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Expectation: The most razor-sharp and heartbreaking novel of the year

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This story chronicles around a year in their lives, and the changing dynamics between each of them. Hannah and Cate were best friends before college, and Lissa joined their group in college. Each woman has something the other wants—Lissa has freedom, Hannah has success, and Cate has a family. As time goes on, the balance of friendships continue to shift, as jealousies and arguments push them away and, sometimes, bring them closer together. I found it fascinating to read about their ever-evolving friendship and the conflicts simmering under the surface, both interpersonal and individual. The struggles that each woman is facing are so relatable and understandable. It was kind of cathartic to read—to see the passage of time and how a friendship might stretch, change, deepen, or fade. Jesus," says Hannah, laughing. It always astonishes her, the crap Lissa puts up with. "Well, if you don't get the part, you could always do a one-woman show, Directors I Have Known and Been Rejected By."

Expectation: The most razor-sharp and heartbreaking novel of

But life is complicated, and so are relationships, especially when they span decades. Time takes a toll. Little annoyances can become big over the years; resentments can fester. Few obstacles are more difficult for a friendship than when someone gets easily what someone else is struggling so hard to achieve, like Cate’s new baby and Hannah’s torturous battle to become pregnant. Both women are aware of the awkwardness of the situation, and they try to ride it out, but some things are hard to overlook. That they can’t be honest with each other about how they really feel makes proper communication impossible. It’s perhaps the most relatable aspect of this book – not everyone will have been in that exact situation, and yet everyone knows what it’s like to not be able to say what you want to a friend for fear of hurting their feelings. It isn’t fun. They work hard. They go to the theater. They go to galleries. They go to the gigs a friends’ bands. They eat in Vietnamese restaurants. They drink free beer and wine The bike everywhere all the time and rarely wear helmets. They go to the flower market everything morning on Sundays. In this sharply observed novel set in and around London, three college friends, now in their thirties, must come to terms with the gap between the lives they imagined for themselves and reality in the face of marriage, fertility struggles, and loss. In much the same way that memory and self-analysis do not follow linear trajectories, the reader must piece together the fragments of these women’s lives, to understand how their choices, their personalities, their gender and the society they inhabit have contributed to the lives they have led. Devastatingly perceptive and emotionally wise, Expectation deserves to feature on many a book prize shortlist this year.With Hannah trying to have a baby and Cate dealing with the fallout of having a baby, childless singleton Lissa is the only member of the main trio whose motivation has nothing to do with babies. In fact, she doesn't want to have a baby at all - it is revealed that she had an abortion at some point in the past, and she suspects that her own mother would have been happier without a daughter getting in the way of her goals. So it turns out that the line I quoted earlier, a line I read as sarcastic - nothing beats Hannah's pain - was in fact meant sincerely. According to this book, there really is nothing worse than being childless, and it's Lissa who deserves our pity in the end. It's Lissa who missed out, Lissa who made the wrong choice, Lissa who gets left behind while the other two holiday together in France.

