Gorgeous, brilliant book that seems to perfectly encapsulate the ever-changing dynamics of female friendship and identity as we move through our early 20s and beyond. Gorgeously written, I raced through this. Highly recommend.

Expectation follows three female friends in their thirties. Their friendship is one that began years ago, and we follow each of them in adulthood with their dreams either not having materialised, or not being what they expected them to be. It covers many of the highs and lows, and difficulties and complexities, of being a woman in your thirties; fertility, motherhood, relationships, career, caring for an older relative, loneliness. Above all, it looks at the pressure women have placed on them, and place upon themselves, to achieve in one way or another, and the feelings we may have when the outcome does not match our expectations.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for my honest opinion.

Anna Hope has written three novels each of which has intrigued and mesmerised me, albeit in very different ways. Expectation is a departure (a very successful one) from the early 20th century setting of her previous two books, and it tells the story of three women, friends from school and university who face the trials and tribulations of love, work, marriage and motherhood in different ways. Free-spirited Lissa carries on enjoying the single, party-going lifestyle she enjoyed with her friends well into her 30s, while Hannah longs to settle down and start her family with her long-term partner and Cate finds herself struggling to cope with the fast trajectory her life has taken.

You might be thinking this sounds like classic chick-lit but you’d be very wrong. Hope’s writing is astute, observant and incredibly insightful when it comes to describing the nuances of these women’s relationship (three is always a bit of an awkward number, which only adds to the tension). I’m approaching a significant birthday this year and I’m going to be spending part of it with a small group of friends who have been with me through thick and thin over the years, which made this book, with its descriptions of the power of friendship but also the potentially destructive and hurtful nature of close relationships, especially poignant for me. This quote in particular struck a chord “They look at each other, these women, as the girls talk, noticing the ways in which they have aged. They are not the same women as they were.”

I can’t wait to see what Anna Hope comes up with next.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.

I absolutely loved this book. It describes the complexity of female friendship perfectly with well-drawn and realistic characters. It plays with the idea of expectation, of what the three women expect for themselves and what is expected of them from society, from their families, from other women. Particularly the theme of having children and the tension around whether it is a biological necessity or a choice, and what the 'right' choice is.

Hope writes with the understanding of someone who has had close female friendships, with all their ups and downs and fights and joys, and this flows through the pages. Hannah, Lissa and Cate are all thoroughly believable characters and I think most women will recognise a bit of themselves in one or more of them. I laughed and cried and most of all, identified.

A truly beautiful book about so many things. Love, friendship, life, pain, joy and so much more. I cried reading this book and it will be one I buy and read again and again over the years. I just know each read will bring a different experience. Truly, truly beautiful.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion. And thank you to Anna Hope for one of the most beautiful books I’ve read.

Three women, Hannah, Cate and Lissa, discover life doesn’t always provide what you expect.

Having adored The Ballroom by Anna Hope I was expecting fabulous writing and an emotional read, but this time the author has exceeded everything I wanted to produce a soaring, searing, portrait of love, loss, betrayal and friendship in Expectation. Reading Expectation has felt like a physical process. My heart feels bruised and my chest tight because every word and every moment in this superb book is imbued with depth and intensity. It is, quite simply, wonderful. The way Anna Hope writes, with such exquisite attention to detail, is an absolute joy to read. So often I was reminded of Thomas Hardy’s ability to create nature in her descriptions.

It’s going to be almost impossible to convey the way I feel about Expectation. I thought the plot was fabulous. I loved the peeling back of layers of time and personality so that I felt I was part of the narrative, coming to an understanding about life at much the same time as the characters. That said, the more I reflect on the book after finishing it, the more it seems to offer. I will be thinking about Expectation for a very long time.

