Two friends who have lived through everything together (but for one, it always seems that is the case unless something better comes along) are parting.
Fiona and Natalie have been best friends forever, but now, one of them is growing up, leaving the other behind,
Natalie struggles with the idea of her best friend finally moving out into a place with her long-time partner but tries her hardest to accept that life changes and moves on.
Fiona is excited about the next step in her life. but isn't 100% sure of what she has done.
The story revolves around the two friends navigating the time after Fiona leaves their shared flat.
Things don't go as planned, and we find one faring rather better than the other.
I enjoyed reading the book but would have loved to get to know the characters a bit deeper. A quick, easy read.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing, Lake Union, for an ARC.

This book was not for me. I could not get into it at all. I have tried a few times. For now this is the best review I can give. If I manage to read at a later date I shall amend my review.

This was a fairly good read and I read it very quickly. This book was different but funny at times. The characters were interesting. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

Ready for It is a quick, enjoyable read about the dynamics of female friendship, betrayal and envy between our main characters Natalie and Fiona. It centres on the typical sense of jealousy, feeling as though everyone else has life figured out; Natalie is envious of Fiona's stable relationship with her boyfriend and Fiona feels like she's one step behind in terms of her career prospects.
The book kicked off to a great start, it was very funny with laugh-out-loud moments. However there is very little plot and actual storyline to this book. The main conflict is very weak and the resolve is also unsatisfying.
I was, at first, delighted to see that this book was dual POV which is one of my favourite writing devices to gain both perspectives. However, within each standard-length chapter, the POV swapped at least 4/5 times on average, sometimes after only 1 short paragraph. It was too disorientating to keep switching back and forth so frequently, it would have worked better for each chapter to be dedicated to alternate characters.
I definitely think Nicola Masters' writing has considerably improved since her book Happy Happy Happy came out. I think if you're looking for a fast-paced book, wanting a laugh about friendships with relatable, realistic and modern female themes, this is definitely a book you'd enjoy.
3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley, Amazon Publishing UK and Nicola Masters for allowing me to read this book in return for an honest review.

Review posted to Goodreads and Amazon.

Ready For It meandered along without really going anywhere as far as I was concerned. I lost interest in it a third of the way through.

A lovely quick gentle read. It made me laugh out loud and made me tear up too. A relatable look at friendship, finding your way in the world and every day life

My experience with "Ready for it" has been slightly bittersweet.

I absolutely loved the way Masters has represented the generational anxiety and need to "grow up", to fill everybody's expectations both emotionally and career wise by making each of the best friends focused in one. I've also quite liked how the author shows different kinds of friendships and how there are no better/worse kinds, they're just different. You might need your oldest friend sometimes, or may prefer to meet or talk to your coworker.

However, there are two aspects of the novel I just can't get through. The first and most important is that basically all of the story is written down in the description for the book, the one you read before even opening the first page. Sure, there are more details, more subplots, but the key ingredients have already been spilt out. It made me feel like nothing was happening, I just wanted to get to the conflict, the "fight" for that wonderful job, and I didn't get to it until 50% or so. I think it would've been better and I wouldn't have expected to happen so soon if they didn't mention it.

Secondly, and that's more of a "me" problem, I just really disliked Fiona. I felt like she was a narcissist who had luckily come across Natalie, an introvert empath, and she had been able to do everything she wanted and everything she felt disregarding Natalie's feelings their entire life. It was frustrating and made it really hard to read. It didn't make sense to me how, after being separated due to the trip Fi took with her boyfriend, they lived together and pretty much nothing changed.

Overall, I liked "Ready for it" a lot, but those two points just made it very difficult to keep reading.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A charming and playful story about growing up, growing apart and growing together.

Fiona and Natalie are best friends. And flat mates. Until now. Fiona is moving in with her fella Tom, and everything is changing.

The distance geographically is reflected in the growing distance between the two friends. Tensions only increase when they both go for the same job, and Natalie gets it (deservedly).

Add in a viral video, a disgruntled boyfriend, and one too many kids puking up their ice cream at her job, and Fiona has had enough.

A decision she makes causes a lot of upset for her best friend and for her partner. But it's only in almost losing them that she realises just how much they matter.

Told in dual POV, the chapters are short and punchy. It's a fairly quick read and whilst I didn't overly connect with any of the characters, or become emotionally invested, I still enjoyed this sweet, sassy book.

I found Ready for It to be an OK read. I was looking forward to it from the description but it unfortunately just did not live up to my expectations. I found it slightly predictable and it just wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC.

Decided to DNF at 28%, it just wasn't what I was expecting. The plot was practically non-existent, the conflict wasn't enough to hold my interest, and the constant switching between Natalie and Fiona's POVs were confusing and annoying,

NatalIe and Fiona have been best friends since s hool sharing everything, even a sharing a flat together. Then Fiona's boyfriend, Matt, wants her to move in with him and it seems that their friendship is changing.
Told alternatively by Natalie and Fiona, a tale of relationships.
Worth a read.

Enjoyable read with best friends at war with each other. The characters have flaws and the plot is full of food and baking and lovely scenery.

