The Group, the debut novel by Lara Feigel is set in modern day London, features a group of female friends who met at University twenty years earlier and is an examination of friendship, motherhood, marriage, sex, sexuality, relationships, Me Too, mental health, feminism and everything in between. The women, Priss, Kay, Helena, Polly and our narrator Stella are all in their late thirties/early forties, middle-class and are all at a tipping point in their lives.

It’s brilliantly written and uses a very unusual style. Our narrator is Stella and she tells us about her friends, dropping in small morsels of their history, of how they interlink, their closeness and their secrets. It’s really well done, so much so that until there was a reference to herself, I forgot Stella was even narrating. It really works as it allows us to both get closer to the group and understand them fully whilst keeping us just far enough removed that there is mystery and a desire to know more.

This book really resonated with me. I too am in my late thirties, and although I don’t live in London, am possibly not quite as middle class as these women and sadly don’t work in publishing like some of the characters in the book I found that there were enormous swathes of the book which I could identify with.

It is an intelligent examination of women and their different facets. In the group of five three are mothers, one is trying to be a mother and the fifth is undecided about having children. It seems reductive to say “three are mothers”, as in their own ways all five women are mothers; to each other, to partners, to siblings and to parents. Quite often I read books where women are almost put in two camps, those with children and those who are child free and the grey area in between isn’t examined, or if it is it is clumsy and oftentimes insulting. In this book, the three women with children are experiencing different versions of motherhood. Lara Feigel lays bare the difficulties, the highs and the lows and isn’t afraid to write about how much of a woman’s identity is tied up in and lost by motherhood.

She also explores what it is like to be a woman in her late thirties and not have children when your peers do. My ecopy of The Group is littered with highlighted sections which perfectly encapsulate what it feels like, especially when it comes to your time being seen as being less valuable, one line in particular stood out to me,

Polly is the only one who’s not busy with procreation or children, so she is apparently the one who has time to care.

There is also a wonderful examination of the isolation, loneliness and the feeling of being “left behind in ordinariness by a woman who has been chosen by the gods to enter a magical realm” which I thought was perfectly pitched.

I think I am really drawn to books like this. It made me think and made me reflect, especially when it comes to the nature of female friendships. The Group is a snapshot of life for these five women in a time when their lives are in a state of flux. The friendship between women is a complex and intricate thing, and when women have been friends for this long it is susceptible to ebbs and flows. This isn’t a saccharine sweet portrayal of female friendships, in fact it as times brutal and difficult to read and feels incredibly honest and real.

I have barely scratched the surface of the themes explored in The Group. It is one of those books which provokes thought and may mean different things to different readers depending upon their life experiences. It is based on a book of the same name written by Mary McCarthy in 1963 and set in the 1930s in America. I am intrigued and I’m going to hunt a copy out as I’d love to read and compare the themes addressed in both novels.

If smart, insightful novels about modern life are your thing then The Group could be for you. It is insightful, relevant and current and days after reading it I keep thinking about it. Recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley and The Publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like this book, but I found it irritating. I found the characters unlikable and stereotyping of white middle class women. It tried to address too many moral issues and was too judgy in trying not to be judgemental.

Well written and nice to see a book about this age group of woman, but I couldn't connect with it, so was left disappointed.

The Group centres around exploring the lives of five friends (Stella, Priss, Polly, Kay, and Helena) as they approach their fortieth birthdays.Unfortunately I just couldn't get into it at all

Stella, Priss, Helena, Polly and Kay were flat mates from university and are still friends as they approach their forties. Over the years they’ve married, had affairs (some with another’s husband!), had children and generally lived.

And that’s about all I can say about The Group. Sadly, I finished the book and realised that I couldn’t think of any real plot or message in the story. Yes, they’ve all had their issues, but it was all a little bland. There were no exciting developments, no trauma, nothing to make it come alive.

The other problem I struggled with, was that the whole book was ‘narrated’ by Stella. Most of the time this wasn’t really an issue, just occasionally confusing. However I found it quite disturbing when it came to discussing the sexual antics or thoughts of the other characters. This just didn’t sit right with me.

Sadly The Group is not a book I would recommend.

I was fortunate to receive a copy of this book to read from NetGalley.

Unfortunately I just couldn't get into it at all. I understand this is the author's first fiction writing. The characters were very hard to like and connect with and just having the one narrator for all the friends felt a bit odd. I felt the book was trying to cover too many current topics for the sake of it, rather than being relevant to the story.

I'm sorry to say this is a very rare DNF for me, at 30%.

