You must keep hold of your friendships, Lissa. The women. They’re the only thing that till save you in the end.” 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. 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...

Expectation | Anna Hope | Review | Swirl and Thread Expectation | Anna Hope | Review | Swirl and Thread

They worry about the guy who sits begging outside the liquor store, you only ever ask for a twenty pence. The three friends meet in the mid 90's , Lissa and Hannah at a course called Feminisms,and Cate who joins their group , sleeping on Hannah's sofa when she has nowhere else to go. Dabei fällt das Lesen nicht immer leicht, es ist mitunter sehr schmerzhaft und auch zuweilen fast unangenehm, Hannah, Cate und Lissa auf ihren sich immer wieder kreuzenden Wegen zu begleiten. Die Geschichte ist wie ein Sog, aus dem man sich nur schwer befreien kann - ich konnte mich vor allem gedanklich lange nicht mehr von den drei Freundinnen losreißen. Zusätzlich wird der Roman auf ganz großartige Weise in prägnante Schauplätze (London, Canterbury) und das jeweilige (feministische) Zeitgeschehen eingebettet - inklusive einiger wirklich hinreißender Nebencharaktere, die mein Herz gewinnen konnten.

4. After I Do - Taylor Jenkins Reid

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? The year is 2004 and they are living in a three-story Victorian townhouse on the edge of the best park in London fields.

Anna Hope

Der Originaltitel von "Was wir sind" lautet "Expectation" - und nichts könnte besser zu diesem Roman passen! Es geht nämlich genau darum: Um die Erwartungen, die wir selbst, unsere Partner*innen, unsere Freund*innen, unsere Mitmenschen, die Gesellschaft an uns stellen. Wir sind umgeben von Erwartungshaltungen, manche erfüllen wir, anderen werden wir nicht gerecht und können das auch gar nicht. Anna Hopes Roman, übersetzt von Eva Bonné, greift dieses Erwartungs-Motiv auf ganz eindringliche Weise auf, sie lässt uns Lesende ihren drei Protagonistinnen sehr, sehr nahe kommen und schafft Figuren, mit denen wir uns auf ganz unterschiedliche Weisen identifizieren können. 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.

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The fast lane is much too slow for Rachel Walsh. And Manhattan is the perfect place for a young Irish female to overdo everything. But Rachel's love of a good time is about to land her in the emergency room. It will also cost her a job and the boyfriend she adores. Through each of these characters, Hope explores what it means to be female in the 21st century and the various causes of our thwarted expectations. At one point Lissa’s fiercely independent mother asks her daughter: “You’ve had everything. The fruits of our labour. The fruits of our activism…. And what have you done with it?” It is a question that permeates the novel – the question about what level of freedom feminism has brought – as each character struggles with regrets and rivalries. 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. They worry about the future, about their children, about the world they will inherit, a world that seems so fractured and fast and even more splintered”. Yes, there's bugger all between thirty and fifty, not just in Chekhov, but in everything else. Perhaps in life. Perhaps this is it - Womanhood. The Wasteland Years."

Expectation by Anna Hope review – intelligent and humane

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 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.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. It is a beautifully resonant novel that grips your heart,I think it will take many re-readings to entirely grasp the enormity of what Anna Hope is saying whilst feeling that the women , with their individual paths, will echo with the female reader more acutely at different stages of their lives.

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

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 Beautifully observed study of female friendship and a moving account of the collision between aspiration and reality' DAILY MAIL MUST-READ 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 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. So this novel is a bit of a bold choice as the characters are already leaving their twenties. But this will be a recurring theme on this list, as I think a lot of the lessons of our twenties are learned too late, so by reading their reflections, you can aim to learn the same lessons a little sooner.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.