This book was just as amazing as I'd hoped. I've listened to Sow and Friedman's podcast for years, and their book was such a fantastic companion to what I know about them. It's one of the most thoughtful and exciting and helpful books I've ever read about friendship. I fully intend to buy it for MANY people in my life.

As a fan of the amazing podcast, “Call Your Girlfriend”, the fact that this book exists makes me happy. Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, the creators of Shine Theory, have built a business based off of their long distance friendship, and candid, intimate conversations. In this book, they tackle the highs and lows of friendship, using their decade long friendship as the backbone of the book. This one is out in July!

I have never seen friendship written about in this way before: about how much work and effort goes into maintaining a true, deep friendship, which is just as much as a romantic one. If the stay-at-home orders haven’t already made you reflective about the relationships you have and value, after reading this funny and informative book, it will make you want to call your bestie.

If this book doesn't make you want to get up and call your best friend immediately, I don't know what will.

Seeing as I've been an avid reader, follower, and listener of Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman's work for over half a decade, I'll admit that I was already predisposed to really love this Big Friendship. Even if you've never heard of them or have maybe been on the fringes of their writing or podcasting, you're in for a treat.

Big Friendship tackles our cultural issues with giving platonic relationships the care and attention they deserve, both on a personal and an intellectual level. There's plenty of research and discussion around family dynamics and romantic relationships, but so often friendships get shunted off to the side when it comes to individual and societal introspection. Sow and Friedman tell the story of their own intense Big Friendship™ while masterfully weaving in larger conversations of how our friendships come together and fall apart, taking on everything from the unique struggles of interracial friendships to how friend breakups can often feel more devastating than romantic ones. There's also just a familiar ease to their writing that makes this an easy read.

While Big Friendship definitely stands on its own, I think a little extra context to Sow and Friedman can help you get the most out of this book and fall in love with their work; I recommend going down a slight rabbit hole and reading their popular article on Shine Theory and listening to an episode or two of their Call Your Girlfriend podcast. Again, it's not 100% necessary, but it does help in appreciating just how deep their Big Friendship goes and how poignant their thoughts are.

I have been an avid and dedicated listener of Call Your Girlfriend for several years - I couldn't wait to get my hands on Aminatou and Ann's book. "Big Friendship" addresses the challenges and triumphs and friendships drawing upon their own experiences, as well as integrating some social science research from scholars who have made cameos on the show. My big concern before opening "Big Friendship" was the authors' ability to produce new content that wouldn't be a written summary of the podcast. For the most part, they succeeded. I enjoyed the anecdotes and confessional writing style. They have clearly fleshed out the concept of big friendship and I could see it being absorbed into the vernacular in the same way as shine theory.

Unfortunately, the book fell short in its ability to blend Ann and Aminatou's two voices. They made a big deal of having truly written this book together, and while the effort is commendable, the delivery is clunky and awkward. They both write about themselves in the third person, which comes across as strange and infuses a kind of omnipresent narrator into the text. It's clear when Aminatou is writing about herself, so why use the third person? It frustrated the whole reading experience for me. I kept stopping to think "this is so weird." Because I am a devoted consumer of their content, it's something I can overlook, but I think it will be a real stumbling block for readers who are just now being introduced to A+A.

Overall, a decent book that will appeal to fans of CYG but might have a harder time finding an audience for non-listeners of the pod.