Unfortunately this book didn’t work for me and was a DNF but I am sure other readers will feel differently! Thank you for the ARC!

This was an entertaining and emotional read. Rachel, Clarissa, Dev and Nate are best friends graduating from college in 2006. Rachel, Dev and Nate move to New York City to start living their dream lives in the big city, while Clarissa moves to Chicago. While navigating their friendship, they must also learn to navigate jobs, dating, family and other aspects of their lives. Over the years, their friendships change and evolve, as told by each of their perspectives every year from their graduation. It denotes what life experiences and sentiments change their views and relationships.

Who We Are Now is a bit slow paced for me; it took me a while to get into and get hooked but I really enjoyed the characters, and multiple POVs and timelines. It's a very touching coming of age story and I admire the friendship among the characters

End of college, it’s graduation ,Four friends are embarking on a journey unlike anything they have known till now. Each taking their own path…. Nate finds himself in the Wall Street world, Rachel in the publishing world where she wanted to be, Clarissa tending to bars while trying to come up with comedy gigs, while Dev is…. lost on what his next step in life should be while he crashes with Nate at his apartment.
Like all close friends who have shared each others space day and night for four years in college, they promise to remain best of friends forever and hope to succeed in life. But that doesn’t always happen, does it?
This is really heart felt coming of age story of four college friends trying to find their footing in life, trying to achieve what they think is success in their field of interest and even with the best of intentions, things happen that keep some close while others drift away with passage of time. Most millennials will be able to relate to this book. It gives a real glimpse into the emotions, uncertainty , jealousy that comes with going out into the real world and trying to figure things out. It also has some heavy topics like addiction, sexual abuse, LGBTQ which are written beautifully.
May be a little slow for some but I really cherished all the characters and the character development felt very apt, with their advancing age.
Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for an arc of this book for my honest opinion!

Who We Are Now is described as a coming of age, Sliding Doors type story told in the perspective of 4 different friends. I am not sure that it entirely meets that. I was hoping that the first half of the story would have hinged on one decision and then told the story from that perspective but instead it was more questioning throughout whether people make the right decision hundreds of times. I absolutely get that, but I think I would have loved to see the what if aspect also.

The book felt very Rachel centric more than anything. Like the entire friend group really revolved around her, even when the characters were together separate from her and maybe even mad at her, they still ended up referencing her most of the time. I did not love that because I dont think she had the most interesting story of the group.

At the end of the day, the book is about that weird post college years where you are trying to establish yourself and hang on to the friends that meant to the world to you those 4 years. I connect with that part of the story, I just didnt connect with these characters as much as I had hoped.

This book is probably the ultimate Real World Book for us elders- Millenials. we start in 2006 when Dev, Rachael, Clarissa, and Nathan are enjoying their last few days of college life at Northwestern University before beginning their real lives. We then follow the Fab 4 through post-grad life, quarter-life crisis, and as they head into mid-life. As a member of the class of 2005, this group was one year younger than me, but many of the milestones felt so familiar this was a walk down back memory lane. Most of the book takes place in NYC, with flashes to Chicago for Clarissa and for college. Overall, I enjoyed the book and getting to know the four, but at times, it felt like the book was trying to cover too much time ( 12 years), and it was too much too fast. A lot of developments were missing, and then it felt like we would have to read to catch up on what was happening to one character when the other chapter was about someone else. In the end, once I got into it ( once they graduated for me), it was a good read, and I enjoyed it and felt some parts of it were realistic. I didn't enjoy the NYC background, I think I would have liked it a bit more if they lived in other places ( or even stayed in Chicago). I thought the ending was really great and found that part of the story really true to what it sometimes feels like to get older and look around and realize all the changes and missing faces. I also think that Nate’s story felt like it just dropped off, and I would have loved more back story on all the characters as to how they got where they did. I felt like the only one we really got that from as Rachel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the advanced read of Who We Are Now.

This book follows four friends over fifteen years - the bonds they share and how those change as they navigate life. It’s definitely a character driven book, and I really wanted to love it.

However, it just didn’t move for me. I felt like I kept reading and reading, but wasn’t making any progress or feeling fully drawn in. It’s was a slow read for me.

Not a bad book by any means! But not one I’d likely recommend to others.

This. Book took me a while to get into and I put it down for a while. But I'm glad I picked it up and continued reading. I enjoyed the story of theee friends through the years.

This gives the feel of a best seller…story of four college friends and their lives after college making their ways through their careers, interpersonal relationships, successes, failures and downfalls. You get to know each character and their issues well, making you invested in them. One of the better books I’ve read this year.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the eARC.

What a sweet coming of age story. I love multi POV novels and the format of this worked well for me. I think that the novel was a slow build and then was sudden at the ending. I needed more time with it. Overall an enjoyable read.

Who We Are Now was a very interesting, incredibly readable novel. Multi time line with different POVs, with each chapter ending in a different year was excellent! The entire story was told over 15 years so by the end you are invested in the characters but I did feel as if character development could have been more defined. I also felt the ending was abrupt and needed a little bit more.

