What a stunning book. I really enjoyed reading this. It captures the human condition in a way that a lot of books don't do. It shows the characters as HUMAN, flaws and all, and even though you want to scream at them you can't help but sympathise with them and the limitations they deal with.

This book follows 6 University friends and their lives 20 years after graduation. The things they've succeeded at. The things they've made a mess of. I really enjoyed the writing of this. It wasn't heavily plot driven either but it was great to have a peek into the lives of the 6 friends. Some really heartbreaking things happen too. There's love and there's loss.

You should definitely grab this one!

Thanks to the publishers for the ARC.

Overall, I liked it. I would recommend it to friends or family, but perhaps only those who would enjoy that Hugh Grant style of romantic comedy. The British humour is very light and would probably go unnoticed by some, too.

Following a group of university friends in their middle age, this is a creatively crafted novel. It focusses on their life events with reflections on their past and how this has shaped their present and their future.

I found myself invested in the characters and their life stories. Recommended as a good read for a lazy afternoon.

In recent years I’ve drifted away from contemporary fiction but, there was something about the narrative of this book that pulled me towards it.

Six people, linked by their university friendship, each one living their own lives and stories, drawn back together by the engagement of one of their group, initiating a character-driven story that delves into their inter-twined lives.

Set amidst their background from meeting at a funeral to present day, this is a 21st century four weddings and a Funeral overlaid with the dark, dry wit of Fleabag, telling the story of one year in the lives of this group of friends.

With its core focus on characters rather than events, the flow of the story is paced, steady, not frantic. The story addresses loss, in more ways than one, grief, love, enduring friendship and the peaks and troughs of relationships in a frank, at times emotional way that draws you into the lives of this complex and interesting group.

Thank you Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and NetGalley for the arc of Births, Deaths and Marriages by Laura Barnett in exchange for my honest and sincere review.

this book was brilliantly done. i have my Favorited of novels and as soon as i read a book about a group of people and so character driven it goes straight to the top. when done well it swoops into my favorite kind of this genre. and this book is done so well.
i love how expertly Laura navigated each character. we are given 6 of them and you felt all of them had the pride of place throughout.
what i also love about such a cast all have importance is that you get such a scope of difference between human beings. so we can love some, not like some but most of the time in a group there is a shared knowledge even as a reader that humans are flawed. and unless they are down right evil then they can still be ultimately good people, friends, lovers,
in this book we have 6 university friends who have a breadth of shared histories together. they come together again to celebrate and engagement. but they havent been together as one group for a while so we are now going to see how that pans out. can they all reconnect? alot of living has gone on in between times. alot of different living and ups and downs. and people change so will bonds still be the same or will the changes bring upon new chances at connections like there wasnt before?
when you are young i think you want to get on with everyone. even inside your own close group you think there shouldnt be a hierarchy or is someone on the outside and you definitely never want it to be you. but over time and age you realise we are all different even within small circles. and often you can be so close to someone and not for others. or you realise you all bring your strength to the table and it really is ok not have all the strengths and its ok to have your flaws. it doesn't make you less loved or lovable. and sometimes you will be just what another person needs. and then how also when you mesh all these positives together a group can really really work.

Twenty years after first meeting at university, a group of six friends grapple with big events in their lives over the space of a year.

When I saw that Births, Deaths And Marriages by Laura Barnett was being described as a cross between Four Weddings And A Funeral and One Day I leapt at the chance to read it as both feature characters you feel a connection with, individuals you wanted to succeed, people you cared about.

In Births, Deaths And Marriages we meet our six main characters, Yas, Rachel, Zoe, Rob, Indie and Al towards the end of their second year at university in London. Having formed a bond early on in the first year, four of the group have moved in together, but the other two are at the house so often it's as if all six live together. Twenty years later and the individuals haven't moved far, with the majority still living in London. While they don't meet up as often as they would like, they have remained in contact. It is Rob's upcoming wedding that sees the group connecting more frequently.

Over the space of a year, we learn that the lives of each individual have varied greatly, some have achieved their ambitions, others have given up careers to start a family and some have found themselves doing things they had never dreamed of. At the age of twenty, they all assumed that twenty years later they'd have their lives sorted, but we discover that unexpected events get in the way. Reading the book I was reminded of the saying "Man plans and God laughs" as this really summed up the story.

Although all of the characters are personable I really didn't engage with any of them apart from Al, who came across as philosophical and easy-going. I found the career he'd ended up with, and the changes he wanted to bring about, very interesting. I found the remaining characters quite shallow and some of them were extremely self-centred. This is possibly a book that will resonate more with millennials, who may see themselves, or their circumstances, brought to life by characters they can identify with.

Four Weddings and a Funeral, through the millennial lens of Fresh Meat and Fleabag, BD&M is caustically emotional with the unlikeable yet deeply sympathetic characters of a Rooney novel, and the swooping plot of a soap opera. It's in turns heartbreaking and hopeful, replete with messiness that Barnett nobly keeps adrift with deft prose.

