I barely ever write positive reviews, or read books that make me love them, so why change the habit of the year with this one? Even the title gave me false hope for what I endured.

The writing is good in this novel by Anna Hope but I wish I hadn't read so much hype about this book before I opened it for myself. I was constantly hoping something would happen when I turned the page and yet it never really did. I feel as though I am missed out the great female-friendship story that everyone seems to be raving about because, to be honest, to me it was a book about three women who only almost still tolerated each other.

For a good 70% of this novel you could not have asked me which woman had which name as I kept forgetting who was who - particularly between Hannah and Cate (I still am struggling) - and the minor characters didn't make a huge impact. The only one I really remember was Nathan who was one of the husbands and his part in the plot should have been the one to caused the most drama but it bored me and was overly predictable. Most of the story made me feel sorry for the central trio of females as they were always simply settling for what was happening to them whilst not trying anything to make better.

The women just don't seem happy at any point in the entire story which was surprising because even in the occasional, random flashbacks to their university days there was never any joy to their lives. In regards to the time-jumps I do not understand what kind of structure was being aimed for here because I didn't get the sense of any.

The ending was terrible. I wish I had read my other ARCs first...

With thanks to the publisher for a copy via Netgalley

An evocative, relatable novel about friendship, youth, hope, expectations and the fruitless pursuit (aka the lie every woman is told) of "having it all", especially once the biological clock starts ticking. As a woman in her late thirties I could really identify with the three central characters - Cate, Hannah and Lissa - and their struggles as they transition from their carefree and hopeful twenties into their thirties, and the quite startling mismatches between what they thought their lives were going to be like, and the realities they find themselves inhabiting.

The prose is quite beautiful in places and I was genuinely interested in Hannah and Cate's storylines, less so in Lissa's - I found her a bit of a cliche for most of the novel, but felt she redeemed herself towards the end with the realisation that everyone is capable of things they never imagine, everyone has moments of weakness and makes mistakes (she makes a terrible one that changes her friendship with Cate and Hannah forever) and therefore finds herself acting with more compassion.

It's a beautifully London-centric novel and I know all the settings quite intimately, so it was a treat to read from that perspective too.

But it's a three-star from me because while I did enjoy it and the writing is very lovely in places, I did find the characters hard work at times - they all focused so much on what they didn't have, the parts of their old lives/selves they were mourning and I really did want to shake them at times! And the big plot twist (I won't spoil it) I felt wasn't handled all that realistically and I had hoped for a different outcome. But all in all, it's a well-written and interesting novel that I enjoyed and would recommend checking out if you're interested in a novel about modern female friendships.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

A well written novel dealing with ordinary women with what really amounts to normal day to day problems. Writing this review as a reader in her sixties I probably have a very different perspective to perhaps the readership in either their twenties, thirties or forties, a demographic that this has been aimed at. Life is complicated and often very difficult for a lot of people and if we truly understood exactly what we were going to have to deal with, and these women’s problems barely touch the surface, we may not travel with the expectations that we had in our youth. So this is about expectations and hope and the emotional maturity to deal with life and it’s ramifications.
I have only given this three stars because although well written and an interesting’ish storyline I really did not connect emotionally with any of the characters. I often had to go back a page to work out whose problems were whose. So many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

A brilliantly written story of modern female friendships and relationships. I couldn't put this down!

Loved the book, found it very interesting. The way the characters had been written about I felt as if I was with them in the story. Very relatable story to women in real life. Lots that I could relate to in life.

This is a beautifully-written novel about three friends, Cate, Hannah and Lissa. I was engrossed in it from the first page to the last. It traces the ebb and flow of their friendship over the years and is honest, painful and real. They all have hopes and dreams and the story shows how reality is so very different to how we imagined. It’s special because of the raw, honest quality of the writing. For example, motherhood isn’t what Cate expected and there are some excellent scenes where this is depicted. It’s a very honest portrayal of female friendship over the years, with triumphs, betrayals and forgiveness, and I loved it. Highly recommend!

When the book opens, Lissa, Hannah and Cate are sharing a flat in trendy East London with their lives and careers ahead of them. The story follows them 10 years forward, and none of them are quite where they had expected. This is a novel which follows their friendship and their lives are they come together and are pulled apart. I found it a very readable and very touching book, even profound in places. I really loved this book and highly recommend it.

