This is a love letter to the nights I climbed into bed full-face of makeup, too tired to take it off. To the days when one latte was not enough, when the two basic food groups were caffeine and sugar. This is a note to the girl I was when joy was a thing always ten feet away; when getting out of bed was harder than not. An open-mouthed-sloppy-kiss to the decade that changed me – to the years that gathered in quick succession, to the men who were not right, and the girlfriends who kept me afloat. This is a note to the nights I got home, five in the morning, lips stained, chin red and raw, happy. This is a missive both to and from the muddled middle. An ode to the mess and grace that is growing-up. And a thank you to the girl I was at twenty-three who knew, that hard as things were, her life was changing, and if she could bear witness to it – stay awake enough to sit with it – then she could transform the most heartbreaking moments of her life into the most meaningful. This is my bent and broken and wholly imperfect version of what happened and how it happened. And this is my declaration, that given the chance, I wouldn’t change a thing.
This is a book about home as both a place and an idea. And about the very quotidian journey towards it, which is really the journey towards one’s self. And only when we give in to the grace and chaos of the journey do we realize that home is the thing we carry, forged by our beliefs, supported by the people with whom we choose to share our life.
A series of interlinking essays that take us around New York, through pivotal moments from Meg’s time at college onwards, Places I Stopped on the Way Home will speak to anyone looking for their own sense of self and of home, anyone who has paused to wonder whether they’re on the ‘right’ path, anyone who shares Meg’s aim of accepting a ‘purposefully imperfect life’.
"Meg writes so movingly about the way one's ghosts can inhabit a city, and how courage comes from embracing them." Daisy Buchanan, Author, How to Be a Grown-Up
"A beautifully warm-hearted and vulnerable memoir. I enjoyed every single page." Emma Gannon, Author & Broadcaster, Ctrl Alt Delete
"If you ever needed a book that would be both relatable as hell when you're in your lowest dating woes, and act as the most soothing balm for heartbreak, then you need to add this book in your life." Bustle
"Places I Stopped on the Way Home is an engaging account of a young woman shaping a life that shows her what she does and doesn't want, ultimately allowing her to become the person she wants to be ... I found myself frequently marking lines and wondering how Fee had sussed so many of these things long before I did." The Writes of Woman
"Places I Stopped on the Way Home is everything I love in a book. Its final line is probably the most perfect one I’ve ever read, and it has long since stayed with me since closing the final page.” The Literary Edit