Kelsey Miller strikes just the right tone - neither too fluffy or too academic - in her history of the sitcom that was a major landmark of my adolescence. I especially enjoyed the bits about casting the lead roles - I had heard that Courteney Cox was originally brought in to read for Rachel, but I'd had no idea about David Schwimmer's serious theater chops or how long it took for Matthew Perry to get an audition. The book's strengths are its straightforward assessment of Friends place in the cultural landscape - the way it handles race and class, the positive depiction of a lesbian wedding as well as the outdated homophobic jokes, the necessity of addressing 9/11 on a show set in Lower Manhattan and its simultaneous role as an escape from the nonstop horrors of the news cycle. I would have liked more behind-the-scenes details from the cast - anecdotes about shooting favorite scenes and episodes are sometimes provided, but only from the producers' POV. The book is obviously written with affection for the show, but it doesn't shy away from its shortcomings, either. I know lots of of my fellow 90s kids will be interested in this one.

With “I’ll Be There for You: The One About Friends,” Kelsey Miller investigates the history of one of TV’s most beloved shows. As we learn backstage secrets, the book also examines how the show and society influenced each other. Each chapter focuses on a season of Friends, exploring events of the season. The book covers everything from Rachel’s haircut to how the cast dealt with 9/11, making for a fascinating read.

This book pulled me in from the very first page. This book is very well written and not too dense. This was not a non-fiction book that dragged or left you feeling smacked in the face with a whole load of facts. The theories are well-discussed but not for too long. Right as I was ready to move on, the narrative did.

It was very conversational in tone and the author makes great use of her voice. Surprisingly, Miller does not separate herself from the narrative. She inserts her own anecdotes and memories of the show, which are instantly relatable and add a personal angle to all this information.

Besides the author’s own experiences, I thought every theory and interview linked together so smoothly. There were so many points where I needed to stop and chew on the different ideas brought forward. It gave me a whole new perspective on the meanings and ideas behind some of my favorite episodes. As I read, I kept pulling friends aside to tell them what I had learned about. I queued up so many episodes just so I could see the concepts I saw in the essays occurring. I appreciated all of the stories about the cast and the events that went on backstage. It felt like I had a whole new understanding of how this show came to be.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. With the holidays coming up, I am already taking note of every friend of mine who is a fan of Friends because I know that this is something that they will love! But other than that, this is a great book for anyone who has an interest in the history of television and its connections to society and culture. Overall, this was a well-rounded history book that will appeal to a variety of people.

Solid 4 stars! This book is a must read for fans of the show Friends. While it goes into depth about what it took for Friends to get on television and its rise to "must see tv" fame, it also discusses topics that Friends is often criticized for: lack of diversity, how it addressed homosexuality, and the recurring "fat jokes" that occur throughout the show's television run. It gave background to the six main actor's backgrounds and what lead to them being on the show and gave me interesting insight into the background details that I wasn't aware of when the show originally aired as I became a fan after the show went off the air.

I am a HUGE Friends fan. It's a top 5 shows of all time status. This was super dry and almost like a college essay (I didn't want to read). While I think fans of the show will appreciate the behind the scenes look at this show I don't think it does justice to the show. Maybe if Chandler Bing was the author. I think fans are better off watching a friends bio than reading this.

I’ve long enjoyed Kelsey Miller’s writing about body positivity and the anti-diet movement (including her memoir Big Girl), so I’ve been looking forward to more from her...though I’ll admit I didn’t really feel like I needed a book about Friends in my life (despite loving the show back in the day)! But this was a well-written social history and an undeniably fun nostalgia trip that I will certainly recommend to many of my own (even non-bookish!) friends.

Maybe i did not like this book because it was totally not what i expected. Even though the author tried her bestest to bring back the old FRIENDS vibe to the book it just did not do justice for me and i was left utterly disappointed.