This book was so nostalgic and really hit on a lot of areas and mental challenges we face during life after college and navigating new and old relationships. Chamberlain established some good characters who, while flawed, were also likeable and relatable. Parts of the book were a little slow but it worked overall because normal life isn't always face paced or immediate.
I liked that each year was told through every character's perspective and that we got that insight from the various points of view. While I did get annoyed at times with their decisions , or non-decisions, it was a good reminder how differently we all cope and deal with changes in our lives.
My one major complaint was that, overall, they were all fairly privileged and didn't seem to have to worry about money as much. I feel that the millennial generation would have been better represented with that as a struggle.

A touching story of coming of age, the struggles in comparison and envy of your friends, all while trying desperately to find happiness. I loved the theme that we grow apart from our friends, and our remaining friendships morph; that dreams change and there is still joy and success to be found in new paths.

The first half the story was rough; I felt that the story was dated rather than nostalgic, and that the characters lacked depth. However, at the halfway mark I realized that the writing changed with the characters: from young and naive and a little annoying to more self-aware and thoughtful, and at this point the story became more emotionally moving. You leapfrog through the characters lives and stay with them long enough to see the first domino tip, and then you hear the rest of them fall from the points of view of the friends.

a story of friendship that demonstrates how naive we can be when we are young. Discovering how life changes friendship....it's a good character-driven (as another reviewer said below) story. I like this kid of book and enjoyed it. I recommend.

Loved these characters. It was such a perfect sorry of their college life and their years after. I didn’t think the aha moment was so powerful. I wanted a little more but it was a great story overall

🎭 BOOK REVIEW 🎭

Synopsis: It is 2006 and Rachel, Clarissa, Dev, and Nate are best friends, seniors on the eve of their college graduation. Their whole lives are before them, at once full of promise and anxiety. Bound to one another as they are, they imagine their closeness will last forever—but things change as they take their first steps away from one another and into adulthood.
Each year is told from one character’s point of view, and in that way, we stride swiftly through their lives. These four friends feel their twenties and thirties flying by, and suddenly small moments fast become regrets or unexpected boons, decisions they’ll spend years wishing they could undo and choices that come to define them. As the foursome endure professional setbacks, deep loss, and creative success, fortunes shift and friendships strain—and it will take a tragic turn of events to bring them together again.


Review: I was really getting into this book when out of nowhere an in-depth Harry Potter reference was dropped. Given that this book was published August 2023, it is beyond unacceptable that the author didn’t know about the harm these references cause to trans folk. In addition, the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC main characters are not written from an own voices perspective. Given that cis het white women cannot possibly know the lived experiences of these characters, I chose to DNF at 61%. I liked the premise of the book and was enjoying the writing. However, I feel my time, and others, will be better spent reading own voices narratives, or those that don’t wrongly write these perspectives. My Bookstagram is a safe place for all, and I do not tolerate any HP references of any kind.

Tw: cancer, drink-spiking, sexual assault, and victim blaming.

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This is a general fiction story following 4 best friends from college that largely takes place in New York City and Chicago. It spans about 15 years from their college graduation into the modern day and follows them in their post-grad successes and failures. The story is told in multiple POVs which I really enjoy overall because I think it keeps things interesting. I think my favorite POVs in this novel were the 2 girls- Rachel and Clarissa. I liked their characters and storylines the best. The boys POVs were a little boring to me, especially Nate’s, and I found myself trying to speed through their chapters to get back to the girls. I like how all of them had pretty different post-grad trajectories despite them all ending up in New York. The story also felt realistic and wasn’t too cookie cutter or trying to show a perfect life. For the most part, I did enjoy this novel. My biggest critique was it got a little too political (especially near the end). Generally speaking, I prefer not to read about politics in works of fiction whether or not the book shares my views. I understand that it was added to bring the story home a little more and was relevant to the circumstances of the characters, but it actually ended up pulling me out of the story a little bit.

I still liked this book a lot and would recommend it!

I really enjoyed this book on a group of four friends and how their lives change over many years. There isn’t much of a plot to the story it is a very character driven book as we follow these four friends. It is well written and shows how friendships change over time as you grow older and your own life changes. This story makes you think about your own friends.

3.5/5

I love a multiple perspective book. For some reason, they make me never want to put the book down!

This book is slower paced which made it hard to keep reading at some points. It’s shows a very messy and complicated friendship.

I can’t wait to see what Lauryn Chamberlain writes next!

Who We Are Now by Lauryn Chamberlain

Are you a fan of F•R•I•E•N•D•S, Virgin River, and Gilmore Girls? If so, grab your blanket and get cozy because this book is for you! I really loved reading this book. Readers meet Dev, Clarissa, Rachel, and Nate. They are four friends, and we follow their journeys over fifteen years. As life is, we are taken on a ride that’s messy, filled with drama, and complicated.

Some content warnings: alcoholism, drug addiction, parents with cancer, death of a friend. That said, this is a beautiful story! Told over 15 years of friendship, it’s a sliding doors that really prompts us to ask those “what if” questions (you know the ones I mean).

Hailed by reviewers as, “one of the best contemporary fiction novels coming out this year” it’s also been paired for its writing, continuity, and the different POVs. I highly agree, so there’s no need to repeat, so let me just say this story is a quick read that’s powerfully unique.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a temporary digital ARC in exchange for my honest review!