I really wanted to enjoy this book as the synopsis suggested it was right up my street being a woman of the same age group however a quarter in and I was struggling. The story is told using a mix of first and third person narration using 5 main characters which I found too much and too confusing. I just didn't warm to any of the characters either as they all seemed very unlikeable women.
I did finish the book but found it hard going.

Thanks Netgalley for this EArc

I found this book really difficult to get into - I felt that the plot meanders a bit. It was well written but maybe just not one for me.

Reminiscent of Erica Jong, this is an intimate portrayal of women's lives, motherhood, marriage and friendship. Stella narrates her life and those of her four University friends as they enter their 40's. She longs for the time when life seemed so simple. Newly single, and Mum to two young children, she is trying to navigate her way through a new relationship, a new group dynamic and the secret that she's hiding from one of her friends. As each friend is trying to deal with their own uncertainties and confusion, their group seems fractured and fraught with tension. Searingly honest about the demands on women's lives, their disdain for men, but also their need for them, this is a book that women everywhere will identify with. It normalises the frustration and fears that all mothers deal with on a daily basis. It also deals with the issues of sexual harassment and assault that more and more women are prepared to talk about, and does not attempt to polarise this subject as an either/or, easily navigated subject, but rather shows all sides of the argument.

I really loved the pace of this book, the intimate glimpse into the lives of each character and though the truths were at times hard to read, they are reflective of the reality of life at this time. When Kay runs away from her life and says 'How absurd it is ever to think you're doing more than slipping, slipping and just about holding your balance before you slip again,' I really identified with that sentiment.

A book that will draw you in to the lives of these five women, I can't recommend it enough to any woman who thinks she's alone in her struggle.

The blurb of this book was very appealing, but unfortunately, the experience wasn't that great. The writing style was a bit jarring with the first and third person together. The plot and characters weren't that interesting.
So, I'm afraid it wasn't for me.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publishers for this copy.

The synopsis of this book suggested that this was a book for me, for my time of life, for women like me. How wrong could I have been? I couldn't relate to the characters, no matter how hard I tried.

I found the style rather vacuous and there was no connection to the characters. The book seemed to concentrate on that which, to me seemed unimportant and unlikely - is everyone really having affairs? - yet leaving untouched some of the more important current matters, such as women's rights, #metoo and the like.

I've more than a little in common with those experiencing issues around motherhood and fertility, but even here I found the words lacking in emotion and depth. There was so much that could have been said and done, but perhaps an idea ran away with the author and morphed into something unintended. I ended the book feeling that the author really didn't understand the characters and, as a result, nor did I.

Not one for me, I'm afraid.

With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

I really wanted to like this book as its extremely well crafted, but it just wasn't gripping enough with the story line..
The characters just didn't appeal to me and they were not so different that they could have become interesting as an insight into how others live

I wanted to like this book. From the synopsis it sounded so relatable. I am nearing 40 and a female living in the world portrayed in the book....whoever on reading this book I have never felt so disconnected to a group of characters.

I think it really doesn’t help that the whole book is voiced by Stella, even when it is talking about another one of the group. This made is dispassionate and I felt a real lack of emotion.

The discussion should have felt relevant, with views on #metoo, women’s rights etc, however it felt like the issues were disregarded as irrelevant.

The assumption that affairs were a mainstream part of most people’s lives I found (maybe naively) bizarre.

I didn’t bond with any of the characters. I felt the parts about motherhood and fertility were in places thought provoking but in others again they were emotionless.

Overall I found the book depressing.

I feel absolutely terrible rating this book with 2 ⭐⭐ but I seriously lost the will. I wanted to enjoy it so much as the premise sounds great but it just went nowhere. The book was narrated by Stella, one of the ladies in the group, who is going through a divorce and raising two young children. While I usually love multiple POV, I found this book hard to connect with because the chapters about Stella's friends were not narrated by her friends but by her and thus they felt very cold and detached.

The only part I did enjoy was the discussions centering around the harassment cases because Fiegal touched on the idea that not all accusations are honest and true. While I understand and support the Me Too movement, we know that there are a minority of women who do lie and I think it was bold and brave of Fiegal to explore this.

Initially I was excited as I felt the book would cover the complexities of female friendship, the dynamics within the group, how you are close to different women within your group at different times etc and while all all these things were covered, I don't think they were covered well. There was a plot twist which could have been huge but it wasn't really explored much at all. I started to think about how the characters developed but I don't think they did develop that much at all. I wanted to DNF it on a number of occasions but couldn't bring myself to do it as I just have this obsession with seeing books through till the end in the hope that it will come together for me.

