I have a complicated relationship with the show; it was a huge part of my life as a teenager, and my friends and I even embarked on a mission to watch all ten seasons my freshman year of college, but I now cringe at the homophobic remarks and other insensitive plot lines of the show, and I still fume when I think about Amaani Lyle's awful experience with the writers on the show (which later turned into a lawsuit). Also, I've listened to Andrew Reich on enough podcast episodes to find him obnoxious and man-splainey.

Thankfully, Saul Austerlitz doesn't shy away from these aspects of the show's history; I appreciated that he interviewed Lyle and made her experience into its own chapter. It's clear that Austerlitz deserves his reputation as a prolific author and historian of pop culture; his narrative structure is excellent. He also managed to invoke even more nostalgia for the show than I thought I could ever have.

A behind the scenes look at the pop culture phenomenon that is Friends! ⁣
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I usually don’t read too much Nonfiction but when I saw this was about my favorite TV show I knew I had to read it! This novel has exclusive interviews with staff members that were present during the filming of Friends. Fun Fact: Friends was not the original title they had planned for the series! ⁣
I also found it interesting that the entire cast that we know and love were almost not apart of the show due to prior commitments! It also lays out all the episodes of the most important moments in the series and how it created such a wave in our culture! ⁣
This novel was super informative and being such a huge fan of the show it was amazing getting an inside look! ⁣
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Huge thanks to @duttonpublishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review! Publishes September 17th

Special thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Group Dutton and Saul Austerlitz for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

If I had to title this book as an episode with Friends, I would name it - The One With All the Memories. As a HUGE fan of Friends - I own all ten season on DVD and have even pre-ordered some items from the Pottery Barn 25th anniversary collection but not that apothecary table - I found myself reminiscing about the show a lot. The memories brought a smile to my face and provided a few surprises as well.

Generation Friends take the time to not only captivate the essence of the show and review each season's biggest episodes including the ballad of Ross and Rachel, it also discusses what it was like to be behind the scenes from the writers to the producers to the design teams (both set and wardrobe) to the auditions to contract negotiations, etc. I never realized how many big name actors and actresses auditioned for a part. It is fun imagining how the dynamic and the show's success could have all been different with one simple change in cast.

My biggest love regarding Generation Friends and what Saul Austerlitz really seems to get is that Friends worked and still works because it is an escape from reality. To this day, I still watch the reruns on TBS. It is still my go to show. I know all the episodes and most the lines. Friends has the wonderful ability to bring a sense of nostalgia to its viewers. I watched it religiously with my friends in high school and then in college. Times were simpler and so was Friends. Saul Austerlitz captures the sentiment perfectly.

Filled with great facts and thoroughly researched this book weaves together the facts to turn an interesting tale of a wonderful topic into a must read.

I did not like the way this book was written it felt stilted and dry. I could not even finish this one.

(Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book!) I was (and am) a diehard Friends fan and proud champion of the Friends trivia game I own but no one will play with me anymore, so this deep dive into the history of the show was mostly a delight. Austerlitz clearly knows his stuff, and managed to get extensive, tidbit-laden interviews with most of the people involved in making the show, from the creators and writers to actors and guest stars.

A surprising amount of the book is dedicated to recapping episodes. While I enjoyed reminiscing about what happened on the show, I could’ve used more analysis and less summary. And for someone who’s obviously seen the show almost as much as I have, he has a surprising number of factual errors in those recaps, especially attributing lines to the wrong characters. (It’s Ross who tells Rachel “I see big passion in your future”, not the other way around, but Austerlitz uses the misattributed speech as a talking point for their budding relationship. And he mixes up Ross and Rachel again in the finale, saying that it was Rachel who said, “Don’t make jokes now,” instead of Ross talking to himself.) Hopefully a lot of these get fixed in the final edit, although most readers probably won’t know the difference.

There will be inevitable comparisons to last year’s I’ll Be There for You, Kelsey Miller’s joyous romp through Friends nostalgia and fandom. Her book was more like a love letter to the show, with her own experiences and opinions mixed in with some of the same show trivia and insider information. This reads more like an authorized history of the show, a little drier but still full of interesting tidbits. If you love Friends, you’ll want to read both.

This is a fun book for FRIENDS lovers or anyone wanting to learn more about Friends. I think it had a good look at the characters and a lot of behind the scenes information. I am a huge Friends fanatic and I pretty much will read anything about the show. Some parts of this book were slow, but I found some tidbits that I actually didn't know.
Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.

A a big Friends fan, but have not looked into some of the background. I really liked learning about the different aspects of the story lines. I also enjoyed the "behind the scenes" feel of the book. I felt like I was getting the inside scoop on Friends.

Even though I wasn't alive when Friends premiered, I consider myself something of a Friends junkie. I've seen them all, I routinely quote from my favorite episodes, and yes, I'm a Monica mixed with Rachel who wishes she was Chandler. So when I saw this book on NetGalley, billing itself as a history of the show that made a generation, I knew I had to read it. And to be honest, I read I"ll Be There For You back in October, so I already knew a LOT Of the backstory of Friends. 

