Four women who have been friends since their schooldays are now in their forties and feeling discontented with their lives. Their mounting anger at injustices dished out to women spurs them on to make a statement, quite literally as they embark on a graffiti spree in their local town. Their joint feminist rage drives each of them to face their problems and take back control of their lives.
I liked the characters in this light-hearted and very relatable book, each of them different but with an unshakeable bond of friendship down the years which really leapt out of the page.

I wanted to like this but I found it terrible dull from the first paragraph and it didn't help that the book was hard to read on kindle. It's about four women sick of their lives who decide to become graffti artists and break the law.

I would request another book by her, though.

This is not the kind of book I would normally read however this was a brilliant uplifting novel which I really enjoyed.

I loved this book and read it in one go. Four women in their 40s, friends from school and all still living in Hamilton. Lenore, recently divorces, teaches at the school they all used to attend; Susan is a librarian, Carole is a full time stay at home mother and Amy has just started her own plumbing business. They all feel undervalued and forgotten, especially by society. Led by Amy they vent their frustrations.
Well written and engaging, I really enjoyed this book.
Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the copy.

I loved all of the women in this book. Amy, Carole, Lenore and Susan are great friends, I liked the way they bounced off each other.
It is an empowering read. Fair play to the characters and their propensity for graffiti.
This was an easy and important read. I started it this morning and I’ve just finished it.
With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this book.
#GraffitiGirls #Netgalley

A novel about four forty something old school friends finding they are invisible and taken for granted. I liked the premise, however the bland opening bored me and there was little spark to retain my interest

I loved the characters of this book, they felt realised and relatable. The friendship was beautiful and offered humorous moments with true drive and rage filtered throughout.

I enjoyed this - it was a lightweight, mildly funny,, despite the issues raised. Four women who have been friends since schooldays are now around forty. Feeling invisible and having suffered various put-downs from men, they decide to fight back. Their chosen method is to spray slogans on the walls of public buildings. They call themselves the Graffiti Girls. It is not very effective and in the end, they pretty much carry on with their lives as before, with maybe a different attitude. No men are harmed in this novel.

A very funny book about women and opinions and lots of other things that they get up to in this unusual story. I enjoyed it very much. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

Graffiti Girls by Elissa Soave is a vibrant and empowering story of four women reclaiming their voices and shaking off the expectations that society has placed on them. Amy, Carole, Lenore, and Susan have been friends since school, but now, in their forties, they find themselves overlooked, undervalued, and struggling to reconcile the lives they envisioned with their current reality. Tired of being taken for granted and dismissed, they decide it’s time to take action and fight back.

Fueled by a sense of feminist rage, Amy leads the group in a campaign of graffiti, scrawling bold feminist slogans across their hometown of Hamilton. What begins as an act of rebellion soon becomes a powerful declaration of their refusal to fade into the background. The Graffiti Girls are determined to be heard, to reclaim their identities, and to ignite a revolution—one wall at a time.

Soave’s writing is engaging and fluid, capturing the complexities of life in your forties with warmth and wit. The characters are relatable and full of depth, each grappling with their challenges but united by a shared desire for change. As we follow their journey, we become invested in their friendships, their struggles, and their triumphs. The diverse range of personalities and experiences ensures that each reader will find a character they connect with, whether it’s Amy’s bold leadership or Susan’s quiet determination.

Graffiti Girls is a joyous celebration of female empowerment, friendship, and the courage to stand up for what you believe in. Soave has crafted a heartwarming and inspiring story that is as much about embracing who you are as it is about challenging the status quo. For anyone looking for a story that balances humour, heart, and a call to action, this book is a must-read.

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Light hearted read, easy going. A story about 4 women who have been friends for years. Each have their own issues with life.

The decision to air their views to the world by using graffiti is a bit radical but it makes people stop and think about women's role in society.

I enjoyed this book. Thank you Netgalley got letting me read this early.

This is a very light read about a group of 40-something women who embark on a campaign of spraying graffiti slogans when they become fed up with the every day sexism in their lives. Amy, Susan, Carol and Lenore have been friends since their school days, and all have gradually settled into imperfect lives; three of them impacted by the behaviour of husbands, sons and ex-boyfriends, and one of them, Amy, by a recent breakup with a girlfriend. Amy. the lesbian, becomes the ringleader who persuades her friends to start committing small acts of rebellion.

