve of writing down your feelings, but don't address them, that's asking for trouble! Luckily the story addresses this; adding the addresses is a way to trick the brain into thinking the messages were sent, allowing it to move to resolution mode and let go of the anger. It's quite clever, actually. (She should have been like me and developed a cipher - double security!)

This wasn't as much about the actual messages as I thought it would be. A lot of it was just - Millie's life, which admittedly is a little more unbalanced After The Emails but is mostly just a life. Millie has some excellent sidekicks, and the romance wasn't the whole focus, which was nice.

There's some good lessons here, and I enjoyed the read. A lot of fun overall.


Better Left Unsent publishes on the 21st May, 2024. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.

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