This is a fun read with several laugh out loud moments. It is like an elevated teenage drama, but with soccer moms and scandals.

Audiobook Narrator was a good choice to bring this story to life.

Big thanks to Net Galley, Annie Cathryn, and Dreamscape Media for the opportunity to review this audiobook production.

This book is everything a 30 something mom has thought. It's tough. Its funny. It's sad. It's fucking rough. But it's amazing. It's not ane easy read as an anxiety mom. But it was an experience.

Great listen (or read). This is certainly not your calm quiet suburb where all the moms lovingly help each other and they teach their children kindness and good behaviors by teaching by their behaviors and actions and hoping they’ll mirror them. These are mean girls turned mean grown women. And by mean, I mean awful, gossipy, truly awful nasty, snarky, lying jealous women. They’re all a bunch of horrible high school girls with more money and cars. Fallon is trying to live her life, keep the wheels on the rail, get to the soccer game on time, fulfill her dream of opening a chocolate shop and mostly just trying to get through the day without disappointing herself, anyone else or have any major faux pas. An enormous feat and one that seems harder and harder each and every day. The writing is fabulous and this is a total escape. Fallon is fabulous. She isn’t trying to be anything other than who she is. Human, fallible, resilient, a good friend, mom and partner. When it all hits the fan, she tries to figure things out, and pivots to make the best of her life that she can when all the people she thought were her friends turn their snarky backs on her. It’s emotional, funny, witty, smart, well written, relatable and a thoroughly enjoyable book. This is the authors debut and now I anxiously await what comes next.

The title of this book had me excited to read it. Stories about friendship can be quite rare, but those about friendship ruptures are nearly nonexistent. That very well may be the reason I wound up rather disappointed by this book. Rather than being able to to focus in on why the friendship came to an end, I was distracted by repeated mentions of whether or not the women in the story had children. I can acknowledge that not every story is written for me, but as a woman there is so much more to us than whether or not we have kids and I wish this story hadn't contradicted that.

I did appreciate that the main character experienced good growth throughout though.

2.5 stars rounded down.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape media for the opportunity to read and review.

Having been ghosted by friends and feeling the pain of it all. This hit home for me. This was true to life and also entertaining.

When it comes to books about motherhood, this is a must-read. As moms, we’ve all experiences the highs and lows of making new mom friends, but this story looks at what happens when friendships run their course.

Do you fight to keep the friendship alive or send it on its way? Well, Fallon is not letting them go so easily and her attempts to win back her friends are hysterical, but also poignant. This book about friendship had me examining my own relationships.

The Friendship Breakup is a story about a mom being ghosted by her mom friends.

Fallon's friends ghost her, rather than have a difficult and uncomfortable conversation about changes to their own relationships. We see the ripple effect of having one friend cut her out of the group, and how that impacts her other relationships as well as those of her daughter's and Fallon's navigation of the situation.

I think anyone that has been through a similar ghosting by a close friend will come into this book with expectations about the pain that ensues from from a friend breakup, and I actually thought this book was a bit more shallow than I expected. It was interesting that other reviewers thought it would be more lighthearted, but everything is subjective! The treatment of the subject made the book not too difficult or painful to read, but I don't know that it adequately presented the aftermath of this type of ghosting.

Enjoyable audio narration.

Thank you to @netgalley and @alcovepress for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to @dreamscape_media for a free download of the audiobook.

Synopsis:
Fallon Monroe, mother of one, self-help book junkie, and budding chocolatier, has always relied on her mom friends in the Chicago suburbs to get her through the trials of adulthood. So, when her bestie Beatrice inexplicably starts ghosting her and takes all their mutual friends with her, Fallon’s left wondering how everything went so wrong. Pushing down a lifetime of insecurities, Fallon doubles down and decides to win them back. First, she hosts an epic Mexican fiesta that goes epically wrong. Then she joins a friendship app but discovers a disturbing secret about one of her new friends.

Thoughts:
I loved the emphasis on friendships and the roles they play in a woman’s life as she gets older. The characters are complex, and I enjoyed seeing Fallon grow over the course of the book. I was expecting this book to be a little more lighthearted. Some of the storyline felt forced, but not enough that kept me from enjoying the overall story.

