I really loved the premise of this book.. Who doesn't struggle in life, especially women in their 30's. The bit about infertility was a personal struggle for me, but I know this a topic not many discuss and was happy to read about it. This was a refreshing book in which I thoroughly enjoyed!

A novel about three friends and their struggles as they enter their thirties. It has a very slow opening and turns out okay. If I found this book in a house I was renting I would read it.

Rating: 4.5 Stars, HJ Recommended Read

Life in all its messy glory, is explored beautifully in Expectation by Anna Hope. This thoroughly well written novel is utterly and entirely about women and woman hood, friendship and sister-hood, and invariably becoming someone different or even more than what you expect.

Cate, Hannah and Lissa are three very different women and at times with their different backgrounds, classes, family orientation it seems very unlikely friends. Yet they all share deep bonds that span across time and create secure touchstones throughout each others’ lives. Hope switches from the past to the present seamlessly to fill in the gaps and silences and carve out the bones for some really strong every-day story-telling set in England, that I am certain every woman irrespective of culture can relate to and find solace in. It is the moments of jealousy, betrayal and competition that smack the hardest as a form of true insight into the weapons of womanhood, the ways in which we survive each other’s blows and have the deep capacity for forgiveness – particularly when its embedded in love and friendship.

Throughout we are cleverly reminded that we don’t always have the answers but as women, we do always have the expectations of who we should and shouldn’t be, what success and failure look like, what love and friendship should contain. The short, sharp chapters punctuated by time periods enable you to fly through the book with ease, so quick in fact that you wish you were able to hang out with Cate, Lissa and Hannah a little longer, feeling their pain, their grief, their hope, their struggles.Ultimately, this incredibly earthy book is simply a wonderful reminder to grab a cuppa, look up at the blue sky and embrace whatever happens and whoever you become.

Expectation by Anna Hope was high on my list for 2020 spring book releases. I love following a group of female protagonists over time as they navigate different life circumstances. Unfortunately, I struggled to connect with these characters overall and didn't find their friendships together relatable.

The premise and issues were promising but ended up feeling a little forced and sometimes a bit stereotypical. I did find the writing surrounding infertility and motherhood to be poignant and nuanced, I just wished for a lot more of that throughout the entire book.

I also struggled with the presentation of female friendship, which just fell flat for me. I have read that other readers compared Anna Hope's writing to Sally Rooney's (i.e. Normal People) and I struggled with her books too, so maybe it is just wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

I don't know if I'm noticing a trend in 2020 or if I'm just gravitating toward books like Expectation right now, but I've been loving how many lit-fic and general fiction novels I've been seeing this year with 30-something women as the heroines, and all of them are still trying to figure out who they are, what they want, and navigating complicated relationships both romantic and otherwise. I really enjoyed Hope's novel, which follows three female friends in their late 30s who are grappling with the roads taken and not taken: one is a career-woman who wants to be a mom, one is a free woman who wants a career, one is a mom who wants freedom. Each woman is equally unlikable (they are often selfish, make horrible decisions, etc) and totally relatable (they are often selfish, make horrible decisions, etc) and it's so gratifying to see women out of their 20s who are still finding themselves and trying their best to take the right path. This novel and its characters are messy and moving and heartwrenching and uncomfortable and I think so many women will get something out of this one.

This book was an easy read because it was so relatable. Hope writes about the lives and relationships of three women who grow together through theirs 20s and 30s in London and Canterbury. I loved the way the author pulled me in with complex but lovable characters, even through their faults. After a few chapters in, I texted my sister and recommended the book to her. We’re both big fans of Sally Rooney and this book reminded me of hers. A huge compliment, in my opinion! I look forward to Hope’s next book and highly recommend this one to fans of Sally Rooney, complex female characters and relationships, and relatable storylines about how we all mess up but try our best.

