The heart is a muscle after all, it’s strong and can withstand much, and really, if you’re lucky enough to find someone who it beats in time with, then that has to be worth the risk. So I turn off the tap or I take off my shoes and curl up at the bottom of the bed, held in a sort of paralysis where all I can do is slide my thumb up and down the screen of my phone.

I spent twenty-seven years in a relationship with a man who I fell in love with as a teenager, who I had three children with, who I shaped my life around. At other points in the conversation, she offhandedly delivers witheringly honest statements about herself (“I think I idealise men and put them on pedestals”) that I find myself asking her to explain further as they’re perhaps not the things women are supposed to say out loud in an age of pastel Instagram infographic feminism.There are certain procedures I continue to follow, like looking over at a friend’s phone to see if the person who just messaged is him, and if so, is he talking like a happy person? It helps knowing you’re not the only one with those feelings that make you feel so pathetic sometimes (and knowing there’s light at the end of the tunnel, well, sort of). You couldn’t have known then that the end of that relationship would drive you into writing about relationships and dating, from the perspective of a single woman. Whether you’ve had a big defining heartbreak in your life, or a series of little heartbreaks that amount to one, you will find this work captivating and worthwhile.

Vogue dating columnist Annie Lord's debut, Notes on Heartbreak, is a visceral yet funny recollection of the breakdown of her five-year-relationship, told in her distinctive, lyrical style . But sometimes you are making yourself feel better via a very complex explanation for [men’s] actions that make out that you’re still hot and desirable, and they still want to have sex with you, and go out with you.

Maybe if you’re currently going through a heartbreak you’d enjoy this book, but it missed the mark for me. Dark, fierce and raw, Notes on Heartbreak is a love story told in reverse, starting with a devastating break-up. I was really happy when it seemed like they both felt happy and healed at the end, managing to maintain a friendship. He wants someone easier,’ or ‘oh, he’s just going through a personal crisis and he’s taking it out on me because I’m the easiest thing to let go of. This pulled on all the heartstrings and I wish there‘d be a second installment at some point so I can check in with Annie and where she‘s at in life.

I’m not sure what I can say about this book, in terms of a review, just that I’m so glad it came out when it did, and it’s helped me a lot over the past few days.Some reflections were really well written and tugged on my heartstrings, but a lot of the interactions lacked in both the characterisation and the events of the plot. Perhaps Joe and I can carry on loving each other, even when miles of air and experience separate us. I'm not talking about the kind you have at school or uni where you see someone for a few months and then they stop messaging, or one of you kisses someone else, and you feel a bit shit about it. He must have been planning it for a while; no one breaks up with someone after five years on a whim. It’s a sparkling and deliciously indulgent read which gets right into your chest and stays with you afterwards.

Our interview is littered with sentences that open with “you know when you… ” which have the gradual effect of creating identification. I definitely think being a woman and being on the ‘dumped’ end of a breakup means you can get so much sympathy and support. I wonder if I am focusing on the idea that he kept this secret because the reality of him actually leaving is too big to comprehend. This book has left me both tearful and joyful - such a beautiful bittersweet book on the pain of heartbreak and the journey you endure to work through it.Actually, the fear of boring my friends to death isn’t the only reason I don’t talk about these tiny offshoots of experience anymore. I’m not exactly gonna ring you every time I see a nice tree or have a friendly interaction with a bus driver. Reading it on the other side of that stinging pain, though, brought a sense of camaraderie that we had both got through the worst of it, and, no matter how begrudgingly, that there was something to take forward from an experience we otherwise wish to strike from the record.