Expectation by Anna Hope is a book about enduring friendship. The book details the lives of three friends who met when they were young and carefree. It follows their lives through all the challenges that come with transitioning into adulthood. They all have dreams of what their lives should be. We journey with them through the highs and lows of their individual and collective lives. How they are separated and yet intertwined in this journey of life. True friendship transcends all barriers is what I take from this book. I enjoyed reading this book and would definitely recommend it as a book club pick.

"Expectation" introduces us to three best friends, Cate, Hannah and Lissa, and follows their lives from the carefree and easy twenties, back to their troubled teens, to the harsh reality of thirties and forties. They used to share a house in East London, sharing their dreams and expectations for the future, enjoying their lives, friendship and fun. Ten years on and life hasn't panned out as they'd like it to. Cate has recently moved to Kent with her new family, husband and a baby but she's not sure if it's really what she wants, especially as she feels so isolated; Hannah is trying her third round of IVF, desperate for a child, not noticing that this desire for a baby is destroying her marriage; Lissa is still trying to make it as an actress. How did they get there, wrestling with envy over each other's lives?

It is a bitter - sweet and brutally raw and honest story exploring the highs and lows of friendship, showing different faces of this relationship.

The story flips backwards and forwards in time, changing the narration between the three women and tells, very realistically and honest, their happiest and saddest moments in their lives, showing how your point of view changes with increasing age, how you start to see the same things differently gaining experience. The author has so well captured the difference between the carefree, sunny days when they were in their twenties and had no real problems, and then when the reality brutally came and bitten them years later. I loved how the stories seamlessly intertwined together and how realistic they felt. The book is beautifully written.

I must admit that the characters were not the most likeable ones, and I actually have never warmed to any of the three friends. They were all determined in their own ways and yes, they fought for their own happiness, which is commendable, but it was at any cost. However, they were all so very well drawn, with their flaws, annoying habits but also their good points and they felt like living and breathing people, making mistakes and not always learning their lesson. Cate was the golden girl, with her First from Cambridge but because of a heartbreak she just gave up and is working in a cafe. Hannah, rejected from Cambridge, turned the disappointment into a successful career. And Lissa, the gorgeous one, convinced of her beauty and talent simply waiting for the big break that is going to make her a star. Fast forward ten years and Cate is struggling with being a mother, with a husband that she isn't sure she loves, in a house far away from her friends and family. Hannah is on another round of IVF, not accepting the fact that life doesn't run as smoothly as she has planned it, the strain of it all slowly starting to show in her marriage. And Lissa is still waiting for this big break, still seeking her mother's approval, still single. None of these women's expectations resemble this what they dreamed about, so where do they go next? As it usually happens in life, reality is a bitch - they drifted apart a little, and well, everything changes when you're getting older, no?

I thought it's going to be a light - hearted, easy read but there was so much more to it. There was depth and truth, with the author so beautifully exploring friendship that have ups and downs, that can have better and worse moments, about womanhood in very wide spectrum and how to live up to expectations the society and life make the women choose, and if you can live up to them at all, if it's possible. Thought - provoking and very up - to - date, bringing great discussion topics about the gaps between reality and dream and expectations, between how your life appears to other people and how it really is for you. There is betrayal, hope, heartbreak, ugly secrets and unpleasant truths in this elegant, eloquent, bitter - sweet examination of womanhood, a compelling page turner about real female friendship, showing us how to ponder happiness and to find yourself and what makes you happy. Truly recommended!

Copy provided by the publisher.

I absolutely loved this book. I''d never heard of this writer but I will certainly be looking out for more titles by her. The magic was in her writing style which I found engaging and poetic. It's a novel that takes you into different time lines with ease. You will fall in love with the characters, the story and the excellent narrative flow. Probably the best book I've read in years.

Expectation by Anna Hope is a bittersweet novel exploring the expectation of youth and the reality of a life lived. It is an intimate study of the relationships between female friends growing up: their aspirations, heartaches, betrayals, loves and how and where they see themselves in the world.

The story is written beautifully. At times, it’s almost like reading poetry as the descriptions are so vivid and real and sensuously composed.

The characters themselves were wonderfully developed, although I did not like any of them. I found these characters miserable and selfish, focusing on their failures and jealousies rather than on what they had in front of them. Perhaps that’s what life and relationships do. Take us from being free-spirited, giving, happy souls ready to change the world, to sad, betrayed, struggling people just trying to get through our pain and misunderstandings. Even the ending was not such a happily-ever-after one.

