Your Time Starts Now
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4.3 • 20 Ratings
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
Julie Goodwin was catapulted into our hearts as the first-ever winner of MasterChef Australia. In many ways her win was unlikely. As a child Julie adored music and art, but her career began in youth work, including in a juvenile detention centre housing troubled boys and a toxic all-male staff. After her three sons were born, she and her husband started an IT business.
Then came MasterChef - a record-breaking juggernaut of a show. The attention and opportunities that flowed from Julie's win were thrilling and overwhelming. She became a columnist for Australian Women's Weekly, a presenter on Today, published numerous cookbooks and made appearances on many shows including facing off with snakes and alligators on I'm A Celebrity . Get Me Out of Here! For years she co-hosted an award-winning breakfast radio show, and she opened a thriving cooking school.
It was by all appearances, a successful, rewarding life. But under the surface relentless pressure from Julie's outer and inner worlds was taking its toll. Struggling with depression, anxiety and addiction, with bushfires blazing and lockdowns looming, Julie found herself hospitalised in a mental health unit.
Her recovery, bumpy and circuitous, is an ongoing process that Julie tackles with tenacity. In this gloriously candid, deeply moving memoir, filled with beautiful food, astonishing people, humour and heart, Julie writes with brutal honesty about her struggles. We are brought into her story, into her unravelling and quest for healing as she seeks to resume a richly lived life.
Customer Reviews
Immaculate
A roller coaster on a level I was not prepared for, this is the most honest, touching, and beautiful autobiographies I’ve had the pleasure of reading. I admit I’m a mentally challenged neurodivergent cooking little gay boy, I put this woman on a bit of a pedestal in my mind from the day she won Masterchef, she’s mum you see. But to speak so honestly and openly about her mental health struggles, her addition, her growth, the hopelessness and of course all the love was so truly moving. I spent a good amount of this crying, it hit chord after chord in me. There are just things that only another mentally ill person, even if they don’t have the same experiences, can truly understand. I felt it. I am so glad that Julie found her way, and had every person in her life, that helped her find treatment, and continues to love and support her. Mental health is a life long journey. Thank you so much for being an inspiration and sharing so much of yourself with us all. You are a magnificent human being.
Encouraging
This book made me cry numerous times. Not just the sad parts, but the amount of love that courses through it. I could not put it down. I loved listening to Julie’s story. I’m so glad she has shed the light on mental health.
Stunning and open hearted
Wow, what a wonderfully open account of one’s life! I was captured as I laughed and cried along your journey. Thank you Julie, My time starts now❤️