This isn't a bad book, but it is a lighthearted treatment of its subject matter, and it exists in a bit of a bubble. The women don't become involved in any of the many grassroots feminist groups or campaigns that are actually happening at the moment; instead, they kick back against the actions of some stereotypically bad men by making up slogans and painting them on walls, all while anxious about being caught, The vibe is more 'Calendar Girls' than 'Sheila Jeffreys'.

Set in the West of Scotland, this book could have been a lot more gritty for me. It's an enjoyable, undemanding read if you are looking for a tale of female friendship and empowerment.

Four best friends from high school, now in their forties, not entirely happy with their lot.

Lenore, teacher and reluctant divorcee. Never thin enough, never good enough. Wishes her voice could be heard, or at least listened to.

Susan, single mum to Fraser who has been raised to believe Susan is his personal slave (she is). Senior Librarian with stifled ambition, she is incensed by the unfair pay scales within the local council.

Carol, beautiful and talented, she put any dreams she had on hold to be a devoted wife to Dennis and besotted mother to four boys. In all she is the family drudge.

Amy, feisty and militant. Recently spilt from her live in girlfriend she is constantly angry, the main reason for the breakup. As a plumber she is often disregarded due to being female and this also makes her fume. A misandrist through and through, she is the activist in the group, and despite being a true and loyal friend she is sometimes a bit of a bully.

This book is something of a difficult one to review. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be funny, as there are certainly some very funny moments, but not enough to make it a theme. Then there is the ‘message’, so is the book supposed to make the reader think of women’s place in society? If the latter then it lost its way for me. Stereotypes galore, with dated ideals. A bully for a leader is never a positive thing, being released from one regime to be entrapped by another is not the way to go.

This was not the book I thought it would be from the blurb. For me it was neither one thing nor the other and quickly fizzled out. A twee if predictable ending.

Thank you NetGalley and HQ.

This book is about girlfriends who have known each other since school. They are now entering middle age and are questioning the choices they have made and the women they have become. The men in their lives get a very bad press. The women feel invisible and decide to make themselves visible by using graffiti in their home town of Hamilton. A unique idea! This book, although lighthearted, is thought provoking.and is a great tale of the power of female friendship,

Thank you to NetGalley and HQ for this ARC.

Four women in small-town Hamilton, Scotland, have been friends for thirty years. They are in their forties now and have very different lives but still meet up periodically. There is Lenore, a divorced teacher on an endless diet, Susan, a librarian and single mother to Fraser, Carole, a stay at home Mum to four kids and husband Denis, and Amy, a gay self-employed plumber who's just broken up with girlfriend Tess.

One day, after the thousandth time of being overlooked in favour of a man, being sexually harassed or just being taken for granted as a wife and mother, they've had enough and decide (well, Amy does) to spray feminist slogans onto big building fronts in the middle of town. It sets events in motion they had never thought of when they started.

This is an empowering, funny, inspiring and witty read about four women who have had enough.
I liked the flashbacks to their school times in the 90s but there is still too much description of what they look like or their weight. There is a lot about parenting in there, and I didn't agree with Fraser being so molly-coddled by his mother (a 16 year old can make his own sandwich!), plus I found some remarks about Thomas's unconventional friend Jaxx tone deaf.

I enjoyed this book a lot as it is well-written, has interesting characters and makes some very good feminist points but I happen to think that graffiti is vandalism and not feminism. It only helps the four women, there are no wider consequences in the community, and they only don't get charged with criminal damage as the PC who catches them is, in his own words, besotted with Lenore. To be fair, the book makes all these points too and explains that the money it costs to paint over graffiti is money that will not go to the community.

If they'd been four female serial killers unaliving all the bad men, now that would have been the book for me! I would have been behind them 100%, alibis at the ready. As it is, the four women do get happy endings that are almost too neat for my liking, especially with all those sudden romantic interests popping up. But it is relatable, celebrates female friendship and shows up all the ways women are still holding themselves back. Each woman learns to value herself more and to go for things she wants, and that's not a bad outcome.

To be forty and female is to be downtrodden, taken for granted, or invisible.

But Carole, Lenore, Susan and Amy have had enough.

