Complicated Woman

'An oracle'
DOLLY ALDERTON

'Articulate[s] a universal, feminine wisdom with such ferocity it feels like she's slapping the reader around the face'
OBSERVER

'Equal parts self-lacerating, tender and witty'
GLAMOUR

'Furious, sharp, funny, honest'
iPAPER

On the Waterstones Best Books of 2025 List

Sometimes when I drink wine out of a globulous glass with the thinnest of rims, blocking out the fact it's billed at £14 a pop, I think of baby Becky.

Hair so blonde it's neon white, cheeks so chubby you can't see her eyes. What must she think right now? She must think she made it.

We're a great big adult person.

That was always the plan, right?

In her extraordinary debut, with her trademark lyricism and razor-sharp wit, Ivor Novello Award-winning musician and artist Rebecca Lucy Taylor (aka SELF ESTEEM) takes us on a journey through womanhood - whatever the hell that means.

Through the notes, lyrics and biting observational prose for which Taylor has become renowned, A Complicated Woman offers itself up as a subversive anti-Bible for any woman who has ever cracked under the weight of impossible expectation; who has done unto others the damage that has been wrought upon her; and who has discovered deep within herself a resilience that surprised her.

A Complicated Woman is a cathartic scream of a book that gets to the heart of being a woman in the world today, and cements Taylor as one of the most exciting voices of her generation.