It did make me think about what I wanted during my university days, how I perceived myself and all the things I thought I would accomplish, and what my life is like now. And I think this is important for any novel – to make you think about something!

I recommend this novel and would read further books by Ms. Hope.

#netgalley #annahope #expectation #randomhouse #transworldpublishers

Absolutely glorious storytelling in a hazy pleasurable read. Beautiful depiction of female relationships and the challenges and celebrations along the way. Cried hard, just like social media said I would!

Expectation is an exploration of marriage, motherhood, work and above all, female friendship. And it's absolutely brilliant.

Being a lot younger than the characters meant that I couldn't directly relate to the stage of their lives they had reached (their marriage dynamics, midlife crises, fertility issues, postpartum depression), however, I was able to empathise with them all. This is because Anna takes us back to when the girls first met, through their school years, university and flat sharing - formative years that I found extremely relatable. It offered great insight into their dynamics, and particularly the awkwardness and almost inevitable jealousy that can occur in a group of three best friends. Despite their differences, at that time, the girls were hopeful and ambitious with so many expectations of where their lives will take them. Of course life does not deliver, which is heartbreaking at times to read, but brilliantly executed.

The tag line 'what happened to the women we were supposed to become' is extremely apt, if not a little terrifying if you're in your early 20s and are yet to know who you're going to become...

A wonderful fictional memoir illustrating the development of female friendships spanning decades, "Expectation" examines love, loyalty and betrayal. Anna Hope explores the ways in which relationship dynamics change throughout the years and with the introduction of partners. As a reader I felt encouraged to examine different aspects of my own life experience and to consider what sort of world I want to leave behind.

I genuinely couldn't decide whether this was a three or four star read. The beautiful prose is certainly worthy of 4 stars and paints such evocative pictures of domestic detail, scenery, thoughts and feelings. The reason I gave the book 3 stars in the end is because it is quite slow and weighty. The last part of the book, from Nathan and Lissa's betrayal onwards, sees the book spark into life and it was at this point I started to feel something for each of the three friends, Cate, Hannah and Lissa. Up until that point though I could empathise technically as one does when you are learning to read and it is a matter of decoding, but beyond that I struggled to feel any connection with the characters.
The stories, about a struggling actress, a woman suddenly married and with a child who is wistful for her first love (a woman named Lucy), and a career woman whose attempts at IVF keep failing are gritty and true, realistic and very well portrayed. The issues of what the women of Greenham Common were fighting for and what life is like for an artist or a performer all meld together to produce something that celebrates women, and the lives that for so many of us contain profound struggles, heartaches and joy, but all of this weighs heavy on the reader. I could appreciate the beauty, and I think the most emotional and tender part is when Lissa helps to prepare her mother after her death, but I felt heavy and sad mostly.
This is not a book for the young when you have all of your life stretching ahead of you and so because I am middle aged I could identify with the mismatch between hope for the future and actual life as it is lived. It ends on a note of hope and optimism yet for me I was left feeling burdened by the disappointment of reality.

Hannah, Cate and Lissa are three young friends in their twenties. Hannah and Cate have known each other since school, and Hannah met Lissa when they were both at university in Manchester - while Cate successfully made it to Oxford.
They now live together in an elegant, crumbling, Victorian house on the edge of London Fields, in East London.

The friends' lives are full of parties, fun, art and romance and they see themselves as activists - worrying about the future of the world. They are young and full of promise. Their lives lay open before them.

Ten years later, none of them are where they hoped to be in life.

Hannah seems to have the perfect marriage, job and lifestyle, but she is desperate to conceive a child, and IVF has not been the answer she thought it would be. Lissa's acting career has never quite taken off and is now on a downward spiral. Cate finds herself living in Kent with a husband and baby - she is exhausted and not sure if she has made the right choices.

Each of them yearns for something that one of their friends has - something they think would make their lives perfect.

*********************************************************************************

I was really looking forward to reading this book, as it has had excellent reviews and there has been a lot of buzz about it.

It is interesting to think back to all the expectations you had of your own life when you were as young as Hannah, Cate and Lissa. What would your young self think about where you are now?

The young women in this story are not happy with where the find themselves ten years later. They are all trying to negotiate the twists and turns life has thrown at them: trying to work out their places in the world. This is not where they saw their lives heading.