This book was a beautiful picture of friendship between women. It poignantly portrayed the highs and struggles of friendship in a way that was readable and emotional.

Before I jump onto this book review, let me ask you a question. Do you keep new year reading resolutions? If yes, what’s your reading resolution for this new year?

Now, I’m not one to keep any sorts of resolutions for new year’s, let alone a reading one, because I know I won’t be able to keep up with everything I want to ideally do in my life within just a year. But this year, I’ve made some resolutions, and yes, even reading resolutions.

So, here’s two of them: One, I will read as many books as possible. So far, so good. Two, I’ll DNF books that are not worth getting finished.

I’ve noticed that I have this very weird habit of dragging and forcing myself to finish books that I don’t want to finish because they’re not worth it, just so I can say that I’ve read another book and be one book closer to reaching my Goodreads reading challenge of the year…which, spoiler alert, I never win, anyway.
It got me thinking that if I focus on books that I actually wanna finish because they are just THAT GOOD, I would actually pace myself through it and finish it in time, which will give me sufficient time to read another book that I would actually want to finish. And that made me decide that if I don’t find a book interesting even after reaching 70% mark, then it’s to mark it DNF and move on.

And that’s what I did with this book. I DNF’d it.

Why? Let’s see.

Ready for it is about friendship feud and blood gone bad, as Taylor Swift likes to call it. It’s about two best friends, Natalie and Fiona. Natalie who has her work life together and Fiona whose love life is all set to go. The grass is always greener on the other side, and so, the two besties are almost on the verge of throwing themselves at any opportunity that gives them the luck to live the other ones life for a moment. It all starts with Fiona moving out of her apartment with Natalie so she can finally live-in with her high school sweetheart which pushes Natalie to look for either another flatmate or a new job opportunity just so she can pay the rent on time. When she finds out about the new job offer, turns out she’s not the only one who is applying for it, but her very own best friend Fiona is too.

Now, let me start by telling you that I absolutely love the friends-to-enemies trope (and the reverse) because this trope is so realistic. True love has nothing on forever friendships for being hard to find, especially nowadays in the world of leaving people on read, and stood up and sending memes to each other to stay in touch instead of actually talking to them. Friendships are honestly just as fictional as fictional men today, honest. So, when I saw that this book is about the struggles of friendship, I was like yes, sign me up.

The book starts out good. It was really, really good in the beginning. Fiona was just moving out and Natalie was wondering how she’ll ever pay the rent. The tension was there and the stakes were high. Then a job opportunity comes up. The two besties apply for the same role. One of them gets it, one of them doesn’t. I was loving the tension and the underlying internal struggle that was threatening to burst and hurt their friendship. BUT THEN. A fight happened, which I had expected but what I had not expected was for it to get resolved so quickly.
And then, it didn’t just resolve very quickly, something else happened (which I won’t spoil) that was totally unnecessary and didn’t support the storyline or advance the plot in anyway whatsoever, and that was it. I was done with the book at 80% because the tension was gone, the stakes had gone crickets and the fights just did not make any sense anymore, and they weren’t even funny either. So, I gave up.

I just personally feel that if that thing that I don’t want to spoil had not have happened, the book would have been much better and I would have actually finished it. It was like the author kind of derailed from the original plot and started writing something else entirely.

Also, the characters were not carved out properly. They felt like cardboard cliches and two dimensional. Many a times when the point of view was switched from one pov to the other, I wouldn’t even realize it because the two sounded so similar. The characters would have sounded better if they had distinct character voice, given their situations and different mentality.

All in all I would like to give this book a 2.5 out of 5 stars. The original plot was good and the writing was great too but the poorly written characters and the lack of tension later in the book ruined the book for me.
I would also like to thank Netgalley, the author and the publishers who gave me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest opinion.

If I’m not mistaken official release date for this book is on Valentine’s Day (in 2 days!!!), but it would have been even better for Galantine’s day, the day before (as in: tomorrow), as this book explores female friendship at its best and worst. I don’t often read this kind of book (what kind exactly? This is not romance, this is too light-hearted to be classified as a psychological novel…) but I quite enjoyed it.

Fiona and Natalie have been BFFs since forever… and now they’re in their mid-20s and their lives are entering another stage. Fiona works in an ice cream parlor on the coast of Cornwall, Natalie has a boring admin job. Fiona moves out of their shared flat to live with her boyfriend and Natalie feels a bit abandoned and stressed out (to find a flatmate to pay the rent). But Natalie soon gets a chance to apply to her dream job, until she discovers that Fiona has applied too. On the other hand, Fiona starts to question her life choices but tries to hide her doubts with a brave face.

The book is told alternatively by both young women, and as misunderstandings compound we see how a perfectly minor mistake or a wrong choice of words can resonate and take gigantic proportions. Some of these seemed so very British to me, as a direct and frank discussion may have deescalated the situation much earlier than polite chit-chat and self-deprecatory humor. As I have the advantage of being quite older, I had a sort of motherly empathy for the young women. I remembered how exciting this period of life is, when people start to get serious in their career, when relationships turn into something possibly serious, when the studying carefree life morphs into adulthood with responsibility. I was never in that situation with my friends, so I could only imagine the situation. If those young women had older female mentors in their lives, they might have resolved some of their problems due to immaturity or naivety or selfishness… But did I have an older female mentor at that age? Of course not!