4 stars

#books #bookishlife #booklover #readingisfun #iowabookstagrammers #iowabookstagram #netgalley #alcovepress #dreamscapemedia #ltbreaderteam #thefriendshipbreakup #anniecathryn

This was a compelling mom-com women's fiction story perfect for fans of authors like Camille Pagan and Kelly Harms. Highly relatable, especially in this age of increased isolation and loneliness. The author does such a good job illustrating how difficult it can be to maintain old female friendships and begin new ones (especially for moms!). Great on audio narrated by Brenda Scott Wlazlo (a new to me narrator). Many thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape media for an early audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

What a stunning debut novel by Annie Cathryn! It hits you right between the eyes with real life mama drama that any mother is faced with at any point in their lives as you try to navigate friendships with your mom groups.

I had an immediate connection with Fallon and can feel her pain and confusion that arises from her friend group ghosting her. She is left on the sidelines as the rest of the group plans spa days, lunches, and get togethers that they love to flaunt on social media. Most of us have dealt with a friendship or a group of friends that have suddenly turned on you. You are faced with the unknown of what happened, being left on the outside looking in. A hole being ripped open and dread settling heavily upon yourself, as you come to terms with the adult mean girls.

I found so much joy in reading this book. The descriptions and details that go into Fallon's chocolate making will leave you reaching for a bonbon or a truffle. Friends will come and go, but true friends will always be around no matter what.

I always feel bad rating a book low, especially when it's a debut! I don't want to hurt the author's feelings!! But I am so sorry I really did not like this. I've been on the wrong end of a friendship breakup before and it hurts! I was ready for this to be a meaningful self exploration, with some breakthroughs and maybe even sad. Instead I found it to be unrelatable, cringey, full of privilege and lacking really any depth at all.

We have our main character Fallon, a mom and wife whose best friend seemingly randomly started to ignore her out of the blue. She spends the book trying to "win her back" and ends up losing and gaining more friends in the process.

The thing that probably killed it the most for me was the main character. Fallon is incredibly vapid, a terrible communicator, and constantly compares herself to the other moms in the story. There's a scene where she literally starts keeping score about how good of a friend she is being ("one point for using her name, two points for asking about her") like what kind of psychopathic behavior? I also really failed to understand why she was so DESPERATE to be friends with people who clearly could not care less about her....but she was also a pretty terrible person! Multiple times Fallon says things like "I guess I never thought about how they might feel" and makes other remarks that indicate she really is COMPLETELY BLIND to anyone's problems except her own.

But enough about Fallon. The rest of the characters are also Not Great! The mom friends she's clutching on to for dear life are pretty awful, purposely excluding her from events without telling her why, sabotaging her business, even going so far as to turn their kids against her kid. It was really nasty, high school behavior. Again and again I was wondering why she was so desperate to get them to like her. They clearly do not like you!

The other big big issue I had was the utter lack of communication going on in this book. I swear if anyone in this story could communicate AT ALL this book would be 10 pages long. It was SO ANNOYING how Fallon could have solved almost any of her issues by just...talking to her friends and asking them what was wrong instead of throwing lavish parties to try and impress them? Talking to her husband about his feelings? Literally giving one ounce of care or attention to anyone but herself at any time, ever???

I'm just ranting now but I really, really did not like this book. Even if I didn't dislike so much of what was happening here, there's enough people out there who already pit moms against each other and paint women as being horrible to each other in real life that I just don't care to see more of it in fiction.
Sorry!

The Friendship Breakup by Annie Cathryn is a book that most of us will be able to relate to. Fallon has been able to count on her good friend, Beatrice, for years. All of a sudden Beatrice is leaving Fallon out of planned group activities and won't return her messages. Fallon has no idea what has caused this but she really misses her friend and the connection they had. I listened to the audiobook and really enjoyed the narration. Read and enjoy!

A fantastic and so true story about adult friendship. These woman are so true in so many ways and yet do they really need each other?

This was an enjoyable debut novel from Annie Cathryn. I was very intrigued by the synopsis, as it wasn't like so many other books that I have read lately. Strong start, satisfactory ending with all the loose ends wrapped up neatly, but I found the book redundant after the first few chapters. It was just one friendship crisis after another!! The redundancy didn't take away from my enjoyment of the audiobook and the narration was well done!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a digital advanced copy!!