As I write this review I am wondering three things:
1) Was Stella's narration cold and detached on purpose? Was that supposed to be a reflection on how these women feel about life and perhaps each other?
2) Did their characters not develop on purpose? Was the point of that to show that people don't really change?
3) Have I missed the point of this book entirely?


Thank you @netgalley for this arc.

I thought I would enjoy reading this, the story sounded interesting, the characters are similar ages to myself so I thought that there would be something in it to relate with at least one of the characters but unfortunately not. I didn’t like any of the characters and felt the story was very sombre but maybe this was the authors intention.

I’m really sorry but this book just wasn’t for me and I hate to say it but I didn’t finish it. I found the style of writing a challenge, feeling the need to keep scrolling back to see who was who. For me it just didn’t have any flow.

Lara Feigel is not new to writing having penned a few non-fiction books but this is her debut in fiction and I wish her every success with this.

Please remember reading is subjective and like the saying goes “You may not be everybody’s cup of tea but you’re somebody’s shot of whisky” .. hopefully this book finds it’s whisky drinkers.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC

The blurb sounded promising but I just couldn’t get into it and couldn’t get used to the writing style. The mix of the first and third person narration, sometimes in the same paragraph, was confusing and not much was happening. I gave up at 20%. This one wasn’t for me.

It’s always interesting to discover new authors and this debut caught my attention with a premise that sounded appealing and promising. Following the lives of five middle class women approaching their forties, this is an intelligent exploration of their friendships within the group, the dynamics of the group and how they are affected by their sexual relationships with either husbands, partners or lovers, their careers and motherhood.
If I’m totally honest I struggled with the writing style, switching between the five women, Stella, Helena, Priss, Polly and Kay but it came across as if it’s just Stella narrating which I didn’t like. To me it felt very cold and clinical, almost devoid of any emotion and I think I would apply that observation to both the writing style and the characters. What a bunch of unlikeable women they are!! I couldn’t understand why they were still trying to keep these friendships alive since they all seem to have issues with one another making ‘the group’ pointless and unsustainable. Why not move on? Having an affair with one of the group’s husbands with apparently no guilt I found quite shocking although another individual in the group conducting a relationship with a married work colleague I found less eyebrow raising.
Sex is the overriding theme of this novel and the male contingent are equally deplorable characters with questionable moral standards. I think the language of sex and sexual relationships is so different today with younger generations viewing this whole subject from a more serious and enlightened perspective which I think these women are grappling with. There are serious questions raised about the subject of monogamy and whether any of us can really expect a lifetime of fidelity. The strand in this novel featuring Vince, a man accused of inappropriate behaviour towards a number of women is in recognition of the #metoo movement which of course is another important subject to explore and if nothing else, this is all thought provoking matter. Unfortunately for me these women who seem to be suffering all kinds of personal crises are portrayed as incredibly self indulgent, introspective and narcissistic individuals. I felt burdened by the weight of their problems which in turn induced an apathy within me towards events that were happening in their lives and overall found the whole tone of the novel gloomy, depressing and dispassionate.
Perhaps my least favourite character is Kay who abandons her young children in search of solitude and reappraisal. Quoting this line sums up her character perfectly and perhaps is a reflection on how some women feel??
“The only way I can return to my life is if I accept we’re all terrible people most of the time. Cruel and selfish. All of us, our husbands, our children.” I do sympathise with her to a certain extent in terms of “the endlessness of everyone depending on you to be responsible.” That probably strikes a chord with most women and certainly considering Kay’s own circumstances married to Harald I could understand her need to escape and re-evaluate. “Why would anyone choose a life with too much in it instead of a life where we can do nothing?” is yet another quote from Kay, lamenting her current situation and can be read as either terribly introspective and selfish or a statement that is brave and honest.
On some level I could appreciate all that was being said here and I wanted to be able at some point to say I was enjoying the reading experience which is why I continued to persevere. Sometimes even if you don’t warm to or like the characters, they still have an important message to convey. Is this the case with The Group? I honestly don’t know what to think because there came a point at which I’d almost switched off, knowing that on this occasion unfortunately this book simply wasn’t to my taste. I totally agree it is an intelligent piece of writing but I don’t think it’s funny as some reviewers have said. I’ve grappled with the underlying messages and accepted that perhaps my decision to discover another new author just didn’t pay off this time. I wish the author all the best with her debut and as always my thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read. I’ve awarded this 2.5 stars.