I loved and hated each of the three women in turn, vascillating between the two, much as they do themselves. Hannah, Cate and Lissa are vibrant, alive and flawed. Their relationships with one another, their parents and their lovers are beautifully presented by Anna Hope, but more important is the way in which she explores their relationships with themselves. Expectation is a superb observation of how we often know ourselves even less than we know others so that it gave me so much more than perfect entertainment as I read. Expectation made me examine who I am, what I want and how others might be affected by me. It sounds like hyperbole, but I truly think reading Expectation is a life altering experience. Somehow I feel fractured by reading Expectation, but then repaired to be greater than I was before. It has been an almost physical experience because of the profound emotions so skilfully conveyed. The potency of Anna Hope’s portrayal of humanity is astounding.

In case you hadn’t realised, I absolutely adored Expectation. It is, without doubt, one of my books of the year. Anna Hope has an outstanding talent to carry the reader along with her narrative and characters until they are completely entranced. I was mesmerised.

I loved this book! It's so beautifully written and every word of it rings true. The characters are flawed but lovable and I believed so much in their lives and issues. I'm off to buy everything else Anna Hope has written.

This book really blew me away- it's a deep dive into the often fraught and tumultuous nature of female friendships and the dynamics between women in times of loss, grief and happiness.

The book follows around a decade of the lives of long term friends Lissa, Hannah and Cate. Having lived together in their twenties, they are all now living apart and struggling with a variety of different issues in their lives. I felt the sketching out of these characters was so tangible and realistic, and the flawed nature of the women made the story something really special. It did have an air of Dolly Alderton's Everything I Know About Love, (which I assume inspired Hannah's trip to Orkney), but as it was from the point of view of all three women, it was easier to understand the motivations that drove them to do things or say things that often harmed their friendships.

The book left me with a real sense of peace- I thought the portrayal of death, grief and mourning in the book was so delicately handled, (I won't elaborate, as obvious spoilers) and gave this title a depth that I haven't felt before in some of the other similar titles about female friends. I feel as if it may be a book I'll come back to in ten years and will give me a totally different read.

I really enjoyed this book. My sympathies shifted seamlessly between the characters as their stories unfolded and overlapped and the time shifts were used to great effect. Anna Hope brings people and places to life beautifully.

I devoured this book in one glorious all-consuming sitting – and when it finished, I allowed myself to cry. The emotional impact of this book is immense, the way you become enmeshed and immersed in the story unusual in its intensity – and the writing is absolutely exquisite. It looks at friendship, at life’s twists and turns and the way they often disappoint and fail to live up to their promise, at betrayal and its impacts – and explores the emotional responses of its characters with a depth and absolute truth that’s enthralling to experience.

The book’s construction is unusual. I was on the verge of saying “challenging”, but it really isn’t – despite the fact that the story is told from the perspectives of its three main characters and dips, in a way that seems almost random, into other events in earlier timeframes that shaped them and provide insight into their relationships with each other. And it’s wrong of me to call the three women at the heart of this story “characters”, because they’re so much more than that – these are women you know, presenting you with truths that are familiar, evoking feelings and memories half forgotten and too often ignored. I’ve always wondered about “luminous prose”, not sure of its meaning – but for this book, I can’t think of a better description.

But no book can be a success on feelings alone – there’s a compelling narrative too. On the surface, it’s the story of three women – Hannah, Cate and Lisa – their friendship, their hopes and expectations, their relationships, the obstacles life throws (sometimes of their own making), their choices right and wrong, the futures they imagine and the realities they encounter. Beneath the surface, there’s so much more – the feminist themes, the desire for and reality of motherhood, the passion and the disappointment, the complexity of their feelings towards each other, the elusiveness of their dreams.

There are times when I doubt my ability to write a review that captures my feelings when I encounter a book this wonderful – I’ve done my best, but above all I’d urge everyone to read it. Totally unforgettable, absolutely stunning – and, without question, one of my books of the year.

I knew from the opening quote that it was going to be special. As the first chapter unfolded I had that book tingle, you know the one I mean, when you know that this book in your hand is going to be incredible. Expectation gave me all the tingles!

What surprised me was how much this book made me think about my life. After reading it I reflected upon friendships past, the friendships I hold dear to me, my rocks, all the amazing women constantly by my side whom I am lucky enough to call friends and my mother and grandmother who forged the way for me to think, learn, and be whomever I wished to be.

