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, Expectation, published in 2019, was called ‘devastatingly perceptive and emotionally wise’ by The Guardian. It is being adapted for the screen by Clemence Poesy and Haut et Court films in Paris. 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. I’m conflicted about this book. Mostly, I enjoyed reading it – the focus on female friendships was great, the story lines were all interesting and felt realistic. I enjoyed the setting, the dialogue, and the prose is occasionally really lovely... With “fresh and honest” (Jojo Moyes) prose, Queenie is a remarkably relatable exploration of what it means to be a modern woman searching for meaning in today’s world.” - Queenie 4. After I Do - Taylor Jenkins Reid

Expectation by Anna Hope - Culturefly Book Review: Expectation by Anna Hope - Culturefly

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. 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.The three women in this book are all very complicated and complex. I found them to be utterly riveting. They’re all morally grey which makes them feel more real and raw. Sometimes they make decisions that others may find irritating, but to me that makes they more dynamic. I am a big Marian Keyes fan, and earlier this year, I devoured four of her books within a month, and they’re pretty big! I think Marian is an expert in creating complex characters that you can’t help but root for, and she does this well in Rachel’s Holiday. Rachel is a prime example of this, as she is flawed in many ways, yet I adored her. I think this novel is an excellent example of the issues many of us suffer from, not the substance abuse itself, but everything in Rachel’s sense of identity and priorities. Rachel’s journey is touching and difficult, and it reminds us to keep going and keep improving. An intimate, bracingly intelligent debut novel about a millennial Irish expat who becomes entangled in a love triangle with a male banker and a female lawyer Sometimes they feel they should worry even more about these things, but at this moment in their lives they are happy, and so they do not”.

Expectation by Anna Hope | Goodreads Expectation by Anna Hope | Goodreads

In this, Anna Hope has nailed the essence of the book and the essence of these women. She has gathered the experience of women, the expectation on them to do it all, have it all and with each of her protagonists the weight of expectation has them truly believing that they have somehow failed. However, the outside would casually remark that they do have it all-the house, the job, the freedom, the child, the ability to try or give up on IVF, all this is a luxury fought for by our feminist forerunners. 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. The first is Hannah. Her friends envy her successful London life, complete with a well-paying job and a husband. However, as she desperately struggles for a baby through a succession of failed IVF treatments, she is far from content. Enter Cate, Hannah’s childhood best friend. Despite having exactly what her friend wants, motherhood has left her feeling desolate and disillusioned. It has led to sleep deprivation, a move to Canterbury away from her friends, and ever-growing distance between herself and husband Sam. Finally, Lissa completes the trio, Hannah’s friend from university. She is a single actress who once had high hopes for her career, that have sadly whittled away with age. This book does get compared to Sally Rooney’s books (Conversations with Friends and Normal People). I’m a big Sally Rooney fan and there is merit to that comparison. The writing style, tone, and pacing are similar in a way. I'm so bored. I'm reading this book and realising that I'm not paying attention anymore. I just dont care for the characters, they're constantly complaining and rather uninteresting. Also the time frame just keeps jumping around everywhere which confuses me and I keep forgetting who is who. They all just blend into one.The year is 2004 and they are living in a three-story Victorian townhouse on the edge of the best park in London fields. Nathan reached a breaking point and told Hannah that he loved her but he just couldn’t do the IVF treatments any longer. Welcome to Symptoms of Living! A place where I like to relieve myself of the barrage of thoughts and ideas filling my mind. Here I'll take a look at various topics, from books to BPD, series to self-harm, there's nothing that we can't, and shouldn't, talk about. Cate is ravaged by new motherhood: both by sleep deprivation and the weight of maternal expectation. Subjected to the interference of an overbearing mother-in-law and the relentless demands of a young baby, her relationship with her partner, Sam, is increasingly distant: “This is the pattern of their evenings. A little passive-aggressive banter and then separate computers on separate chairs.” I’ve read two other books by Anna Hope, “Wake”, and “Ballroom”.....( both WWII stories) and now “Expectation”, (contemporary women’s fiction), which explores the dynamics of women’s friendships.

Expectation - Penguin Books UK

Cate’s childhood friend, Hannah, is the deputy director of a charity and married to a university lecturer, Nathan. They live a comfortable London life and yet for all her external successes, Hannah is desperately unhappy because of her inability to conceive despite repeated rounds of IVF. Hope explores what it means to be female in the 21st century What do you do, when you find the perfect family, and it's not yours? A charming, funny and irresistible novel about families, friendship and tiny little white lies. Hope makes a successful crossover from literary fiction (she previously published two WWI-set novels, Wake and The Ballroom) into commercial women’s fiction. This story of three best friends and their struggles to find lasting relationships and purpose spans several decades but focuses on 2010, when Cate, Hannah and Lissa are 35. Cate lives in Canterbury with her husband Sam, a chef. She’s a new mum to Tom and is feeling adrift and overwhelmed. In London, Hannah and her academic husband Nathan have been trying to have a baby via IVF for years and are considering giving up, though Hannah is still desperate to become a mother. Lissa is an underemployed actress who finally gets a good role in a Chekhov play but can’t seem to get her personal life together. It doesn’t help that her mum Sarah, an aloof painter, makes her feel guilty for not living up to the feminist legacy that Sarah and her generation left through their activism at Greenham Common: “We fought for you to be extraordinary. We changed the world for you and what have you done with it?”

Well.You've had everything.The fruits of our labour.The fruits of our activism. Good God we got out there and we have changed the world for you.For our daughters.And what have you done with it?''

Expectation: The most razor-sharp and heartbreaking novel of

Beautifully observed study of female friendship and a moving account of the collision between aspiration and reality' DAILY MAIL MUST-READ First off, this novel is a slow burn. The book starts off on the slow side and then gradually gets more and more interesting as it progresses. You’ve had everything. The fruits of our labor. The fruits of our activism. Good god, we got out there and we changed the world for you. For our daughters. And what have you done with it?”The linoleum is peeling and the carpets are stained, but these things don’t matter when a house is so loved. 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. The most razor-sharp and heartbreaking novel of the year, EXPECTATION is a novel about finding your way: as a mother, a daughter, a wife, a rebel. Consequently, much of this novel read like a passive accounting of already much told experiences of clichéd characters I was minimally engaged with or invested in.