I saw someone say that this collection of essays is always worth the risk and I truly believe this. I read this book following the passing of my grandfather and my relationship with love has been challenged since then. The perspective the author brought to love was truly impactful for me. It took me some time to finish this due to some of the heavy content, but I highly recommend it.

This wasn't what I thought it would be- it was more. Dancyger has written a memoir, of sorts, of friendship with the women in her life, first and foremost her cousin Sabina, who was murdered at the age of 20. Her love for Sabina is woven through this collection, which also recounts time spent with other friends. There's a melancholy quality to some of it but there is also laughter and joy. I read this one essay at a time over a period of days, allowing myself to savor the language and think about the women. It's thoughtful and beautifully written. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Great read.

Such a big win for me, thank you to Random House for the review copy.
This is such a great set of essays/insights and I really loved that this book offered some many ways to think about, reflect on, and talk about female friendships. More and more, as I enter into early midlife, I know how important women friendships are, that they matter in important ways in adulthood, and all too often we forget about how much our people matter to us, why we need to celebrate friends who are our first loves, perhaps in ways our soulmates. More than BFF status, this set of essays gets into the feelings of friendship, the messiness of female lives and why, how, friend ships matter. I loved that this book looked into the complexity of adolescent female friendships in movies such as Heavenly Creatures and gave recognition to generational experiences with friendship as well.
This is a great book for book clubs open to nonfiction essays and also great for a book you can pick up and put down because of the essay style (keep it on hand for those off and on moments before bed, driving around to kids' parties and practices, the elusive few moments at a coffee shop...).

this wonderful essay collection is an ode to female friendships and the love that bonds us.

heartfelt thanks to random house and netgalley for the e-arc!!

Lilly Dancyger's "First Love: Essays on Friendship" is a captivating collection that elevates the narrative of women’s friendships to the pedestal of great love stories. Through a poignant series of essays, Dancyger challenges the traditional confines of love and romance, arguing instead for a broader, more inclusive understanding of love that fully embraces the deep connections found in friendship. The thematic core of the collection revolves around the assertion that while friendship might not shield us from the world’s perils, it is undeniably worth the inherent risks. This message resonates through Dancyger's exploration of how friendships can provide crucial support systems, helping us to navigate and even survive life's inevitable tragedies.

I've always wanted to read more books, fiction or nonfiction, about friendship. We have so much writing and other art about romantic relationships and even family relationships, rather than much about the importance and many nuances of friendships, so I really appreciate Lilly Dancyger focusing on the subject. Her writing is so personal but relatable as well as thoughtful and affirming as she looks at a number of different relationships and the layers of female friendships. I would also like to read more in this area from a wider view than one person's experience, but that isn't the purpose of the book so I hope to find some more expanding on the subject.

There's so much writing on romance and not nearly enough writing on friendship! This was absolutely beautiful - somewhere between Patti Smith and Dolly Alderton. It's impossible to read this book without feeling grateful for the women in your life. "Sad Girls" is my personal favorite from this collection (as a fellow Tumblr Sad Girl, I related heavily.) This is excellent. I cannot wait to read more of the author's work.

These definitely fell more on the personal essay side of the personal to critical/academic essay spectrum, which is too bad as I enjoy personal essays a bit less. The thorough line of this connection (the murder of Dancyger's cousin Sabina at age 20), while devastating, was the least interesting part of this collection for me. I preferred her longer essays on her college friends (although perhaps that was just because those were more relatable to me), such as "The Fire Escape" and "Mutual Mothering" (probably my favorite essay of the collection.

Many thanks to Dial Press for the early copy of this work through Netgalley - First Love is out on the 7th of May!

An essay collection that forms one big ode to formative female friendships that buoy you through grief, joy, and the highs and lows of life. Very tender and affecting.

Dancyger starts her collection with a recounting of her cousin and first childhood best friend, Sabina. It's hard to write about platonic love and connection in a visceral way that connects with some shared experience, but it hits. And then Sabina is murdered, sending Lilly's world spinning. But this set of essays isn't about true crime. It's a love letter to the female relationships that Lilly had through her tumultuous teenage years, her budding writing career, her return to school, and her growing into a more stable adult self.

Standout essays include "First Love," "In Search of Smoky Cafés," "How to Support a Friend Through Grief," "Portraiture," and "On Murder Memoirs." There are a lot of standout pieces in this collection. It did falter for me in a few places, though; some essays felt underdeveloped and needed to be combined with another anecdote or concept to feel more realized.

If you're someone who's ever had a formative female friendship (or several), or worked through the loss of a friend/family member with the help of friends, or thrived in a chosen family over a bio family, then First Love is definitely worth picking up.

I loved every second I spent with this book. Lily dancyger is an expert at drawing her audience in. She has a fierce and succinct writing voice. This book of Essays deals with female friendships in a fresh way. Can't wait to read more of this author! Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC .

