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‘SCRIPTED’ TELLS THE STORY OF A WOMAN WHO THROWS OFF HER PEOPLEPLEASING SHACKLES…
TAKEN FOR GRANTED by her boyfriend Adam, sent on menial errands by her boss and pushed around by her family, Jade can’t ever seem to find the words to stand up for herself. A people-pleaser and pushover, Jade feels uncomfortable speaking her mind. Until the day she comes across a script containing a scenario involving her own life.
Scripted is Fearne Cotton’s debut novel (the Happy Place podcast host has also written several Sunday Times best-selling non-fiction books, including Speak Your Truth, Quiet and Calm), and she told Grazia that writing the story of Jade felt like ‘pure escapism’. ‘To dive into Jade’s world let me forget about my own worries and fears. It was pure bliss,’ she says.
Jade, a 32-year-old set decorator, rents a flat in south-west London and is forever saying yes to her overbearing family, as well as her boyfriend of three years. ‘So, how much of you is in the character of Jade?’ I ask Fearne. ‘Jade is 100% not me. We have the same lived experience of losing our voice along the way, but she’s her own person,’ she tells me. And while she’s right, anybody reading Jade’s story will no doubt recognise those familiar traits of feeling unheard at work, unsure about the future of a relationship, or trying to navigate tricky family dynamics between warring parents or toxic siblings, and feeling somehow on the back foot.
As Jade tries her best to do this, scripts begin to turn up, detailing scenarios and conversations between Jade and her friends and family that haven’t happened yet. And while they give Jade a fright and sense of unease she soon begins to realise that they may actually serve a purpose.
With the help of her best friend Sophie, she starts to see that knowing what her future holds offers her the chance to change it. Who wouldn’t want to