I'm really not sure who I would consider a target audience for this book would be, but it was not me unfortunately. As a mom of a small child who works part time, I should have related a little bit more to the MC but I felt like she had the maturity of a 16-year-old and while some of the reasons for her insecurities were mentioned it still was not enough for me to have much sympathy or connection to the character. This book read like a very long, sad diary but without the voice of a grown adult. I think this was another case of the narrator not doing the story any justice in the audio version. I don't read much chick lit but I need some humor and redeeming characters in the genre, and I didn't have any of that with this one. I think the poor posture of the character of the cover of the book just got me to a bad start with it. I understand that this is a debut novel so I would consider another book by the author down the line. After much poor communication and angst, I thought this tied up a bit too nicely at the end. Thank you to dreamscape media and Netgalley for my audio arc.
2.5 rounded up.

Having a toxic friendship or a fizzled out friendship is so hard. I love that this book normalizes that not all friendships are meant to last forever. And that is okay. Simple read, great narrator.

I was excited for this one because friendship breakups happen all the time and it can be a lot to deal with. Unfortunately, I didn't like this book. This just felt like suburban white lady problems and kept getting on my nerves. All her friends seemed pretty trash so it was just like pleeeease just walk away. By the ending there was some depth and character growth, but overall, this just felt too superficial for me to truly connect with.

bell hooks said that, "deep, abiding friendships are the place where many women know lasting love.” This is true. Which is why it is also true that a breakup of a friendship can be as devastating as a breakup in a romantic relationship. Understandably, I was expecting a lot of depth in this novel about a woman who is being ghosted by her mommy friends and is trying to figure out why. Unfortunately, the book didn't live up to my expectations. For starters, many of the Mc's (Fallon's) concerns are #WhitePeopleProblems and it took me a while to see things from this character's perspective. Secondly, the book hinges on the mystery of why Fallon's friends are ghosting her, but I really could not get myself to care because it became clear pretty soon that these friends are not very nice people at all, especially from their treatment of another friend of Fallon's who is a woman of colour and a single mother. Third, Fallon hosts a Mexican fiesta, to connect with her friends which has an actual Hispanic person working to serve and clean, and that whole bit felt very cringey to me. Fourth, Fallon's therapist seems to send her a message that focussing on her marriage may be a better use of her time than focussing on her friendships, and this was something that disappointed me, because it's the message that society feeds women anyway. Granted, those friends did deserve to be left behind and forgotten, but Fallon has two other wonderful female friends - both women of colour, who do so much for her, as well as a new friend she makes who refuses to give up on her. I wish the therapist had asked her to focus on those relationships instead. That said, the author does emphasize how important and beautiful these other friendships are. And the therapy sessions are where Fallon has some major breakthroughs and where I as a reader felt more drawn into the story. Fallon is also an adoptee, so the book also deals with that as a theme; as also the struggles of mothers who try to balance work and home.
I also liked the message that the author is trying to give — that not all friendships are equal, and that it's better to end some friendships, because they start to actively harm us instead of help us, while holding on to those friendships that nurture us and grow with us.
On the whole, while I appreciate the attempt the author has made to tackle such an important issue, the book wasn't for me.
I received an ARC copy of this audiobook from the publisher via Netgalley.
This review has been shared on Goodreads and The StoryGraph as well as on my private Instagram and Facebook accounts.

I DNF-ed this around 30% unfortunately. Nothing was wrong with it especially, I just lost interest and don't think it is for me. I was looking for a forced-proximity trope and though this fits the bill, I just wasn't able to get into it. I may revisit it in the future, but for now its an 'eh' for me.

Thank you @netgalley and @dreamscape_media for this #gifted audiobook.
The subject matter of this book is one that hits really close to home. It really showcases the difficulty of being a Mom who doesn't have a "tribe" and when you start to feel ostracized from your group of friends.
It was a bit of an emotionally difficult read for me, because I really related to the feelings.
I didn't like Fallons friends that she was working so hard to get back with. They were very catty, and it made me consider if being lonely is really worse than having "bad" friends.
I loved that Fallon put so much effort into her friendships. I won't spoiled the ending, but I think it was pretty cathartic.
1 recommend this book if you are looking for a deep, emotional read about the ups and downs of adult friendships.