Female friendships are beautiful, complicated things, and Expectation captures that amazingly. It’s easy to read without being fluffy, and is surprisingly sad and moving at times. Really enjoyed this.

A book about life. Life for three women who came of age in the late 1990s. We follow periods of their lives mainly in the 21st century, their lives, the things that bind them - and the wedges driven between them.

Loved it - a gentle, good humoured, loving look at life.

I enjoyed this light and fluffy book, totally stole my heart. It was so entertaining to read about the lives of three friends. I liked their story, it was very approachable and smooth writing. I'd recommend it if you're looking for a nice summer read.

Thanks a lot to the publisher and NetGalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was an enjoyable enough book about three friends Cait, Lissa and Hannah and how they develop over the course of ten years. They each have to come to terms with how their life is turning out whether it is dealing with the trials of having a child or not being able to conceive or reconciling yourself to the fact that you're not going to have the career you expected. It's all very London centred and middle class and frankly, safe. Sometimes I just yearn for something a bit more gritty. But it's pleasant enough and will appeal to lots of people. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I loved this book as much as I hoped I would! I'm a bit of a dreamer and a romantic and the description of this book really appealed to me. I'm forever thinking back to my teenager years mainly because I moved away for university and lost touch with school friends. All the hopes and dreams I had as a teenager seem a lifetime ago and so this book sounded the perfect for me.
It's the first novel I've read by Anna Hope and wow what a beautiful writer she is. My favourite parts of the book were the clever observations, for example; when Hannah described the kindness exuded by her Mum and Dad and their seemingly mundane lives. I can completely relate to this sort of comfort and stability in a family. Similarly the panic felt by Cate when venturing out of the house with a new baby - particularly the meeting between Hannah and Cate where Cate has a hate hate relationship with her changing bag - so relatable!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will definitely be recommending it.

I enjoyed this book, but found it a bit too light and fluffy. It's an entertaining story of the lives of three friends, but none of them really seems real, or even particularly likeable, so it is difficult to care very much about what happens to them in the end. A good holiday read, but no more than that.

Expectation. Three girls and their stories! This was a really good read. I felt the hopes, dreams, disillusionments and betrayals. I also saw and felt the girls growing up and starting to appreciate their impact (& efforts/struggles) of their parents and their backgrounds. Loved the stories and they broke my heart a little bit. Definitely one to read

Female friendship is put to the test in this three-way narrative set over ten years. Anna Hope has brought a time-worn theme up to date: thirty-something, ex-college friends looking back over their life choices and facing the realisation that previous generations of women have had to accept - that women can't easily ‘have it all’ when the biological clock is starting to speed up.This novel is being compared to Sally Rooney's award–winning 'Normal People' but I personally found this author’s lower-key writing style more accessible and her characters smewhat more believable.

I am conflicted about this book. On the one hand it’s a well written and enjoyable read about lives in London that would be a fantasy for most. On the other, it’s a load of middle-class, faux-bohemian angst. Characters living enviable lives, wafting around massive, fairy-light bedecked homes that they’ve bought for pennies, or been gifted, and popping down to their local bougie shop for artisanal bread and olive oil, while moaning about how hard life is.
Hmmm

I am astonished at how far Anna Hope has gone since "The Ballroom" - "Expectation" is one true page-turner.

This "millennial novel" is filled with ups and downs, happiness and tragedy, love and hate, betrayal and forgiveness, spanning years and generations of female friendship. What a great book! Not unlike life itself.
Some might find it poorly structured, jumping around different times and periods, somewhat depressing perhaps. But I found it moving and hopeful, if occasionally heartbreaking. A good summer read, but so much more than that.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Anna Hope’s "Expectation".

What a book. WHAT A BOOK. Powerful. Poignant. Poetic. Not a single word out of place. A book you feel you've been waiting your whole life to read. Extraordinary...

I enjoyed the first part of this book, the opening was very interesting and set the background to the story. Once you were led into how the three lives had evolved for Hannah, Cat and Lissa it became brilliant, although typical of how life challenges affect you. these days from IVF to the very difficult life of an aspiring actress. But when we were led back into the past it became slightly tedious so I didn't enjoy those moments as much. This could have been a stand alone novel leading us through the up to date trials and tribulations of life for thirty something professionals and older.

What do women expect from their lives? For some security, others family, maybe a career, but is this what they really want, does it change over time or is it just what is expected of them by others?
Anna Hope has produced another book full of talking points and engaging characters. Although a little slow at times, this is a book to savour and enjoy at leisure.

Cate, Hannah and Lissa have been friends for years. Connected by past events and shared memories, all three are at a crossroads in their lives.
Lissa is an actress, not quite fulfilled, still seeking success, in awe and frustration with her artist mother. Hannah is successful, married but desperate for a child. Cate is a new wife and mother but feels life has over taken her and that somehow she has missed out.
Each looks at the others life and builds their own expectations and desires. Each questioning what they have and coveting what the other has.
Hope has created a portrait of friendship that houses underlining tensions and unspoken truths. Things in both the past and future seek to undermine the foundations of their friendship. There is a quiet simmering undertone of dissatisfaction and re evaluation, which drives the story along. Can these characters make the changes they need, even if it means changing the course of their lives and not fulfilling their own and others exacting expectations.