A tale about frienship, love, lust, joy, and sadness spanning over two decades. I could not reallyrelate to the characters, and it took mw a while to finish it.....I don't think that I am the target demographic

As a millennial, halfway between leaving university and entering my 40’s, this novel hit me like a freight train.
A hugely enjoyable read - funny, poignant, heartbreaking. The characters feel so beautifully realised, honest and fleshed out with flaws and foibles that make you want the best (or the worst) for them. Novels where the people feel like real people are often hard to come by these days, but Laura Barnett has done a sterling job - I can’t wait to read her next work!

The best way i can describe this book is like a cross between four weddings and a funeral and one day. It's packed with relatable characters, relationships that we've all genuinely experienced over the years whether it's friendship or love. Deeply enduring and moving I'd definitely recommend. Thanks to Doubleday, Laura Barnett and NetGalley for the ARC.

Six friends first meet up in UNI and drift apart to be brought together for an engagement party where they rekindle friendship and loves.
The story was very disjointed to me, I didn`t know who was talking and what year it was as it has past and present and changed all the time so very confusing.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC and I give my honest review.

I wasn’t quite sure with this one - took me a while to get in to the story , but I am so glad that I persevered.
6 friends, who met at uni, and drifted apart, but eventually got together as a group 20 years later. Each one of them had a story to tell, some good, some not so. Made me laugh out loud and also brought a tear to my eyes on more than one occasion.

One of my favourite books this year and would make a great film or tv series.

6 university friends, all gone their separate ways but have kept in touch. Births, deaths and marriages covers their lives in uni and afterwards. A really good read to curl up with, whether on holiday or a wet day. "Cold Feet" in print - but better.

Take six friends who met at university and stayed friends ever since – this is their story. They’ve shared all manner of life events, secrets, passions, desires – openly and not so openly – and while the force of their friendship has perhaps lessened, an engagement party throws them back together once more. Life hasn’t gone according to the grand plans imagined 20 years previously but they’re muddling through. When united, however, will old tensions come to the surface? Is now the time to resolve those situations from decades past? Over the next year there’ll be three significant events – but we’ll let the reader enjoy those. There’ll be a lot of head nodding as you read this, and it will bring you back to house sharing with friends and memories of being a student and feeling invincible.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House UK, and Laura Barnett for the advanced copy of Births, Deaths and Marriages in exchange for an honest review.

The biggest letdown for me was that the book was just boring. I didn't connect with any of the characters and just really did not care about any of the plotlines. I think it was well-written, but I feel as though it was meant to come across more poignant than it did. Whatever message there was supposed to be fell flat, and everything felt very surface-level.

I've seen a decent amount of positive reviews, so it is likely this just wasn't my cup of tea.

Births, Deaths and Marriages publishes 12 June 2025.

We initially meet the six main characters in this book as teenagers at university. Then again 20 years later when Rob becomes engaged. From there over 12 months several life events happen that throw the characters together again and we hear how they each experience these events. I'm afraid I really struggled with this book. I really liked what I'd read in the blurb and the front cover definitely appealed to me. However, when I started to read the book it just didn't live up to its promises for me. I found the writing very disjointed. I didn't feel I was given enough information about a character to get to know them sufficiently before I was expected to
care about what happened to them.
Not a book for me I'm afraid but I'm sure it will gel perfectly with someone else's experiences and they will love it.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy. All opinions are my own.

A new author for me. This is the story of six university friends in the year of their 40th birthdays. Told from the multiple perspectives of the six main characters, it covers births, deaths and marriages and most other events from their interlinked pasts. Character driven with an almost complete absence of plot they are easily recognisable types and situations in UK society.

Six university friends with very different lives reunite in the year of their 40th birthdays. The story moves between time periods and the points of view of the individual characters, and interweaves a tale of life, love and friendship.

At times, sad, at times amusing, but always well paced and well written. The author shows how just because a group of people end up together at university, their lives are totally different, and people move on in different ways. I really liked the mix of characters and the way the story has them all interacting.

I liked how this novel depicts friends of people that are my age as there were storylines and vibes that I could relate to.

I liked the twist on the contemporary genre as it mean there was an element of mystery in finding out what was going to happen to each character. The characters were messy, flawed and imperfect and that was interesting to read about. The book itself is a unique concept.

The book was well written and language was not overdone and it suited the genre.

There are trigger warnings for this book. But overall through it was a very honest piece of work that was executed well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday for the ARC

This is a character-driven, nuanced story that explores how closely our lives can be intertwined.

At the start of the book, we meet six old university friends, who have been thrown back together at one of their engagement parties. We quickly settle into a brief history of the group - secret passions, outright relationships and where they're at now.

From there, the book spans the course of one year, where there will be a birth, a death and a marriage - but who's?

This book is highly character-driven, flickering between characters, with sometimes multiple POVs within a chapter. This can make it at times, difficult to follow. The pacing is slow, as we follow the friends through their lives.

A very realistic portrayal of friendship, which deals with some themes of grief and loss, capturing the challenges of lifelong relationships.

If you enjoyed Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors, I think you will enjoy this.