Expectation By Anna Hope

3.5 / 5 Stars

*Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins, and Anna Hope for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Expectation details the lives of Lissa, Hannah, and Cate and the importance of friendship over the course of life. The highs and lows of friendships are explored among the three main characters. We see the three girls in their vibrant youth and their reconnection 10 years later while dealing with issues internally.

Cate struggles with newborn exhaustion and moves from London to Cambridge in order to be closer to her husband’s family. Her relationship with her husband is suffering.

Hannah and her husband Nathan are dealing with the struggles of infertility. It is slowly driving them apart.

Lissa is trying to make it big as an actress - but has had no luck. Her small roles help her make ends meet.

We meet the three girls in their 30s but the novel pivots and shows us their time from age 12 to their mid-40s. Some might find this hard to follow, but i really enjoyed it and found it was perfect for this type of story. After drifting apart in their youth, Expectation brings them back together. Although nothing is the same after departure from the university, this novel shows how drifting apart can also bring you back together when you need it the most.

I had a few cons with this book.

1 - I didn’t like the way the big plot twist was handled. Nathan cheating with Lissa wasn’t dealt with in a good way and it was very obvious in the text that something would happen. It would have been better had Hope written it more subtlely and it was more shocking.

2 - I think some of the inner monologues could use more description and development. It was odd for Hannah to discover the above almost out of the blue. I would have loved to see her thoughts developing over time.


But I also had a lot of pros for this book.

1 - I loved the development of female friendship. I think its important in this day in age to depict friendship as the core theme in a novel when so many are focused on relationships. It was a chick-lit novel I really enjoyed specifically for this reason.

2 - Hope did a great job of making the characters humane and relatable. I hated and loved the three main characters at different times and that is what you want for a book. You don’t want to love a character 110%. We should love a character for their flaws as well.

3 - I loved the hopping in time. I think it was a great way to develop the characters and see them in a different light (see point 2).


Overall, I was close to giving this book 4 stars out of 5, however, I think the two cons I have made it a 3.5. I really enjoyed Expectation and look forward to reading future works by Anna Hope.

I highly recommend this novel!

I was intrigued to read a modern story on female friendships. While I think this book delivered a look on the complexity of female friendships over decades, I was underwhelmed by all three main characters.

Expectation, by Anna Hope, recounts a years-long friendship between three women, exploring the waxing and waning of their friendship through time. Hannah and her husband Nathan are struggling with infertility and it is driving them apart. Cate became pregnant quickly, and seems to be just ‘riding it out’ with her child’s father/husband. Lissa has yet to settle down, but with her acting career seemingly about to either take off or crash, is questioning her life’s direction. Told from each woman’s point of view through young adulthood and into middle age, we are exposed to powerful emotions and are forced to think about whether the grass is really greener on the other side.

Expectations is entertaining, with interesting main and side characters. I definitely laughed and teared up at points, making this a powerful story. However, I think I would have been satisfied had this book been about 10-20% shorter. Some parts were a bit slow and dragged down the stronger elements. There were also opportunities where darker elements could have been explored to make the story richer, but were not. To its credit though, Expectations has a nice writing style and I didn’t have to ‘work’ to make it through the end. Hope’s other works are historical fiction, which I usually am not interested in, but I would be willing to try them after reading this book.

Note: I was given a free eBook copy of Expectations in exchange for an honest review.

i absolutely loved this book about friendship in your thirties and thoughts of motherhood. I am excited to interview Anna in my podcast.

A novel that explores the bright and dark sides of female friendships, this is very different from Anna Hope's two previous historical novels (WAKE and THE BALLROOM). For me, this book started very slowly, and it was a challenge to keep the shifting characters and timelines sorted. But by about half-way through, the book became a page-turner (with a bit of a train-wreck feel -- you don't want to watch, but can't look away). Although well-written and strong in its exploration of the envy that often lies beneath the surface of love, this isn't a book I want to read again. Perhaps it's just too real in a time when I'd rather retreat into escapist fare (CoVid19). I can't put a finger on why, but some of Hope's writing in this novel reminded me of Margaret Atwood's work.