When I read this I don’t know what I was expecting. But what I go was a book that was real, raw & made me think.
I’d heard so much about it prior and had high hopes for it and it certainly delivered on all fronts.
Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for allowing me to read this book .

Expectation was a book that really sneaked up on me. I started reading it, and discovered that I didn’t actually want to stop. It was fascinating.

It looks at the lives of three women: Hannah, Cate and Lissa, who are best friends. Hannah and Cate have known one another since childhood, and they meet Lissa at university. They all come from diverse backgrounds, and they all go on to do very different things after they graduate. We see the pressure that they all feel to succeed on their chosen paths, and the ways that they deal with both their successes and failures at home and at work.

This is a book that has stayed with me since I finished reading it a couple of weeks ago. Their life choices struck a chord of recognition in me, even though my own life is nothing like the three women. It made me think about how we all start off thinking our lives will go down one particular path, and invariably, things happen that completely change what we want.

Expectation is beautifully written, and I often lost myself completely in the story. I liked the slow burn, and the way that the book would go back to childhood or university years in order to emphasise a characters decision in the present. The ending was a real affirmation of the strength and longevity of female friendship. Just my kind of book.

Thought provoking, relatable and I couldn't put it down. Looks at the highs and lows of friendship and all the honest and genuine feelings that came come into a friendship. I found it refreshingly honest!

I picked up this book after it was recommended on the podcast The High Low and was immediately hooked. It’s based in East London, an area I’ve spent my adult life in, it’s about characters who are not where they thought they would be, a topic many people can relate to, and female friendship, something that you think of that should be simple and solid but can be so fragile.
Sadly the characters felt a bit cliche and entitled to me, too much emphasis on how different they all were, like stereotypes from a 90s film. Didn’t feel relatable but maybe becuase the characters didn’t know how to have fun!

I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I originally anticipated. It tackles some interesting concepts, including jealousy almost friends and the the notion that no one person can 'have it all'.
A solid read that will likely hit home with most women in their late twenties and early thirties.

4 Stars ****

I am in charge of the senior library and work with a group of Reading Ambassadors from 16-18 to ensure that our boarding school library is modernised and meets the need of both our senior students and staff. It has been great to have the chance to talk about these books with our seniors and discuss what they want and need on their shelves. I was drawn to his book because I thought it would be something different from the usual school library fare and draw the students in with a tempting storyline and lots to discuss.
This book was a really enjoyable read with strong characters and a real sense of time and place. I enjoyed the ways that it maintained a cracking pace that kept me turning its pages and ensured that I had much to discuss with them after finishing. It was not only a lively and enjoyable novel but had lots of contemporary themes for our book group to pick up and spend hours discussing too.
I think it's important to choose books that interest as well as challenge our students and I can see this book being very popular with students and staff alike; this will be an excellent purchase as it has everything that we look for in a great read - a tempting premise, fantastic characters and a plot that keeps you gripped until you close its final page.

A moving book about female friendships and the trials of women during different stages of their life. Very well written, hugely enjoyable. I read this in two sessions, couldn’t put it down.

I received the arc of this book from Netgally in an exchange for an honest review.

This book is a trio of friends who met in their early 20s when they used to share a lovely place and follows them through out their present time mid forties. Their friendship was strong and solid until life choices takes them to different places, making their friendship drift apart.
The story is told in different POV which I like so we learn a little of each of them. Having said that I couldn’t identify myself as any of them, or see my friends in them (my friends are definitely better people)
I got into the book thinking it was about a strong female friendship full of love and support, but it wasn’t that at all. So I was disappointed to read about yet another horrendous female friendship just reinforcing the stereotype that women can’t be good friends.
The book is well written and fast paced with just enough drama to keep you engaged. I got a bit fed up with it and let it rest for a day or two then I came back to finish it. The last 30%. felt like whole new book in a way it felt the ending was dragging for too long explaining what happen to each of them but it went out really fast. I was happy to finish it.
The sex scenes where abruptly described and for the most part I think this ladies had really bad sexual experiences.
The best part of the writing was near the end when the mother of one of them is dying of cancer.

Thought I always enjoy a fast paced read This is one annoyed me. I’d recommend this book as is well written with complex vivid characters but just be warn that this People aren’t particularly relatable.

In Expectation, we meet three women – Lissa, Hannah and Cate – who have been friends forever. In 2004 they are still living together at the age of 29, knowing that the rest of their lives are still ahead of them. When the book then jumps forward to 2010 the three friends’ lives are very different from what they were, and this is where the story really kicks in.

Cate is married and seems to be very unhappy; she has a small baby and isn’t coping well with the changes this has made to her life. Hannah, who has worked so hard on her career, is married but now desperately wants a baby, whereas Lissa just wants the acting career that she has always strived for. While Hannah is trying IVF, Lissa feels that other people can say things to her about her life that they think are harmless, and yet she can’t comment on their lives in the same way.

