I’ve read a few books from The School of Life recently, and when I spotted this one described as “a therapeutic novel”, I was curious. It’s not a phrase I’d come across before, and I wondered what exactly they meant. A novel that soothes? One with a diagnosis and a treatment plan? As it turns out, A Voice of One’s Own is a fictional story with an overtly therapeutic aim: it sets out to explore the emotional legacy of growing up without space to speak freely or feel heard.

The story centres on one woman’s life, and through her, the book explores some universal themes—particularly the long shadow cast by early parenting, and the difficulty of expressing oneself when that hasn’t been modelled or encouraged. The plot is relatable, though the tone of the omniscient narrator is more didactic than literary. It’s gentle and readable, but a little heavy-handed in parts, and I found that its simplification of messy, complex human experiences occasionally jarred. There’s insight here, but it often feels pre-digested.

Structurally, it’s an unusual book: each of the short chapters is accompanied by an illustrative photograph. These didn’t add much for me. They weren’t especially beautiful or evocative, nor did they feel meaningfully connected to the narrative. They were very literal and representative. If anything, they disrupted the flow. I found myself wishing the book would just get on with telling its story.

That said, there were moments that gave me pause. The book gently illustrated how lacking confidence in one’s own voice can manifest in small, ordinary moments—reluctance to correct a mistake, silence in a meeting, deferring to others without even realising it. These aren’t revolutionary insights, but they prompted a little personal reflection. I just think the same ground has been covered elsewhere with more subtlety and spark.

In the end, this didn’t land as strongly for me as other titles from The School of Life. It’s a short and well-intentioned read, and I suppose if someone wanted a very soft, undemanding introduction to this sort of emotional territory, it might be a good starting point. But for most readers, I think there are better, deeper options out there.