My Hot Friend

Sophie White has a loyal fan in me and so I was mega-excited for her latest contemporary fiction outing, the hilariously titled "My Hot Friend". Like her last contemporary novel, The Snag List, it's a deep dive into the inner lives of millenial women: this time, White takes a look at what it means to try and build and maintain friendships when 30 is rapidly approaching and people's lives are undergoing profound change. Throw in some razor-sharp commentary on influencing, the world of work, and mental health, and the result is a sparky, funny, clever and at times heart-wrenching book that I struggled to put down.

Like The Snag List, we have 3 narrators: Claire is a childminder who feels iced out by her pals in the WhatsApp, Joanne is a new mum whose friends have no idea what it's like to be in her position. And Lexi - well, Lexi is living the dream, hosting a podcast with her childhood bestie that's riding high at the top of the charts. Isn't she? All 3 women are feeling discintinctly off-kilter in their lives, and most importantly, like their friends have abandoned them.

All 3 are completely loveable and once I got my head around whos-who (character names in chapter headings wouldn't go amiss!!) I couldn't get enough of these girlies. Their stories come together in unexpected ways - sometimes very funny, sometimes very sad - and their friendship grows slowly over the course of the book. As the novel builds to its climax, the reader feels like they know these women, and we're rooting for them so hard. White is a gifted writer of well-rounded characters who feel deeply real, and the heroines of My Hot Friend are no exception.

I also loved the novel's excellent, biting satire of the podcast/influencing world; several lines in Lexi's chapters made me laugh out loud - shout out to trepanning, 2023's hottest new beauty treatment. The satire is less subtle than in The Snag List but it's stronger for it, and makes for a funnier, sharper read.

Finally, the meat of the book: the sections that brought My Hot Friend from a 4 to a 5 star read for me. Claire is perhaps the most relatable narrator for a reader without kids and struggling with friendships as they get older (it me).
As the chapters unfold we learn more about Claire's mental health and her bipolar diagnosis. Bipolar is an illness that's still shrouded in stigma and My Hot Friend does a fantastic job of blasting through that stigma to bring us to the heart of the illness: a young woman, struggling profoundly. I am no mental health expert but I found the discussion of Claire's bipolar to be raw, real and urgent - especially when I learned that White has the same condition. Her depcition of a manic episode is genuinely frightening to read, as is its aftermath, and there is more than a brief reminder of White's darker writing in the latter chapters. It's really dark especially for this kind of novel but it's desperately important and I can't applaud the novel enough for taking these brave steps.

Overall, My Hot Friend might just be Sophie White's best yet. It takes in so much more than I am describing here but manages to seamlessly weave everything together. A fantastic contemporary read.

A great book about female friendships.
Really enjoyed it & will recommend it to others.
Thanks for the opportunity to read and review it.

Lexi is shooting into stardom — her Podcast Your Hot Friends with her bestie is a hit, and her life is champagne and cocaine. But now she’s not sure if people actually like her, or who she presents as.

Claire is struggling with life since the incident last year left her in a psychiatric ward — and even more so now that she’s realised her messages to her friends group chat are going unanswered.

Joanne didn’t want everything to change once she’d had a baby, but they have. She doesn’t want to be the party girl she was, but now she’s just a mum and girlfriend and completely alone.

Three women, three very different lives, three people who just want friendship and love — but when they come together they’ll find that maybe they’ve got more in common than they think.

"Why are all the sad songs and sad movies about couples breaking up? Friendship breakups were far more painful and complex."

Funny, fierce and feisty — this unputdownable adventure is a whip-smart and brutally authentic look into the complexity of female friendships, and the pressures of growing into a woman in a world that never considers them good enough for their double standards.

Every character has something deeply relatable and charming about them; all of them are dazzling but far from perfect in the best of ways. They’re flawed, troubled, insecure, hurt, angry — I felt so much of my own rage and frustration at the world reflected back at me through them. Each of them have distinct voices, personalities that grow and evolve over the pages, and their own growth is what drives the story forward as we spend time getting into their lives and the little moments that the outside world doesn’t see. It’s slow moving, but leisurely and never loses its entertaining pace — watching relationships grow and break in real time, and of course some increasingly absurd adventures and antics that made my face ache from smiling.

Every relationship is complex and dynamic, showing the confusing and frustrating sides of friendships that can happen when people change or get lost. It shows how natural and crucial some friendships can be — but also how toxic. As someone who’s had to break up with friends before and whose had them just fizzle away — this hit me right in the gut.

Oh, and of course the star of the show was really Scout, the adorable teacup puppy turned honorary member of a slipknot tribute band.

It was authentically real and heartbreakingly heavy at times, but so full of light and love — a witty, relevant story that feels like a cathartic late night talk with your hot friend.

