Hannah, Cate and Lissa are three young friends in their twenties. Hannah and Cate have known each other since school, and Hannah met Lissa when they were both at university in Manchester - while Cate successfully made it to Oxford.
They now live together in an elegant, crumbling, Victorian house on the edge of London Fields, in East London.
The friends' lives are full of parties, fun, art and romance and they see themselves as activists - worrying about the future of the world. They are young and full of promise. Their lives lay open before them.
Ten years later, none of them are where they hoped to be in life.
Hannah seems to have the perfect marriage, job and lifestyle, but she is desperate to conceive a child, and IVF has not been the answer she thought it would be. Lissa's acting career has never quite taken off and is now on a downward spiral. Cate finds herself living in Kent with a husband and baby - she is exhausted and not sure if she has made the right choices.
Each of them yearns for something that one of their friends has - something they think would make their lives perfect.
*********************************************************************************
I was really looking forward to reading this book, as it has had excellent reviews and there has been a lot of buzz about it.
It is interesting to think back to all the expectations you had of your own life when you were as young as Hannah, Cate and Lissa. What would your young self think about where you are now?
The young women in this story are not happy with where the find themselves ten years later. They are all trying to negotiate the twists and turns life has thrown at them: trying to work out their places in the world. This is not where they saw their lives heading.
This story is well written and full of emotion. It covers the highs and lows of friendship over the years, though I have to say there are some pretty low 'lows', and I am not sure these are all that representative of female friendships in general - at least I hope not!
Hannah is consumed with the need to become a mother and the misery of her failed IVF treatments is all too palpable. Luckily, I cannot claim to know how this feels, as I have never been through this ordeal, but I can certainly empathise with the position she finds herself in. Hannah needs her friends to be there for her, but finds it difficult to get across how she is really feeling, especially since Cate already has the baby she longs for.
Cate is struggling with marriage and motherhood. she has married quickly and is not sure whether she has made the right choice. She loves her young son, but is clearly suffering with post-natal depression. She also needs her friends, but she has been persuaded to move away from London - away from her friends. Can she really rely on them anyway - how much would they understand about the pressures of new motherhood - especially since Hannah is so desperate for a child?
Lissa seems to have grown away from both Hannah and Cate. Her life has little in common with either of her old friends. She has chosen not to become a mother herself and has struggled to find a partner she can rely on. What can they understand about her own frustrations with her 'going nowhere' career and the difficult relationship she has with her mother?
I enjoyed reading this book and certainly had no trouble racing through the pages, but I confess that I am a bit disappointed with it. I think the main problem was that I did not really care for Hannah, Cate or Lissa.
Sadly, they come across as three young women who have not been able to live up to the expectations they have placed on themselves - rather than those placed on them by society. This makes them come across as rather selfish women who are miserable because they cannot have it all. Their friendship does not seem to be helping them through the rough patches, and they seem to be jealous of each other instead.
This is a shame, because Hannah and Cate at least have genuine reasons to be be finding their lives difficult. Sadly, Lissa just seems miserable because she has not made it as an actress - as far as I am concerned this does not give her licence to want her friend's husband (whether or not she knew them first).
They spend so much time focusing on what they don't have, that they can't seem to appreciate what they actually do have and everyone around them is a casualty to their misery. This impression rather spoilt the book for me.
The ending was also a little silly. Happy families picnic time was probably a little premature after the short length of time that elapsed since a major falling out between the friends, I thought.
From reading other reviews, I can see that this book has made a big impression on a lot of readers, but it simply did not do it for me. I think I am a little old to be the target audience here, and maybe that was the problem. It would be interesting to discuss the issues thrown up by this book with someone who has a younger perspective. Perhaps I will get my daughter to read it sometime and see what she thinks?
No comments:
Post a Comment