I had some difficulty to be on Team Fiona as much as on Team Natalie, who is a lot more likeable. At times it was hard to fathom how those two would be best friends because their characters and aspirations are very different, but it can happen with childhood friends. The book passes the Bechdel test with flying colors. Some events seemed a little predictable, but I really enjoyed the rush of conflicting, eventually heart-warming emotions and I would be quite interested to read another book by this writer.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book for review consideration.

This was an excellent example of the ups and downs of a longtime friendship. When you know someone for most of your life and spend a lot of time with them, everything is not always going to be peachy. If the friendship is strong enough, however, you can overcome those hard times that occasionally arise. Natalie and Fiona have a friendship that is more like a sisterhood and I loved reading about it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to rate and review an ARC of this book.

Ready for it follows Natalie and Fiona as they move through some big life changes - Natalie gets a new job and Fiona moves in with her boyfriend. It alternates from their POVs, and they have a big blow up on a ngihtout, which ends in some one filming it and it going viral.

Honeslty as the story progressed I was left wondering where the plotline was going. I think this was meant to be a commentary on female friendships and supporting your friends through their life changes but honestly I just thought both characters were quite unlikeable and if Fiona was my friend and ditched our plans to go travelling with someone else... she wouldn't have been moving back in with me when she returned!!

A middle of the road one for me.
Thank you for the chance to read this ARC.

I loved this; honestly, as someone in my mid twenties, edging closer to thirty every year, I thought this was an excellent portrayal of the challenges that come when friendship dynamics change and previously entwined people move towards different milestones/goals. Masters did an excellent job at highlighting the instability of your late twenties - the pressure to have your life together and to fit in, the self-critical inner monologues when you don’t, and the impact this can have on your friendships when you’re all trying to pretend that everything’s okay. The writing style was effortless to follow and engage with, and made for a really cosy, snappy read.

I love that this was an alternating POV book, and because of this I never felt I was routing for one or the other of the MCs. Fiona and Natalie were both experiencing their own heartbreaks and successes, and I felt for them both. I felt that even the “side” characters were given enough personality that you got at the very least a vague understanding of their backstories and feelings.

This was a solid 3.5 stars for me; I’d definitely recommend this book for anyone who wants a quick, easy read exploring the complexities of friendships in your late 20s.

I have been on a big buzz of reading books about two female friends recently and this book did not disappoint.

I find them fascinating, the dynamics and social politics of relying on one other person as your social anchor. You cannot expect one person to meet all of your needs, it puts too much pressure on the relationship and sometimes turns it toxic.

I loved watching Natalie and Fiona's relationship change over time. When Fiona moves in with her boyfriend, both women start examining their friendship and lives through different lenses. It is so refreshing to see female friendships explored in this way.

It’s lovely that female friendships are being explored more. It’s very hard to capture conversations with realism, specially when they’re the sort of regular conversation you have with a friend-about things that are banal to anyone but yourself. This book pulls that off with an incredible lightness of touch, and is not pretentious at all. Natalie and Fiona have been best friends since school, and now their lives are at a bit of a watershed moment-Fiona’s moving out of their shared flat to live with her boyfriend, Natalie’s thinking of a career change. Things also really aren’t the same, and Masters chronicles all the resentments, some unfair and some not, that can build up over a decade-long friendship and how hard it can be to actually talk things over and resolve them. Masters gets a lot of little nuances absolutely perfectly-for instance, Natalie always feels obliged to narrate her Tinder misadventures as funny stories to Fiona, who’s in a long term relationship, and sometimes Natalie just doesn’t want to be the punchline of a joke-navigating the minefield of dating can be hard, even if you can look back on it with laughter, and that’s not really something you would want to do all the time. On the other hand, she also doesn’t want Fiona’s pity as the pathetic single friend who’s stuck in a rut, because that’s obviously not all that her life is about. There are very well-etched scenes:I loved the sort-of possessiveness Fiona and Natalie feel when either of them show that there are things they share with other people, that’s so real! It’s also one of the few books that’s quite real about the economic situation about the protagonists-a gap year might sound really fun, but it can potentially affect your career prospects, making your monthly rent can be difficult by yourself, interviewing for a new job can be terrifying and you could be paralysed by imposter syndrome. A lot of novels on similar themes seem to completely ignore real life considerations like these-probably reflecting the authors’ unbelievably privileged backgrounds. THIs one, however, felt deeply relatable. Masters also engages with what it means to go viral in a thoroughly nuanced way-it’s both a big, and not a big deal, and I don’t want to say anymore about how she resolves it, please read the book to find out! Ditch your overrated and over hyped Patricia Lockwood, Sally Rooney and Meg Mason novels that are supposedly about modern womanhood, and pick up this one instead. Super fun, poignant and written with a tight control over plot and dialogue. I want to read the author’s first novel as well, and will definitely read all her next ones.