Many thanks to Anna Hope, Net Galley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers - Doubleday..
Really enjoyed this story of life and all its twists and turns. Three friends, all very different who have known each other for years, yet there is competitiveness between them when they get older, misunderstandings about their different choices, and one very bad decision. I think it's realistic in that it shows you can't know anyone completely even if you've known them for most of your life. People still do things to surprise and disappoint no matter how well you thought your knew them. Real, heartfelt friendship is a very rare thing.

This is the enjoyable story of the lives of three women, Hannah, Kate and Lissa, who live together in their twenties, and share a very exciting life in the middle of London, looking forward to fulfilling their dreams of the future, which look promising. Their lives do not follow the tracks they have been expecting and their friendship is tested in various ways. They finally weather the storms and settle down to a sort of peace and acceptance. Fourteen years later they have a get-together and reminisce about their shared past . It is the story of growing up and happens to all of us. London life is pictured very well, but the characters of the three women merge together and none of them is very memorable. I would recommend this as a light holiday read.

This is the story of three girls growing up and it tells of how they met and of their lives in various different stages, until at the end they are reunited and enjoying a catch-up picnic. Each of the girls, Hannah, Cate and Lissa, tell their own stories, remembering their carefree and exciting childhoods when everything seemed possible. They also told about their expectations, dreams and ambitions and how they went about trying to achieve the lives they so dearly hoped for. It not only details their triumphs and disappointments, but also their loves and losses and how their fortunes change and turn around, influencing their futures. Finally set back in London, they chat, reminisce and try to come to terms with what their lives have laid bare for them.
Anna Hope knows how to tell a story, as witnessed within her first two historical fiction novels which were successful and well respected. This, her third novel, marks a departure from this genre and a change to Adult Literary Fiction. I have to hold my hands up and admit I really struggled with this novel. I found it poorly structured, very depressing and also very hard work. It did pick up a little towards the end, but I didn’t like the three main characters at all. Nevertheless I’d like to thank the publisher Transworld for my copy of the novel, sourced through my membership of NetGalley and sent to me with the promise of my genuine opinions sent in an honest book review. It sounded really enticing when I read the ‘blurb’ but unfortunately I really didn’t enjoy this reading experience.

I loved this! Sally Rooney meets Holly Bourne, EXPECTATION is a perfect holiday read for 2019. It made me smile and also sob a little bit - I loved the explorations of parenthood, career expectations and complicated girl friendships.

I am a little disappointed that the book falls into the trope of endless IVF ‘and as soon as she stops trying, she gets pregnant’ as I think it would have been more developed as a narrative for Hannah to come to terms with her childlessness - and probably better for the reader, too.

In what I feel is a enormous change of direction from this author, my expectation was that this book was not going to work. Her previous two novels very much set in the historical fiction genre - this one, modern fiction. Was it going to work?

My fear was it was not -  they were unfounded and I found this a very interesting and engaging novel and at times quite uncomfortable reading.

Hannah, Cate and Lissa are friends, we see the story weave between present day and their lives now and the past where you begin to understand the past behind the present.

Brought together through different means but living a world where you have little or no responsibility, to be able to fight a cause with passion and to live the world you want to live.

Then life changes, the friendships between them change as they all deal with what is in front of them. 

Hannah - married, desperate for a baby and despondent by the fact that nothing has worked. The strain is starting to show in her marriage, especially when her friend Cate has a baby.

Cate is struggling with being a mother, stuck in Kent away from her friends and dealing with a child that she thinks she can never protect enough.

Lissa, a failed actress still trying to make it in a world where she still seeks approval from her mother who clearly made the wrong sort of impact on Lissa as a child. Still single, she envies those in stable relationships.

None of these women's expectations for being an adult resemble everything they talked and dreamed about.

Can their friendship survive such changes both small and large and can your expectations ever really be met.

I was captivated by this book as I could not see where it was going and what it was trying to do or achieve but I felt this was the intent of the author. No one can see where we are all going or where we might end up as expectations change as the world and people change around us.

A novel to read that brings great discussion about the friendships and dynamics of such in your own lives. When you have finished the book, give yourself time to digest and reflect you may well start to look at things differently and expect something else.

Perhaps it's because I live in London and felt as I was reading, that the characters portrayed were actually going about their lives down the road from me: I would not be surprised to pass Hannah and Cate picnicking on London Fields, or find myself reading a TimeOut review about Lissa performing next week at the Theatre Royal Stratford. Perhaps its because I recognise myself in the ages and stages that Anna Hope leads these three through, from college to marriage, parenthood and working out who they are (and who they want to be) within that process. Perhaps it's because Expectation is a quiet joy, written with undemonstrative simplicity akin to that of a writer like David Nicholls.: perfectly capturing the zeitgeist; the strength, beauty and struggles presented by friendship. Whatever the reason, I loved this book.