I really enjoyed this read! I was given an ARC of the first 2 chapters and knew I had to read it in its entirety. As a frequent friends watcher, I was surprised by how much I did not know about the show itself and the backgrounds of the actors. I was glued to this book and was intrigued by all of the new information on this show I’ve grown to love so dearly. This is a truly engaging and informative read. I would recommend this to any friends fan!

All of what follows might seem a little strange to anyone who knows me and realizes that I am about the same age as the characters...when the show was ending. That's right folks, I was there from the beginning, right there at age eleven. Before you start questioning the parenting in my family, relax. It's not like I was obsessed with the show from the start. But we stumbled on this funny show about six people living in a city I'd always been completely enamored with, and from then on I never missed an episode if I could help it. and when I did have to miss one, thank goodness for VCRs. Some of the topics went right over my head, and that's okay - they should have. But still, what I got was this message that friends can be every bit as important as family...and that getting a huge apartment in NYC is totally doable for someone just a few years out of college.

If I am being totally honest, this book really isn't a four-start read. Part of my brain automatically rates the book a little higher than it deserves because I love this show so much. As in yes, I STILL love this show so much, and it is 2018. When I saw this come up on NetGalley I was super excited and waited not-so-patiently for an approval. I checked compulsively, sometimes multiple times a day, to see if I had been approved - sometimes publishers (though rarely in my experience) don't send an email telling you if you have been approved or denied so I pretty proactive when it is something I MUST get my hands on ASAP. Well over a decade ago I received The One With All Ten Seasons for Christmas and up until my daughter was born in 2013, I'd fallen asleep to FRIENDS every night (I still do when she is at her dad's house). It's the show that I have counted on time and again to get me through rough break-ups, real life friends turning out to be assholes, and a myriad of other situations more or less important. It's also the show I know I can fall asleep to because I have literally seen the series hundreds of times, it is not as though I will stay up late to watch. Even in my half-asleep state I might chuckle at Chandler as I drift off to sleep, but I know it will be there when I wake up in the morning and that is comforting. And seriously, a few close friends and I can have entire conversations only using quotes from the show. It's a gift - along with the years and years of re-watching it took for those precious lines to be seared into our brains forever.

I am THAT fan, okay? And I ain't sorry about it one bit.

Now that my insanity has been firmly established, on to the book.

It is...decent. A solid three actual stars for the writing, maybe two and a half for the content, which sounds weird when the content is some I LOVE MORE THAN ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD. The thing about that content is though, that there is not exactly anything new or groundbreaking here. We can all agree that there are some very problematic things with the show, and some of the things they got away with then would not be allowed now. But the thing about that is, those things have been addressed multiple times, any time that meme comes up stating how old Ben, the twins, and Emma would be now. Lack of diversity (though everyone seems to forget about Julie (Lauren Tom) early on, and only remember Kristen (Gabrielle Union, season seven one-off and Charlie (Aisha Tyler, story arc season 9) is a problem, and questions about whether the show was steeped in homophobia for all the jokes made at Chandler's expense, etc. But then one must only go back to the VERY FIRST EPISODE OF THE WHOLE SERIES, to be reminded that Carol and Ross divorced because she realized she was a lesbian. In 1994, that was HUGE. There were not a plethora of gay or lesbian characters on television, and FRIENDS started with one right out of the gate. While Carol and Susan were not constant fixtures on the show, we saw some of their biggest moments - Ben's birth, their wedding. And let's also discuss one of my favorites, Chandler's dad. I don't think anyone could have played that role better than Kathleen Turner, hands down. Still, the references to Chandler being gay were pretty common, and it's not exactly cool to make someone's sexuality a punchline. However, I think because we are all very widely aware of how much the world has changed just since the show started and ended, we can recognize the show's shortcomings and still embrace it as one of the game-changers and greatest shows of all time.

I really did not like the constant mentions and comparisons to Seinfeld. It happened A LOT. I get it, the temptation is there, two insanely popular shows about people living in NYC. But come on. The so-called DEFINITIVE book about FRIENDS doesn't need the constant Seinfeld comparisons. If you want to talk about Seinfeld so much, write a book about it.