They need to be heard.

So they choose a noticeable way to do it.

With paint. On buildings. At night.

Welcome to the Graffiti Girls.

Fabulous!

Closer to reality than fiction - 4.5*

I'm going to be honest...I didn't think I was going to like this book - but I was wrong. I consumed this book. I truly think I set a record on how fast I read this book on my Kindle. Guinness World Records, I'm here. There was something about this book that meant I couldn't stop reading it. Perhaps, it was actually seeing well-thought out 40-year-old females, who play more than a supporting role in a book and are actually complex people and just really cool characters. Maybe it was my anxious mind; I literally could not commit a crime. I would start to panic, even in the planning stages. Perhaps, it was the plot that truly hooked me in. I loved the whole setup and steps leading up to it. I enjoyed how the plot continued to develop through each character's point of view.

Now unfortunately, I've either experienced the misogyny and clear sexism in this book or I've witnessed it. I hate that this book is so relatable but I love the hopeful nature of this. That maybe things can change. Not drastic change. This book isn't a magic wand but maybe it's a start.

This is a definite must read and I can definitely see this as a future Netflix drama or Reece Witherspoon film.

I loved the cover and title of this book - it really grabbed me. It also felt unusual - in a good way - to read a book centring on middle-aged women that didn't fall into one of the more stereotypical storylines 'middle aged woman solves murders' or 'middle aged woman goes on trip to Italy and has a romance'. I also liked the setting of Hamilton in South Lanarkshire. It felt like a really original concept for a novel.

The author writes about their characters affectionately, and there are many likeable moments of humour/banter. However, I didn't identify with the friends in the book as much as I'd hoped to. It bothered me that the way the women talked included a fair bit of internalised sexism (e.g. "Not like most women our age - boobs like baked potatoes and underarms you could attach a string to and take for a spin around the park.") The graffiti they spray up often mentions men - "WOMEN ARE BETTER THAN MEN, END OF", "MEN DRINK THE HOUSEKEEPING MONEY, WOMEN STRETCH IT", "A WOMAN NEEDS A MAN LIKE A FISH NEEDS A BICYCLE" - the slogans wouldn't pass 'The Bechdel Test'.

I would have liked the story to engage more with feminism now - rather than echoing the slogans of the 1970s/1980s. There is very little mention of modern feminism, or recent feminist icons, in the book - other than a couple of references to the #MeToo movement. The story reminded me a bit of the #MeToo movement - feminism for beginners, for women who didn't have feminist mothers, who are just catching on to the idea that feminism might be needed. Kim Kardashian gets a mention, but Magdalen Berns doesn't.

There are several flashback scenes to the 1990s, and these resonated with me more than the modern-day storyline. I liked the nostalgic details (the 'Friends' duvet!). The vignette of the awful exploitative/controlling sixth-form boyfriend Alfie felt very true to life. This is a good book, and a wonderful idea, it just wasn't for me.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy.

Being on the wrong side of 40 myself I was able to empathize hugely with the four protagonists in Graffiti Girls. This is a wonderful story of friendship, hardship, feeing undervalued and put upon and I am sure so many people can understand what the author is trying to accomplish here.
Amy, Carole, Lenore and Susan have been friends since their school days and though their lives have taken different paths they still remain close to each other. They have reached the stage where they are all fed up with the way that life is treating them and the time has come for an act of rebellion and this comes in the form of making their grievances public by using graffiti as a weapon.
I laughed out loud whilst reading this book, it is beautifully crafted with very real characters and I really felt that I knew these women. Set in Hamilton in Scotland it really gives one a sense of the landscapes and people of the area. Such a good book.

Fun, heartwarming and uplifting. Packed with love, compassion and a sprinkling of feminist rage.

Friends Amy, Carole, Lenore and Susan have known each other since school. Now in their early forties, although they remain close their lives have taken different paths. They each have cause to reflect on how their lives are turning out, and feel rather short-changed.

Spurred on by acts of misogyny and the patriarchy, they decide they will not be silenced any longer, and embark on a clandestine project to make their voices heard by writing their message where it can't be ignored.

A lovely flowing writing style and a varied cast of likeable and familiar characters, whose lives and relationships we become invested in as they navigate and embrace their new place in life.