Oh this was simply superb! A wonderfully astute book about female friendship and the sometimes toxic nature of it. Add a sprinkling of well observed observations of living your life through an insta lens and the notoriety of being a fax celeb, as well as the pressure it puts on your mental health....oh I just gobbled it up! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I thought this might have been quite a fun 'fluffy' novel and didn't expect to fall quite so hard for it! There are a few plotlines that do all tie together. Lexi and Amanda are childhood friends who co-host a podcast where Amanda's brashness tends to get them in trouble with their fanbase. Claire's best friend has announced her engagement and Claire is disappointed to find out that she's not been asked to be a bridesmaid. Determined to make new friends, she meets Joanne, a new mother, while pretending the child she nannys is her own. It's brilliant the way the stories are weaved together and I actually found it quite an emotional read. It looks at the type of mental health that isn't easily treated with a walk, a bath or a meme. It's gripping, funny and one of my top picks of the year for sure.

Okay, listen up folks, I'm here to spill the tea on My Hot Friend by Sophie White. Let me start by saying this book is nothing like her previous book Where I End. I mean, it's not even in the same genre. If Where I End was a horror story about being bound by the blood knot of family, My Hot Friend is more like a rom-com - a buddy-com? - about being bound by the platonic friend zone.

“Why are all the sad songs and sad movies about couples breaking up? Friendship breakups were far more painful and complex.”

The book follows three women - Lexi the co-host of a podcast with her ride-or-die bestie, which is just about to go stratospheric, but can their friendship survive success? Joanne a new mum and the first of her friends to have a baby, but her pals keep forgetting that she's no longer available for tequila-fuelled nights out, and Claire is the nanny who's Whatsapp chat with her old school friends is ominously quiet these days, which can only mean one thing - a side group without her.

This is not the kind of book I would normally pick up, but after how wowed I was by Where I End I was excited to read more of White's work. At first, I struggled to get into it, but then, bam! Sophie White hits you with some blunt and real emotions that make you sit up and take notice and you can see the author's funny and devastating style shining through.

These women are at a point where the friendships that defined their youth are now fraught with difficulties such as distance, busy schedules, changing priorities and toxicity. How are they to navigate the relationships that have been so important to them for so long and how it is possible to move on.

There are lulls in the story, and frank discussions of mental health, but there are still moments that had me laughing out (Joanne especially) and ones that had me reflecting on my own friendships.

Thank you to Hachette Ireland for the ARC via @netgalley. This book is published 4th May for those who want a funny and blunt portrayal of navigating friendship and more in your thirties.

What a book! I have found a new author this I will be reading all her back catalogue before moving on to any of my current tbr pile that’s for sure,

Sophie White literally cannot write a bad book! I loved my hot friend, I found it relatable, heartwarming and seriously funny.

I thought the plot around Claire and mental illness was really well written.
And while being very funny in parts, the book also showed the realities of living with a mental illness. It also highlighted the sheer headfuckery that can be female friendships and the impact they have.
Sophie definitely has a particular talent for writing characters that get under your skin. (I still haven't recovered from Where I end) Amanda in particular really grated on me I fell in love with Abi's housemates and their tribute band, Slip'not 😂 and being a pretty big Slipknot fan, I really enjoyed this reference 🤣I thought all the different personalities worked really well throughout the book and the interlinking stories kept me turning the pages. Overall, A brilliant book and potentially Sophie's best yet ✨️

Sophie White has done it again! A tale of three Dublin gals with very different lives intertwined, looking at what really happens when your best friends change which planet they live on compared to your lifestyle, the heartbreak that is friendship breakups, the goings on of WhatsApp Groups and night out invites, as well as some very sensitively written mental health issues. I found myself relating to each of the three protagonists in some way, and while not all the characters are likeable 100% of the time, that’s absolutely what makes them true to the page. I laughed and cried and couldn’t put it down.

My Hot Friend by Sophie White.

If you have been reading my reviews for a while you will know I love Sophie White's writing, she makes me laugh, she always impresses me with her ability to write across genres and I love the characters she creates, she writes Irish women with such gorgeous accuracy , I can always recognise a part of her characters personality from someone I know. My Hot Friend is her latest book, published today and it is overflowing with all the things I love and have come to expect from Sophie White's books.

Three very different women find themselves in need of new friends. Lexi hosts a successful podcast with her oldest friend but their fame is threatening their friendship. Joanne has just had a baby, the first of her friends to do so and her life is suddenly very different to that of her friends. Claire has had the same group of friends for years but their whatsapp group is gone very quiet and she knows they talk without her and she's feeling lonely and excluded. Fate brings these women together as they try to manage the complexities of finding and maintaining friendships in your thirties and how hard it can be.