Expectation is a love song to women, to the friendships we have, relationships we build, the people we are and the children we raise. It's about those late night panics over not living your life to it's full potential, the fears that your children won't be well rounded human beings and the fear that while you lay around in your twenties, time slowly ebbing away in a haze of parties, drinking and living, your thirties quickly come along and you wake up one morning and think "what the fuck have I been doing, where has my life gone?"

The story follows three friends - Lissa, Hannah and Cate, all of whom are at pivotal points in their lives. Each chapter begins with a flashback to a particular point in the friendship groups lives, whether that be a wedding, an english lesson in high school or an afternoon spent in their shared house. The remainder of the chapter being from the perspective of each of the girls, addressing the here and now.

Cate, is a new mother, trying to juggle the postnatal fog with some semblance of normality, Hannah desperate for a baby, is undergoing another round of IVF, her relationship with her husband already strained and Lissa, an actress who is barely making enough to pay her rent each month. This book is full of life, love, happiness, heartbreak and sadness, there is no murder, no big revelation, no twist, it's simply a beautifully woven story of strong, independent women who are trying to make sense of the expectation that they have upon themselves and those which others have thrust upon them.

I have heard the term heart-wrenching banded around before when describing a book and have rarely felt that is justified, however Anna Hope's depiction of Hannah's struggle to conceive is utterly heartbreaking. I could feel every ounce of her pain while reading her journey, it was stifling and comsuming. Once again Lissa's journey with her mother, Sarah (who I really enjoyed reading about), realising that their relationship wasn't as she perceived and how the role of mother and daughter was reversed in the latter chapters, was poignant and handled sensitively.

What I loved about the writing was that it was real. Hannah, Cate and Lissa had flaws and made mistakes, not for the purpose of a storyline or aspect of plot, but because in real life, people are fluid, imperfect and at the mercy of others around them. I could relate to Hannah's feelings of going back home to her parents in Manchester, her feeling shame for belittling their lives, their choices. I found myself thrown back into my own postnatal fog when reading Cate's story, her feelings following her first child, feeling bone tired, confused, and that no one is on your side.

There was so much that I took from this book; Anna Hope deftly weaves feminism, fertility, the question of having children, infidelity and activism into the threads without the narrative feeling clunky or confused. It works seamlessly, thus creating the rich characters with whom I fell very much in love with.

I read Expectation in two days and I loved it, everything about this book spoke to my soul. It's absolutely stunning; a powerful, raw and honest depiction of friendship. I really didnt want to say goodbye to this one, I don't often reread but I know that this is one that I am going to return to. It's in my top five reads of 2019 and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

On the premise of the book I requested Expectation. I started it with great ... expectation. However, apart from the start when the friends were young, I found the three were stereotypes and therefore held no surprises.With some many books competing for my attention, I'm afraid I abandoned the story in favour for one that kept my interest.

I really liked the premise of this book when I read the synopsis, but sadly it did not live up to its promise. The observational writing style makes it difficult to feel empathy for any of the characters, and I kept having to remind myself which was which, even halfway into the book. It wasn't clear what was motivating the behaviour of the characters. Unfortunately, not a satisfying read.

I knew this book would be amazing based solely on the blurb. Twenty-something females who aren't where they thought they'd be? Where they feel they should be? Now that's something I can relate to, and I think many others can too. Perhaps that's why this book struck a chord with me, and why I enjoyed it so much.

Out of the three narratives, each viewpoint character had good things in their lives, and also bad. They all had flaws, as we all do, (although I like to think that I am perhaps less self-centered and a better friend than all three…!), and as I was reading, I was trying to figure out whose life I'd rather have. Then I realised I'd fallen down the exact same trap that the narrators themselves had fallen down; comparing and contrasting one’s own life with that of others, based only on one’s perception of them, and not on the reality. We all know we shouldn't do it, yet we all do. It’s impossible not to, especially now, during the ‘social media age’. Even the title of this book weighs heavily. Expectations of how things should be are ever present, and they diminish what we do have, thus make us more unhappy.