Expectation by Anna Hope | Waterstones Expectation by Anna Hope | Waterstones

Expectation is a beautifully written tale about the ups and downs of female friendship. Truthful, vivid and absorbing, this is a novel which is easy to get lost in. Expectation is a novel that explores the highs and lows of friendship. There are three main characters that we follow throughout the book. The three women used to be very good friends but now, due to several reasons, they have kind of drifted apart a little bit and nothing is how it used to be when they were younger. This book surely shows what happens when people take different paths in their life and how sometimes you can lose touch with the people you felt the closest with in the past. It's something that can totally happen and I think it was truthfully described. I must say that I expected a little bit more of female friendship from this book and in the end it was not what I found. The moments when they were together kind of fell flat to me. The characters in Anna Hope’s Expectationmight identify. While none of Hope’s three woman protagonists have the eventful past of Florence Welch, they face a similar dilemma. The book opens on an urban pastoral of the three close friends living out the tail end of their youth in London Fields. When we then fast forward to 2010, there’s a definite contracting of freedom and possibility. Life has become smaller, and dominated by young dreams that have turned into obsessions. Lissa aspires to Hollywood but makes do with commercials and community theatre, Hannah wants a child but can’t conceive, Cate has been priced out of London and is living a dull suburban life in the Home Counties. In her first year of motherhood after an unplanned pregnancy, Cate is constantly exhausted, spiraling into self-doubt and postpartum anxiety. Her husband Sam seems oblivious, but maybe she’d prefer he remain in the dark. How can she admit the unthinkable—that she misses her freedom? In contrast, Hannah continues to endure round after round of unsuccessful IVF treatments. The process is taking its toll on her physically and emotionally—and, she worries, creating distance between her and her husband Nathan. She is godmother to Cate’s son, but every time they get together, it’s a trigger.A generation-defining book on motherhood, ambition and sex. Like NORMAL PEOPLE with female friendship under the microscope.' ERIN KELLY As each woman longs for what the others seemingly possess, will their bonds of friendship sustain them in this liminal phase of their lives—or will their envy and desire tear them apart?” - Expectation 2. Beautiful World, Where Are You? - Sally Rooney

Expectation by Anna Hope - Yorkshire Times Review: Expectation by Anna Hope - Yorkshire Times

I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher (Harper Perennial) in exchange for an honest review. The woman speaks about the tomb, about how it was found on her father’s land, a mile or so from where she and her family live today. About the human remains that were found there – no skeletons, only jumbled bones, thousands upon thousands of them. About the eagle talons found in amongst them. About the theory that the bodies were left out to be eaten by the birds. Like the sky burials of Tibet. How only the clean bones were saved. Beautiful and unattached, Lissa is re-evaluating what it means to be an actress in her thirties. While she fiercely resists convention, she’s lonely. A chance encounter in the British Library with Nathan has her wondering if she missed her best chance at love when she introduced him to Hannah. They worry about the guy who sits begging outside the liquor store, you only ever ask for a twenty pence. The best thing about Expectation, the debut contemporary novel from actress/writer Anna Hope, is its honesty. All too often, fiction about female friendships goes to either side of the spectrum: either the women love each other so much that they’d never dream of falling out, or they are bitchy and catty and constantly at each other’s throats. Expectation is a lot more realistic. There’s an essential love between Lissa, Cate and Hannah that underpins everything. They enjoy spending time together; they care about what happens to one another.It was hard for me to choose between Sally Rooney novels, as I am quite the fan! But even though ‘Normal People’ holds a very special place in my heart, it wasn’t the best choice for this list. Rooney’s latest novel is breathtaking, and even though the characters are edging towards the end of their twenties, I think it holds messages that any twenty-something can relate to. The novel reminds us to keep questioning, look further than ourselves, and focus on who we are within this larger context. It reminds us that things don’t always go our way, but with a good friend by your side, you’ll be okay. As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her. The story of 3 college friends, if you're a fan of Sally Rooney, you'll love EXPECTATION' IRISH EXAMINER

Expectation - Penguin Books UK

But what is it all worth - the beauty, the parties, the doomed attempts to forge a career - what is it all worth, Anna Hope seems to ask, without a baby to make your life truly complete? There's even a bit where Lissa brings up her abortion and dutifully bursts into tears, because heaven forbid that a woman terminate her pregnancy and not regret it later. I enjoyed reading Cate's segments, past and present. Whereas Hannah and Lissa live in London, Cate has recently relocated to Canterbury, so her bits are mostly separated from the rest of the narrative and feature a completely different cast of characters, including a friendly fellow mum and a truly ghastly brother-in-law. It's particularly interesting to witness the contrast between Cate's younger self and the person she is now. Cate thinks) “ why should it matter what her friends are doing? Why should her happiness be indexed to theirs? But it is.”Fast forward to 2010 and life is very, very different. The weight of societal expectations has these women caught in a loop of success, fertility and motherhood. All 3 seem lost and dissociated from who

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