Perhaps it is kind of ironic that I am writing this review (FINALLY) just a few days before Thanksgiving. I love the show (obviously), but those Thanksgiving episodes were the best. So, because I can, I will quickly rank all ten Thanksgiving episodes from worst to best:

10. Tricked ya! There was not really a Thanksgiving episode in season 2. The holiday gets mentioned in The One With the List but it is not a Thanksgiving-centric episode like all the others.

9. The One Where Chandler Doesn't Like Dogs

8. The One Where Underdog Gets Away (season 1)

7. The One With Rachel's Other Sister (season 9)

6. The One With All the Thanksgivings (season 5)

5. The One With the Late Thanksgiving (season 10)

4. The One With Chandler in a Box (season 4)

3. The One With the Rumor (season 8)

2. The One Where Ross Got High (season 6)

1. The One With the Football (season 3)

If you've never seen the show, then I first must inquire as to what rock you've been living under. Second, I must direct you to watch all of these first. There's not really a Thanksgiving episode that I did not like, and this list even changes from time to time, but #1 and #2 always remain constant.

There are a lot of good things in this book, even if there are no new facts, no new revelations or theories or ideas. As I mentioned above, criticism over lack of diversity has been mentioned time and time and time again in various media outlets and blogs and articles and everything. It was being mentioned when the show was airing, after all. So, I did not find anything in the author's interpretations as new or bold or earth shattering.

I can appreciate the author's observations about just how deeply FRIENDS impacted pop culture, and she does go into detail about many areas. One of the things that I have always been bothered by was the show's very subtle illusions to 9-11. Regardless of the fact that this show is a comedy, it always seemed very odd to me that there would not have been a direct impact on any of their lives. You know, those lives that they lead in LOWER MANHATTAN. I certainly would not expect the 'A Very Special Episode' treatment, but not acknowledging this massive national tragedy was a huge miss to me. They could have done it well, and in a tasteful way. Ignoring it all together never made sense to me. For many, I get it that FRIENDS is a source of comfort. It is exactly that same thing to me to, those six are friends of yours and mine, we know nearly every intimate detail about their lives for TEN YEARS. Maybe it is exactly because the show is set in lower Manhattan that they could not reference it, that the show had to remain that temporary escape from the real world where things were normal and perfect.

Even with the criticism, there is no denying the staying-power of the show. It has aired in reruns pretty much as soon as it went off the air. It was a HUGE deal when Netflix acquired rights and we suddenly got to watch the show WITHOUT CHANGING DISCS!! (Though to be honest I would rather be up changing discs every couple of hours, as the Netflix episodes are the cut, standard versions, not the extended episodes from the DVD collections).

Still, I appreciate the book because I love the show. I love it as much now as I did then. Even though there was very little offered in the way of new evaluation, it was a nostalgic trip down memory lane - even though I still take that trip regularly. Perhaps I found the book comforting though because we were also presented with reminders of the behind-the-scenes things we already know so well - particularly the detail regarding the salary negotiations. Some people don't realize how close the show came to not even making it to ten season in those later years. I also appreciate the author's mention of other projects that some of the actors and actresses had going on there in the beginning, and what it took to get the show going to begin with. Had any one of them decided to hedge their bets on a different pilot, we might never have seen the inside of Central Perk. That's not a world I want to live in.

Despite my best intentions, I have come to realize that I rapidly nose-dived into making this review about the show, not the book. I can't help it, when the show we are talking about is FRIENDS. But, I'll try again. It is obvious that the author loves FRIENDS, and just might be on my level of crazy about it. That love shows throughout the book, but still there could have been so much MORE. New commentary or observations, new anything. But really, there just wasn't and maybe that's because we have talked about this show now for so many years that there is literally nothing new left to say about it. It is often judged now based on the cultural changes we've gone through since the show aired its final episode (our first black president, the legalization of gay marriage, etc) and that's not exactly fair. On the other hand, just because the jokes made were 'normal' in the 90s does not make them okay. It is a fine line to walk, especially now that the show has no chance to change its course, what with NOT BEING IN PRODUCTION ANYMORE.