This story is well written and full of emotion. It covers the highs and lows of friendship over the years, though I have to say there are some pretty low 'lows', and I am not sure these are all that representative of female friendships in general - at least I hope not!

Hannah is consumed with the need to become a mother and the misery of her failed IVF treatments is all too palpable. Luckily, I cannot claim to know how this feels, as I have never been through this ordeal, but I can certainly empathise with the position she finds herself in. Hannah needs her friends to be there for her, but finds it difficult to get across how she is really feeling, especially since Cate already has the baby she longs for.

Cate is struggling with marriage and motherhood. she has married quickly and is not sure whether she has made the right choice. She loves her young son, but is clearly suffering with post-natal depression. She also needs her friends, but she has been persuaded to move away from London - away from her friends. Can she really rely on them anyway - how much would they understand about the pressures of new motherhood - especially since Hannah is so desperate for a child?

Lissa seems to have grown away from both Hannah and Cate. Her life has little in common with either of her old friends. She has chosen not to become a mother herself and has struggled to find a partner she can rely on. What can they understand about her own frustrations with her 'going nowhere' career and the difficult relationship she has with her mother?

I enjoyed reading this book and certainly had no trouble racing through the pages, but I confess that I am a bit disappointed with it. I think the main problem was that I did not really care for Hannah, Cate or Lissa.

Sadly, they come across as three young women who have not been able to live up to the expectations they have placed on themselves - rather than those placed on them by society. This makes them come across as rather selfish women who are miserable because they cannot have it all. Their friendship does not seem to be helping them through the rough patches, and they seem to be jealous of each other instead.

This is a shame, because Hannah and Cate at least have genuine reasons to be be finding their lives difficult. Sadly, Lissa just seems miserable because she has not made it as an actress - as far as I am concerned this does not give her licence to want her friend's husband (whether or not she knew them first).

They spend so much time focusing on what they don't have, that they can't seem to appreciate what they actually do have and everyone around them is a casualty to their misery. This impression rather spoilt the book for me.

The ending was also a little silly. Happy families picnic time was probably a little premature after the short length of time that elapsed since a major falling out between the friends, I thought.

From reading other reviews, I can see that this book has made a big impression on a lot of readers, but it simply did not do it for me. I think I am a little old to be the target audience here, and maybe that was the problem. It would be interesting to discuss the issues thrown up by this book with someone who has a younger perspective. Perhaps I will get my daughter to read it sometime and see what she thinks?

# Expectation # Netgalley
Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant, it’s a tale of two women who being the best of friends have high expectations of the future. When they do not teach those expectations they question why. Although they may not beware to start with what they are really dining is questioning the meaning of life. As they look back in the past and to the future it’s not how the expected things to turn out. It’s a funny and heartbreaking novel. This is one of those you can really relate to yourself.
I can not disagree when someone said it’s the most talked about book in years. Just realising a women’s role in life. With a different view on mother’s, siblings, daughters. Can not express how much I think every women, also men should read this book. It’s definitely a big eye opener for women and men.

Cate, Hannah and Lissa are all friends from childhood and university. Expectation tells the story of them ten years later when they're all at different points in their life. However none of them are where they hoped to be.

I loved the commentary on life and friendship, showing that life might not always turn out the way you expected. Life is affected by bereavement, infertility, failing careers, moving house and friendships dynamics change along the way.

I found Expectation very affecting. On the surface it’s a story of friendship over the decades. We meet Cate, Lissa and Hannah sharing an east London flat after graduation, flashing back to their meetings at school and university, and forward as they stumble into and out of relationships, achieve success in work, or fail to, push forward and tread water, start families or fall apart trying. All the time wishing they had what the others have.

More than that though, it brings into focus how time passes whether you like it or not, and that we all fail to achieve all those things we were told we could. Lissa takes her activist mother back to Greenham Common and we wonder what they were fighting for. Did they fail too?

The prose is sparse and unshowy, the women’s characters aren’t quite within our grasp. We know what makes them tick only as much as we know ourselves (spoiler: not a lot). We feel their shame, their ambition, their envy, their greed, their helplessness, their hope beyond expectation. The final pages left little raw patch on my soul.

Very modern book which I really enjoyed. Loved seeing how the girls lives changed over the years and how each one had different experiences.
A really well written book which will definitely be successful.