So, because I knew a lot of the background, I didn't appreciate as much the in depth info on casting and writing that this book provided. It's a great insight, if it's your first time reading about the oral history of Friends. But, there's a lot of that here, and the author clearly had some great access. If you like Hollywood shop talk, you'll love this. Honestly, a little too much focus on the backend for me, someone who primarily loved the CHARACTERS. But, compared to the other book i read on Friends, I appreciated the way this book talked about the highlights of the plot, how it came about, how the fans felt. There are SIX chapters devoted to "The Ballad of Ross and Rachel" and I felt that, haha, even if Monica and Chandler got screwed. But I digress, because that's a really personal opinion of mine haha. 

Anyway, if you like Friends, have seen it all, and want to spend more time with it, this book'll scratch that itch. It's got Hollywood shop talk, back room dealings, along with thoughts about how fashion and culture were changed by Friends. There's nothing groundbreaking, but I didn't mind reading it.

A fun read for those of us who are big <i>Friends</i> fans (and apparently there are a <i>lot</i> of us). I’m not a big TV person — I don’t have cable, and usually just watch a single movie on DVD at night — but I loved <i>Friends</i> , owned all the DVDs, and it was definitely my go to in times of stress. I just never realized how popular it was with everyone <i>else</i>.

The book tracks the show from concept through the ten seasons to the offshoots, residuals, and “where are they now” recaps. Decent (and sometimes excellent) writing, a good structure, and comprehensive in scope, it has just the right amount of gossip and mixes plenty of pleasant recognition with surprisingly fresh insights. I also learned a lot about the making of TV — scheduling, show runners, production companies vs networks, bidding wars, contract negotiations and some fascinating explanations of what went into the set and costume design.

I liked the first half better — the second half included a lot of bits that needed to be included to be complete but weren’t terribly interesting to me — one female writer’s hostile workplace suit, Matthew Perry’s addiction issues, etc. I didn’t always agree with the author’s conclusions, and sometimes felt there was too much episode recap, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed myself and learned a lot about how things work in an industry far away from my own.

Some fun quotes:
“Chase and Ungerleider had emerged from the same bookish East Coast Jewish milieu as Kauffman and Crane. Chase knew he could instantly summon that overly caffeinated, verbose, linguistically tricky voice.”

“Journalists pored over the results with the nuance of elderly Talmudists, intent on parsing the meaning of the message being sent by the American moviegoing populace.”

“Neither Crane nor Kauffman was familiar with the term going commando, but when the entire staff urged them to include it, asserting that their audience would instantly understand the reference, they acceded. (Eventually, the Oxford English Dictionary would credit Friends with one of the earliest recorded usages of the term.)”

“The world of Friends is notable, to modern eyes,” wrote New York’s Sternergh, “for what it
encompasses about being young and single and carefree in the city but also for what it doesn’t encompass: social media, smartphones, student debt the sexual politics of Tinder, moving back in with your parents as a matter of course, and a national mood that vacillates between anxiety and defeatism.”

I really liked this book. I wish there was more behind the scenes secrets but it was a great read. I still watch the show off and on with Netflix and it never fails to disappoint. Real fans of the show will enjoy this book

Aw, I liked this a lot. It spends A TON of time on Ross and Rachel, but that's okay, I guess. It does mention the tweet thread to end all tweet threads, about Joey and Rachel, so that's a positive. (But I'm not sure I agree with the author's conclusions on the whole thing.)

Anyway, if you're a Friends fan, this will likely entertain you.

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for the ARC!

Generation Friends by Saul Austerlitz is a must-read for even the most casual, or closet, fan of the iconic television phenomenon that is Friends. Having watched the show from its inception in 1994, I believed that I was fairly well-versed in the intricacies of each episode and storyline, but I quickly realized that my memories of the show only scratched the surface. Through detailed interviews with the show's creators, writers, and network execs, we are given unprecedented insight into what transpired behind the scenes. The author provides a seemingly unbiased account and, in so doing, has reignited in me an entirely new appreciation for a sitcom that would forever change the trajectory of television.

This is a fun and nostalgic read that is full of details and revelations that are sure to surprise even the most ardent of fans. Fair warning, though. After reading this book you will want to immediately binge the entire series on Netflix and, if you are like me, you will have the theme song playing on an unending loop in your head for many days. Highly recommended.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for this ARC.

As a long-time Friends fan, I thought I would be the perfect person to review an advanced copy of Generation Friends. I’ve seen every episode at least ten times, have bought other Friends books, have been on the Warner Brothers Studio tour twice, and have 2 close friends that worked as extras on the show. Before reading, I had expected to know the majority of the content already. I was pleasantly surprised by how much of the book was new to me. The interviews were my favorite part, as they made me feel like I was a part of the show. This is by far my favorite book about Friends! I am so glad I got to read an advanced copy and cannot wait to have my Friends-obsessed friends read it!