Overall, this is something that I think would be most enjoyed by fans who were there for the original run of the show, who remember the cultural impacts of the show as they happened - can you believe I made it THIS FAR without mentioning The Rachel? I know, right? I just don't think the book will read the same way for those who have come to the show much later, especially in the last five years, simply because the show doesn't come across in the same way now as it did then. Of course the show is dated, for so many things besides the major diversity and representation issues. Seriously, remember Chandler's new laptop?! Or the fact that cell phones were still in their early stages in those last couple years? I would certainly still recommend the book for anyone who loves the show, regardless of when they started watching it, but just know that it will be a slightly different experience depending on that very fact.

I graduated high school in 1993. In 1994 I was introduced to Ross, Rachel, Monica, Joey, Chandler, and Phoebe. After that, I was glued to my television for "Must See TV" on Thursday nights. Every Thursday night for the next ten years I would find myself hanging out at the Central Perk with my new "Friends" and millions of other people.

I'll Be There For You is a look at the hit show that still resonates with viewers nearly twenty-five years after it first aired. From the selection of actors to shooting the pilot and shooting the iconic open credits, the inside tidbits make it all worth the read. From the real and lasting friendships that developed on set to the "Friends" finding out about their success while taping an episode of Oprah, it was a quick and fascinating read.

I also like how the author devoted an entire chapter to the aftermath of 9/11. For a beloved television show set in New York City, the tragic event that shaped our nation needed to be handled very carefully. They kept things light but acknowledged the event in subtle ways. Like having the "Friends" wear FDNY t-shirts and the images on the magnadoodle.

Bottom Line - Friends is one of those shows that I find myself constantly referencing at the strangest times. Like the other night, I flipped my brother off ala Ross and Monica. My favorite is to reference my favorite episode when Joey put the scary book in the freezer. Bonus points to anybody who knows what two books Joey and Rachel were reading. (Little Women and The Shining) It is the kind of show that when I am flipping channels, I will always stop. If you love Friends as much as I did (do), then you will definitely enjoy I'll Be There For You!

Details:



I'll Be There For You by Kelsey Miller
On Instagram
Pages: 304
Publisher: Hanover
Publication Date: 10/23/18
Buy it Here!

I love Friends. I always have. I quote the show regularly. I wanted so much more from this book but it didn’t deliver. It was a straight, dry history of the show. There were not enough interviews or anecdotes to cut through the dryness of the history that was written.

The Synopsis:
I'll Be There for You is the definitive retrospective of Friends, exploring all aspects of the show from its unlikely origins to the elusive reasons why we still watch it. Journalist and pop culture expert Kelsey Miller relives the show's most iconic moments, analyzes the ways in which Friends is occasionally problematic and examines the many trends it inspired, from the rise of coffee-shop culture to Friendsgivings to the ultimate 90s haircut, the Rachel.


My thoughts:
This is going to be an extremely biased review because duh: FRIENDS. I grew up watching Friends and still remember the finale and all the cute and hilarious moments leading up to it. I remember being on my landline phone talking to my best friend in high school while we both watched new episodes of Friends. I will forever cherish those moments because what's better than watching Friends with friends? No, I never related to Friends nor felt remotely close to being them. I was 16 and in a Texas high school. You can't get more un-Friends than that. The book explores exactly that phenomenon. Why was Friends such a popular show with so many people and continue to live on with newer generations? Along the way Kelsey Miller also infuses episode recaps and other trivia into the mix. I loved learning all the new things that I didn't know until I read this book. If you're a huge fan like I was (am) then you may think that the book gets a bit repetitive, but really, is it Kelsey Miller's fault that we know practically every episode word for word? She goes through the seasons one by one and leaves you with the itch to go to Netflix and rewatch Friends from episode one. Not a bad thing at all. I am currently on season 2 for the umpteenth time. A 4/5

Friends fans - I'll Be There For You: The One About Friends needs to be added to your must-read list.