The book flits between the past and the present, giving snapshots of important events in each of these women’s lives. We get to see how Hannah and Lissa met, as well as how Hannah and Cate met their husbands. We also get to see the events that lead Hannah, Lissa and Cate to slowly grow apart. As their expectations of where they are in their lives do not always match their realities.

This book is an easy read, and the characters feel relatable in certain aspects. There are also some heartbreaking moments. This book focuses on finding out what you want from life, even if that isn’t the same thing as your friends, and being true to yourself when things aren’t working the way you think they should. Some boundaries are crossed as each of the friends feels betrayed by events they have no control over.

Expectation is interesting, as it not the kind of book I would usually choose to read. The characters are well rounded with their wants, desires and needs, and this is reflected in both the happy moments, as well as those that are more tragic. It is also one of those books where you don’t want to mention specifically about any given moment, as it is a tightly written book where knowing too much would spoil it for new readers.

I enjoyed this book immensely and would recommend to anyone and everyone. Perfect for fans of Sally Rooney.

This is the story of Lissa, Hannah and Cat and their friendship throughout the years. It is a tale about relationships, love, loss, betrayal, career choices and pregnancy struggles. It is somewhat understated - nothing out of the ordinary happens to our heroines, and yet there is a completeness to their story, that leaves the reader satisfied with the overall effect. Undoubtedly the author is a skilful storyteller.

Thank you to Netgalley for sending me a copy of the e-book in exchange for an impartial review.

A must for fans of Sally Rooney or Diana Evans. The narrative flowed realistically and exposed relatable, understandable characters.

Expectation follows the story of three close friends, since their childhood, through university and sharing a flat, to adulthood. First of all, I have to say that for me it was difficult to like any of the three characters, the three of them were quite self-centered and made many mistakes and questionable decisions. But at the same time, I admit that they felt like very real people, imperfect and with their problems and life complications.

The thing I found most interesting in this story was to read the dynamics between this group of friends. it was fascinating to see how they changed through time and as their lives evolved and got more complicated.

The story handled serious topics like depression, infertility, failure, cheating. It was sometimes hard to read but it was a good reminder that it is not always greener in the other side and we need to learn to appreciate what we have.

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I didn't enjoy this book despite having heard and read so many rave reviews by people whose opinions I respect.

Expectation is the story of three female friends from 2004 up to present day. I didn't like any of the characters. I recognised the characters well enough but these are the kind of people that I steer clear of. I don't want toxic people in my life and therefore, I think that's why I just didn't enjoy it.
Having said that, there were bits that caught my attention and that I enjoyed but not enough.

Expectation is a book for all of us who have turned round at some point in our lives and wondered “how the hell did I get here?”

Expectation is a nuanced examination of the lives of three women; Cate, Hannah and Lissa. At times it’s an uncomfortable experience for the reader as their relationships are dissected and the underbelly of their friendship exposed. I can certainly understand the comparisons to the writing of Sally Rooney. It has that same claustrophobic, compulsive quality that pushes you on to the end of the novel just so that you can breathe again. One of the predominant themes is motherhood in all its forms. The author captures the cyclical devastation of infertility and the dissociative fog of having a newborn with equal sensitivity and skill. Having read and enjoyed Anna Hope’s historical fiction, this contemporary novel shared many of the same qualities in terms of characterisation and seemingly effortless narrative flow, but was perhaps tighter and more focussed. I read this book in just over a day and so grateful to have recieved a copy via Netgalley.

This novel features feminism and what it means to be a woman with ambition. The novel follows a set of friends that have aged and are beginning to look back upon their lives, mostly with some regret and a lack of satisfaction - they thought that they would be more than … this.

The book explores what it feels like to be a woman in a modern-day society. The society that stresses that women must have an established career and a 'perfect' family life, which, as established in Caroline Criado Penez's recent work 'Invisible Women', is a completely unfair expectation. All of the women within this novel place too much pressure on themselves to be the perfect friend, lover, mother, etc. As the reader, we watch the women throughout their highs and lows when battling with this.

Overall, I had greater 'expectations' (see what I did there) for this book plot-wise, but I was pleasantly surprised by the issues that it brought to my attention.

Thank you to Random House UK.

Expectation strongly reminded me of Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life, beautifully written with themes of feminism, friendship, desire and hope charging the characters throughout. Quietly powerful and carefully constructed, this book is a real gem and an important read for women of all ages.

I was expecting a lot from Expectation and like the book it didn't quite meet my anticipations. It was good book but it didn't meet the rave reviews I've read elsewhere for me.

Expectation is an emotional novel about friendship and life. Three young women witness each other's triumphs and support each other through tragedy even betrayal. A raw and consuming read, characters we can identify with.

I enjoyed this book a lot and found it very readable and relatable. The characters are interesting and the relationships between them work well.