This was a joy. Entertaining, poignant, wise and funny; contemporary fiction at its sharpest and so gut punchingly relatable . Anyone who has felt lonely while have having a group of friends will relate, anybody who has struggled to share space with the partner they love after having a baby will relate, anyone who feels all their friends have moved on will relate, I actually can't think of anybody who won't find find something to relate to in this book. There is also razor sharp social commentary about podcasting/ influencing interlaced throughout the narrative and the book continues in this vein until the final quarter. At which point this book is elevated from a funny and a relatable read to a much more important read as we learn more about Claire and witness her mental health degenerating. The writing in the closing chapters is beautiful and informative and makes something that is usually ignored in this type of book relatable and understandable and I thought it was generous of the author to include and explore. The final chapters made my heart sore and soar and this was an immensely satisfying read. I loved these characters and I loved this book. I hope it finds itself into my people's hands this year, we all need My Hot Friend in our lives in 2023.

Absolutely loved this book so much. It’s a very real thing to write about as it is difficult maintaining woman friendships as you get older as people do change and the dynamics of friendships. And obviously no one tells you how to make friends in your 30s lol it’s difficult and I think Sophie has done a great job writing about this. I will definitely be recommending this book.

This was a bit of a slow burn for me - until the three women’s lives became intermingled, I wasn’t really feeling it but once that kicked in, I was fully invested and couldn’t wait to find out what happened. The overarching themes of mental health, the difficult of making and even maintaining friendships in your 30s and the toxicity of social media were handled so well, and those heavy topics were peppered with laugh out loud humour too. And yes, I very much cried at the ending which was just *chef’s kiss*.

My Hot Friend follows the lives of three very different women, Claire, Lexi & Joanne, who are each struggling with the ups & downs of female friendships in their thirties. Claire is struggling as she is lacking the support of her friends from the aptly named WhatsApp group, The Bitch Herd, following a recent mental health crisis. Lexi, whose life is slowly beginning to spiral out of control while so-called ride-or-die friend & podcast co-host Amanda seems oblivious. And finally, Joanne who is struggling with the life changes involved in becoming a new mother & what impact that has on her existing friendships.

The heart of the book is the relatability of its characters & indeed topics. Sophie manages to hold a mirror to female friendships & toxic relationships with astonishing accuracy. Every single reader will feel seen at some point within the pages of this book. And if you’re anything like me, maybe an uncomfortable amount 😂.

Sophie has given the reader a true & honest insight into the reality of the life of someone living with Bipolar Disorder, a mental illness which is still very much cloaked in stigma & silence. Through her depiction of manic episodes & indeed the shattering lows that come after, she left me with an encroaching palpable unease that lingered long after I finished the book.

White also shines a light on the true realities of early motherhood and isn’t afraid to show that it isn’t all cute insta friendly matching outfits and smiles.

Sophie flawlessly manages to create the perfect mix of entertaining yet informative and blends some brutally dark moments with sections which will have you in pain laughing.

Don’t let the cute cover & cheeky title fool you, this isn’t just another throwaway summer read but a beautifully charming, honest, hilarious & insightful look at female friendships, motherhood & mental health.

Read If You Like
☕Relatable characters, insightful honesty & laugh out loud moments

For Fans Of
☕The Aishling series & Louise O’Neill

Favourite Quote
☕“Why are all the sad songs and sad movies about couples breaking up? Friendship breakups were far more painful and complex.”

i ADORED THIS!!!
The book was actually longer than I anticipated. However, this is absolutely not a bad thing. I didn't feel the almost 500 pages going at all - in fact I could have read even more!
Every main character is an absolute gem and I so enjoyed reading how they realised their current surroundings weren't actually benefitting them. It was glorious to see them extract from the situations they were in to end up happy. This book is a warm hug and it made me want to drink a bottle of wine and facetime my best friends to tell them how much I love them!!!!

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book given the themes it was to deal with. The note from the author at the outset is very sensible because I think you do need to be in a particular place, mentally, to enjoy it (I have OCD and don’t think I could have enjoyed it at a time I was struggling). That being said, I think because of that many fiction books shy away from the issues which are very real and very common. The author’s own experiences have obviously informed the plot and the way the characters experience things including mental illness (I gather from the letter at the end of the book which I found very moving) and this brings a genuine-ness to the book that is difficult to get (from my experience of other books dealing with similar issues which I’ve sometimes found either overly glib, unrealistic or just lacking the other brighter moments there are even when suffering. I loved the different relationships in this book (and by this I mean friendships too, not just romantic relationships) and at times I laughed out loud. I’ve hear a lot about the book, all praising it highly, and I’ll now be adding to it, to friends who I know have struggled, to those who know I have and everyone else because there’s a lot to learn from this along with a great plot.