Lucy Nichol – The Twenty Seven Club

‘The Twenty Seven Club’ by Lucy Nichol is a story that is dark, comical and nostalgic all at the same time. A story that highlights mental health while captivating the reader while doing so.

We meet Emma a young woman who lives in Hull. She is deeply affected by the death of Kurt Cobain one of her idols at twenty-seven. She is affected to the point that she starts a journey of researching the deaths of other rock idols at the age of twenty-seven.
She is almost twenty-seven and she starts to question everything, from her choices to her way of life and her lifestyle and the way she behaves. Her research soon becomes an obsession and she is convinced she will die at twenty-seven too. This knock-on effect makes her not want to be interested in anything and it could almost be a self-fulfilling prophecy you could easily say.

I found this a very compelling story, the fact that mental health can impact a person such as Emma, and it all began with one person dying at twenty-seven. Just proves how easily triggered a person can be and almost everyone is one step away from experiencing mental health issues. I really could understand Emma and really did empathise with this woman who begins to dig into things that created bigger issues for herself than she could imagine.

On the other side of the story, I was so at home! As soon as I started reading, being set in the North and the 1990s! The waves of nostalgia hit me! All the memories of my own came flooding back from being a twenty-odd year old (same as Emma). Loved it, although it is really a serious subject Lucy Nichol has woven the story with humour, maybe a dark humour but a laugh is a laugh…isn’t it?

She has managed to weave everything into one great story that really tackles anxiety and that is something we will always need in life. She has done it in a way that we can empathise and even recognise ourselves within this book. A superbly written story about a sensitive subject.

Thank you to Anne Cater from Random Things Tours, Lark and NetGalley for the copy of the book.