Lilly Dancyger's essay collection First Love reflects on the importance of friendship in her life. I so appreciate friendship being described as love, and this is an area not written about enough. Lilly's most impactful friendship was with her cousin Sabina, who she calls her first love. Sabina is tragically killed just as the two are approaching adulthood, having a ripple effect on Lilly's future friendships. Lilly pride herself in not having surface level friendships- she goes in deep for her friends, which can cause challenges. She reflects on a friendship where she and another girl become very enmeshed, and how difficult it is to realize that relationship is over. Another concept she writes about is mothering. While she has a complicated relationship with her own mother, her friendships involve mothering and chosen family. I loved this.

Thanks to The Dial Press via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

My first time reading Dancyger’s work and I really enjoyed this meditation on relationships/friendships. It was incredibly illuminating and I appreciate it so much. I’m glad this exists!

All of my great loves, my most rewarding relationships have been my friendships with other women. While romantically, I've had the first love/first heartbreak, the break up in a friendship can be devastating. First Love from Lilly Dancyger is a beautiful essay collection about the friendships in Lilly's life.

Every essay was open and vulnerable. Everything was beautifully written, and used language in a perfect way. This is the kind of book that should be given to young women, all young women, so they can understand the power of friendship.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Lilly Dancyger's First Love is a beautiful ode to friendship in all its nuances and iterations. Dancyger writes with intelligence and insight, exploring these early relationships that shape and form us in a unique and lovely way. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this eARC.

I really very badly want to love this book but it really drug on for far too long. It was hard to jump into things with the characters and follow the storylines at times. It was a promising read that was just not for me sadly. I may try again later because I just really want to like this book lol.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy!!

Despite having written an essay published elsewhere titled "In Defense of Navel Gazing," Lilly Dancyger has produced an interesting collection of beautifully-written essays of substance, about her turbulent teen time in NYC, that is filled with fascinating citations, references and tangents. I especially liked Sad Girls, because I learned something new about a subject I've long been passionate about: Team Sylvia Plath vs Team Ted Hughes. Sad Girls is based on two different things: the Sad Girl Movement and the Sad Girl Theory, but also encompasses the sad girl aesthetic, and a childhood friend of the author's who died a sad girl. Each of these essays is based on a different turbulent teen time friendship, but via unique literary vehicles like witchcraft in Spell to Mend a Broken Heart; maternal love and the lack of it in Mutual Mothering; experimental photography in Portraiture; and the loss of a beloved young cousin in On Murder Memoirs.

As a mom of 16-yr old daughters, I was shocked about Dancyger skipping school to hang out at bars starting at the age of 14; I spent my early 30s in the lower eastside, comparatively tamely. But I do remember feeling intimidated by native New Yorker kids on the subway sometimes, and I had grown up sheltered in midwestern suburbs, with stable parents who weren't artists or on drugs.

I would like to thank Random House for early access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first work I have ready by Lily Dancyger and I find Lily's writing incredible. There are no wasted words and I feel the emotion Lily puts on the page. I applaud the idea of showcasing Love (with a capital L) between friends, especially women friends who are supporting each other through life. We have so much assess to all encompassing romantic Love and parental Love but I find it rare to showcase this between friends.

I will call out that collection of essays are not in my standard rotation of reads and I am well aware that makes me not the target audience. I craved getting to know LIly's friends further and to see where their lives continued on to (the upbringing and experiences are not shared with myself). Despite this, I had a hard time relating, the references used to create reliability I did not have a connection to, and sometimes I had to google what they were. Additionally, I had a hard time keeping where each store fell in the timeline of Lily's life- this aspect of how the essays fit together became jumbled in my mind. The last aspect that left me scratching my head was there was a lot of conversation about not wanting to write about her cousin's murder (the grief is unimaginable)- to me, if you dont want to write about it then don't. I do not need to be told at length the reasons why.

Beautiful writing, enviable description of friendships that stands the test of time. This collection is worth the read and different than other works out there.

A beautiful introspective on friendships, how they form, how we maintain them and grow them. These wide ranging essays show the ways in which we hold each other up, hold space and mother each other. Finishing this book will leave you with a deep sense of gratitude and love for all the women in your life.

This made me very emotional. I thought a lot about my friendships and how they’re changing throughout different stages of our lives. Female friendships really are many of our first loves and I appreciate this book highlighting those relationships.

I read First Love: Essays on Friendship by Lilly Dancyger.

I was smitten by this collection of autobiographical essays. This book encapsulates many of my recurring thoughts and experiences in a way that makes me feel understood. The essays touch upon various topics in a way that puts words onto ideas that are oftentimes difficult to express.

Lilly Dancyger wrote this memoir so beautifully that I’m eager to read her other works. She depicts womanhood so vividly that I found myself thinking, at times, that I was having a chat with my girlfriends. The topics and thought development she writes are some that I’ve often discussed with my friends. It all felt like a tangible conversation that’s never quite resolved because its answers don’t exist.

I highly recommend this book to any woman who has had doubts about whether she’s "doing womanhood correctly". Take note, however, that this collection of essays depicts the white woman’s experience.

It’s a solid 4.5⭐️ for me.