‘Absorbing and clever, I fell in love with Mathilda’

Cathy Rentzenbrink

‘A glorious new talent has arrived’

Emma Gannon

‘Full of heart, wit and feeling’

Caroline O'Donoghue

‘Fizzes with energy, rage and love’

Jessica Moor

‘A sterling debut … Mathilda’s chilling but ultimately redemptive story will stay with me’

Laura Jane Williams

The idea of a curse was divisive, but the assertion that I had, for some time now, been ‘laden with something dark’ was disconcertingly unanimous.

I wondered if this was something you also saw in me, if that was why you left.

There is something wrong with Mathilda.

She’s still reeling from the blow of a gut-punch break up and grieving the death of a loved one.

But that’s not it.

She’s cried all her tears, mastered her crow pose and thrown out every last reminder of him.

But that’s not helping.

Concerned that she isn’t moving on, Mathilda’s friends push her towards a series of increasingly unorthodox remedies.

Until the seams of herself begin to come undone.

Tender, unflinching and blisteringly funny, What a Shame glitters with rage and heartbreak, and offers up the joy of self-acceptance through an extraordinary rite of passage to overcome the prickly heat of female shame.

‘Tender and searingly honest - I couldn’t stop reading’

Angela Scanlon

‘A painfully exquisite book’

Camilla Pang