Lara Fiegel’s The Group is clearly an homage to Mary McCarthy’s twentieth-century classic of the same name. While McCarthy’s novel follows the intimate lives and friendship of eight women who met as students in the ‘30s, Fiegal’s debut is about five friends, each approaching forty, who also met at university. Over the nine months her novel spans, several friendships will be stretched to the limits as betrayals are revealed, marriages are tested and new relationships formed, all of it examined and discussed by these women who sometimes wonder how much they know or even like each other each other but whose lives are irrevocably bound up together.

Stella is the driver of the story, imagining and interpreting her friends’ behaviour while exploring themes of gender roles, motherhood, marriage, friendship and desire. Humming away in the background is the #MeToo issue with Stella’s boss’ sexual activities alleged to be not quite as consensual as she had believed. There’s a great deal of analysis - both of themselves and of each other - much discussion of the behaviour of men and lots of sex, echoing McCarthy’s novel regarded as scandalous when it was published in 1963. At first, I found my patience stretched by these privileged women, so caught up in themselves, but I began to find it quite addictive. Worth reading as a witty snapshot of a particular section of society that I was glad to put behind me once I’d finished the book.

A group of friends are on the precipice of turning 40 and managing their children, examining their marriages, and working out what they want for the future.

A quote: "It's something about this phase of life, when we confront the knowledge that there can be no more practising, that this is the only run we have at it."

Stella, recently divorced, is the main voice in the book, narrating everyone's stories, even scenes she is not there for. It's a strange, rather distancing technique. The writing is very good but you always feel one step removed.

Certain parts are rather quotable. I also liked:

"If it's likely that a marriage is going to end, and if divorce becomes harder for children the older they are, then why not end the marriage when they're in the womb."

However it's a very white, privileged group of characters (the narrator even admits it: "we'd look almost identical to most onlookers in our wealth, our privilege, our freedom of choice"), and though reading does show their differences, there's almost not enough of them to hold the reader's interest.

I found myself accidentally skimming at times, because I just didn't feel enough for the women or their myriad plights. I'm in the exact right age group to fall for this novel, but it didn't quite happen for me.

The author can certainly write and there are some great ideas here, but it's a challenging book to get to the end of.

I rarely quote so much in a review but I'll leave myself with these two thoughts:

"We have so much power between us, if we can take ourselves seriously, with our grief and rage and love and desire."

"I'd have done so much more with my life if I hadn't felt embarrassed."

Food for thought, at least, for this 40-something.

A group of women have been friends since living together whilst at university. They are now older, with partners, children, careers and are taking stock of their lives.
The novel observed the realities of motherhood, draws out observations about who does what in the family home, there is also look at the abuse of sexual power with the #MeToo era..
I have to say that I personally didn’t like this book, I couldn’t empathise with the characters although they were skilfully drawn on the page, I found the women irritating and was annoyed by their whinging attitudes even while admiring the authors craft. The blurb promoted a ‘very funny’ book and I must have had a sense of humour transplant because I failed to find the humour in its pages.A well written book but not one for me.
Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for an arc in exchange for my honest review

Before I started reading The Group, I was more than a bit wary of the fact that it has about a 2.65 rating on Goodreads. And I can see why it wouldn't be to a lot of people's tastes, but personally I enjoyed it - probably all the more for having such low expectations!

The Group takes its inspiration from the seminal novel by Mary McCarthy, which I haven't actually read, and focuses on a group of five white middle-class women in their forties, who live in London. I can absolutely see why people are a bit bored of reading stories of such privilege, especially seeing as the novel dives into problems that are very much on the axis of 'repressed femininity'. The Group actually reminded me a bit of Rachel Cusk's Outline trilogy, both because of the characters and the detached, psychologically astute way of writing, but also because you are very aware of the artificiality of the novel whilst reading it. Whereas Rachel Cusk takes as her format a series of one-sided revelatory conversations with strangers, Lara Feigel uses Stella, a single mother and commissioning editor at an independent publishing house, to ostensibly 'see' inside her friends' minds. There's Polly, a single doctor; Kay, who always wanted to write but never did, and who puts up with her cheating husband; Helena, a bisexual documentary maker who is desperate for a child; and Priss, a stay-at-home mum who feels very dissatisfied with her horizons.

I found this to be a very quick read: Lara Feigel is definitely a talented writer, with that ability to delve deep into people's neuroses. That's something I always enjoy in a book, and hints at an interior life for the characters way beyond the limitations of the book, but this book is too self-aware for me to properly connect with it, enough to feel anything more than admiration. I enjoyed it, but it's not a new favourite. 4 🌟