In the book, author Kelsey Miller takes the reader chronologically through the creation, casting and production of the 10-season show, with behind-the-scenes highlights and insider information from each season. It doesn't delve into gossip about the actors' personal lives; it's really a smart and fascinating analysis of the show itself, and a discussion of why it was so popular and became so iconic.

It's also not a puff piece, as Miller talks about some of the issue with the show (for example, almost complete lack of racial diversity) and mistakes that were made, but it certainly celebrates Friends for the success it was - and still is. Plus, Miller and I agree that "The One Where Everyone Finds Out" was the best episode of all time. ("They don't know we know they know!")

I was impressed to learn more about the six cast members' commitment to joint negotiations and remaining a unit. I think there's a real lesson to be learned there about colleagues, teamwork and professional relationships. According to Matt LeBlanc (Joey) the cast earned 1.3 million dollars each, per episode, in the final season, so their tactics were certainly fruitful.

I also enjoyed all the insider tidbits, as Miller weaves in interviews with people connected to the show, as well as commentary from various experts (shout out to gossip queen Lainey Lui!)

From the endorsements to the London episode to Ross and Rachel's love story to the show's 9/11 reaction and more, I'll Be There For You covers it all - even the biggest Friends die-hard will learn something new!

Friends is a show that is a constant in my household. In January 2015 I was browsing Netflix for something to watch while waiting for my boyfriend to get off work. I had never watched Friends (besides seeing a clip here if there when I was little) and decided to go for it, once my boyfriend got off work he joined in too and we watched the entire series. Now, over 3 years later we are married and still are watching Friends even if we just use it as background noise.

This book is a must have for all Friends lovers. Kelsey Miller did a great job at giving a behind the scenes look into the show. It is easy to tell how well researched this was and how it just all went together perfectly.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy in exchange for an honest review!

I was a senior in high school when Friends aired. I remember every thursday night being glued to the TV watching it. College was no different as we all convened in the lounge to watch Friends together.. After college it was mine and my friends tradition to gather at ones house and watch Friends. We even had a finale party when the last episode aired. It was a huge part of my late teens early 20s. Reading this book was like going back in time and reliving those days. I loved this book and everything that it had to say.

This is such a great book for Friends fans! I loved learning more about my favorite tv series and it was so interesting to have behind the scenes knowledge of everything that went on.

This was a neat read. Always a big fan of Friends so this book was an interesting read, I love the behind the scenes and inside scoop on a beloved show,

I found this book to be interesting because I am of the Friends generation. I really wanted there to be more first hand interviews with people involved with the show and it's creation. Instead, it was full of excerpts from old interviews. While the research was good, it was lacking the authority that I had hoped for.

This was such a fun read! For all fans of the show this is a must read. The author has included so many facts and stories here you feel as if your reliving the entire series. I loved the attention to detail and learning the ins and outs of what it took to run this show as well. as keep it fresh for the actors . This is a fun read and I highly recommend it for all Friends fans.

A bittersweet trip down memory lane for those of us that loved the 90s sitcom. Behind the scenes tidbits, gross inadequacies, and all the fun of being a 'Friend'. I enjoyed it mostly, but it wasn't a read in one sitting kind of book. I brought this out mostly when I wanted a break from chores, was standing in line, or when I passed by the show while browsing through Netflix. Some will really enjoy this book.

If you're a fan of Friends or you know someone who is, this is the perfect book for you.

I enjoyed the frank, honest discussion about the show. While Miller is clearly a fan, she isn't afraid to mention the show's flaws. Great job!

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for my ARC. All opinions are my own.