The narrative style often read more as a ‘play by play’ which worked well, and I found myself engrossed in it, despite the lengthy descriptions. It’s strange that I felt so close to the point of view characters, as my past experience of similar narration styles has left me feeling detached from them. I found myself eager to read on, and finished it in a matter of days.

Completely different to any book I've read, and I will be recommending it to everyone!

The blurb for the book attracted me as its about three women who have known each other since they met in their 20's. Then fast forward to when they are in their early 40's. This is currently where I am in my life so thought it would resonate with me.

I'm sad to say that I just didn't enjoy the book as much as I had hoped. I didn't find any of the characters likeable, the subjects were quite hard hitting and dreary, not one of them had any positive experiences in their life. I just couldn't get into it at all and found it hard going to keep reading to the end.

This just wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy in exchange for a honest review

Thank you to Net Gallery for the opportunity to read this book.

I actually finished it a few days before writing this review as I needed time to digest the story.

The story focuses on 3 women, Lissa, Cate and Hannah and their journey from children to women with the main focus of the story being their circumstances in 2010. Lissa is a struggling actress with a trying relationship with her mum. Cate in a new wife and mum who is struggling with the adjustments that that brings. Hannah is married and going through IVF.

I'm not normally a fan of the flashback style of writing because I struggle to follow who's who etc but this was so well written and the 3 women have such different back stories that it was easy to keep up.

The writing is absolutely sublime (unlike mine here as I can't express how beautifully this book is written!) and reached right into my heart and have it a good squeeze. By the end I was a snotty blubbering mess and it's taken me a few days to recover. This has been my book of 2019 so far and I'll be honest I can't imagine anything beating it!.

My thanks to Netgalley and to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

Anna Hope has been an author to follow, for me, since I read 'Wake'. This is a very different novel in feel and in time frame but with a similar framework of the lives of three women. This time they are modern, professional women, friends since teen age or university times and living very different, modern, relate able lives. I don't want to spoil the plot, which has several unexpected twists of focus and event. I'll just say that I read it with great pleasure, although not quickly as it needs to be read carefully. An excellent, thoughtful writer with a lot to say about how women live their lives in the 21st Century.

This is a beautifully written story about the lives of three women: Hannah ,Cate and Lissa that starts off slowly but draws you in if you persevere. Set over a period of 10 years when the three friends have left university and are starting out on their adult lives ,this is a story of female friendship with all it’s ups and downs . Chapters set in the past help us to understand the present day complications of the women’s friendship .
Each of them has not lived up to their own expectations of life so far ,all are struggling with that and also with the expectation placed on them by others in their lives. Great characterisation ,lovely writing ,I read it fairly quickly.

What a lovely book. I had never heard of Anna Hope before I was sent this book for review but I will definitely be seeking out her books in the future. Expectation is a ride through the lives of Lissa, Cate and Hannah as they progress through school, university, family, love and children. Told from the perspective of each of the girls in turn, it shows how two people (or three!) can see the same situation differently, and how you can sometimes end up doing awful things to the people you love, when you are blinded by passion and jealousy.

Hannah is a shorty something desperate to start a family with her lovely husband Nathan, and they are stuck in the monthly cycle of programmed sex and failed IVF. Cate is living in Canterbury with Sam, a talented chef, after a whirlwind romance resulted in a pregnancy. She pines after a lost love..... Lissa is a flighty strong willed actress - desperate to 'make it' but not sure if she is good enough.

I didn't realise when I picked up this book that parts of it would be set in my home county and I recognised some of the descriptions of places like Whitstable and Canterbury Cathedral - the book made me want to go back and retrace my steps, and appreciate where I come from.

Unusually, I cried when I was finishing this book, and I'm still not sure whether it was because of the beautiful last chapter, or because I had come to the end and could never experience it for the first time again. A beautiful story!

5* adored this book! Full review to come.

I received an advanced copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review