This was a decent novel but not much happens. I love stories about male friendships, but I just couldn't connect with the main characters. I feel like the synopsis was a bit misleading. I was expecting a heartfelt story, but I just don't think the author delivered. The writing style was good, but I wanted a more fluid and interesting story.

I found it interesting, but I wasn't majorly invested. Preferred side characters over the main character.

This is a DNF for me. I got to 25% and just couldn't do it. Life is too short to be pushing through something you just don't like.

This book felt like a conversation with a dude at party that I was trying to escape. I felt no attachment to the main character who is also the narrator. Sometimes a character is annoying but you still root for them and all I kept thinking was I don't care. Don't care about this dude, and I have no stakes in his journey. He is a popular pop-culture writer who downplays his success constantly (in a emo "pick me" boy way) and is on a mission to make a podcast to stay relevant in the changing journalistic landscape.

Upon looking up the author bio, turns out he is a successful writer for top publications and that is no surprise when dissecting the writing style of this book. It felt like one in-depth profile for the Atlantic or Pitchfork. There was a lot of telling instead of seeing, which suits Jeremy Gordon's everyday format, it's just not working for me for a novel.

See Friendship is a story about grief, friendship, and growing older in a digital age. Jeremy is a journalist who mostly writes music reviews. He's on a leave of absence from his work in New York, spending time in LA where he ends up reconnecting with some of his friends from high school. He reflects on the students from his class who died too young with a particular focus on his old friend Seth who died just a few years after graduating. After discussing it with some of his friends, Jeremy learns something about Seth's death the puts everything in a new light and inspires him to turn it into a podcast for his work. As Jeremy delves in deeper, he learns more about Seth, his old high school classmates, and the imperfection of memory.

This book was not really one for me. I was intrigued by the synopsis. It sounded like it would be mysterious and emotional and a critique on internet culture and the commodification of other people's tragedies, but it did not hit any of those notes for me. The book talked a lot of the way that the internet can connect people and preserve things or how things can be lost online, but I never felt like it made a point. The middle was especially slow, with Jeremy talking to his friends, worrying about how to tell them about the podcast, and then being introduced to another friend to repeat the process again. I think the last 15% of the book was interesting, but the outcome of the investigation didn't surprise me in the slightest. The excerpt from the podcast also made me realize that all of the characters had voices that sounded pretty much the same, so it was difficult to tell if everything was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek-look-at-this-idiot type of tone or if it was all in earnest, in which case I really didn't like any of the characters. This one could be good for those who are big into podcasts or fond of reflecting on their high school years.

This book perfectly captures the awkward, messy reality of modern friendships in the age of social media. It’s funny, a little sad, and painfully relatable in the way it shows how we connect—and disconnect—online and in real life. This book will make you laugh, cringe, and maybe text an old friend after you’re done.

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘫𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯. 𝘞𝘦’𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘴𝘰 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘭𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭."

When my friend passed away two years ago, no one knew how to talk to me. They didn’t know what to say. One friend even consoled me with a “that sux” by text.

For me, I’ve always known death. It was always nearby. Incense. Ammonia. Salt. Cold air. Old wool. As someone who has been to more funerals than weddings, I can conjure up these smells just by thinking about all of my relatives who have been put 6 feet under, easily.

But I’ve always come prepared when my friends had people who had passed away. Flowers. Tissues. Ben and Jerry’s. The “let’s do all your favorite things and tell me about your favorite memories of this loved one.” The Didion. The other Didion too, for good measure.

It is never easy. To know what to say. To know what to do. Generation after generation, we get dumber and dumber about these things. Much like finances or sense of personal style.

Gordon’s debut is poignant, quiet and funny in that A24 kind of way. At once I was going to write this book off as something that one chill guy with the fourth wave oat latte that comes from money but never says he comes from money by buying this full-priced from an indie bookstore in hardback to bring to films screenings and artisanal breweries just to show he’s 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 and knows a thing or two about 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦.

But by its beautiful come-around do we get rich characters, confessionals that hit close to home, and a beautiful resolution to the ways we grieve and move on from death that my opinion and mood changed around this somebody trying to make sense of the things that happened in his past. And isn’t that what we’re always trying to do, making sense of the things too far back in our old worlds.

I’m always for books that have us 𝘥𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳. And to 𝘣𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 around things like death are always important, especially now in a time where we lack community but are in so much need of it. Why is it that a life lost brings people together? Why can’t we come together before the people are gone? Have we not prepared better as people?

I want to prepare as a person for other people. That’s community.

I wasn't quite sure how to rate this, but since ultimately this is meant to represent my subjective level of enjoyment more than the objective quality of the book, its lamentably low.
More to the point, it's difficult to discern the purpose of this book. The writing is quite good; the plotting though ...
The entire book is about a person making a podcast about his dead high school friend. Books about podcasts are all the rage, so it checks that box. But as a plot, its woefully thin for nearly 300 pages that conclude with a trite revelation along the lines of how we never really know anyone.
Which is a bit frustration, considering that this was obviously meant to be a character study.

I don't know how much the writer Jeremy Gordon has based a writer named Jacob Goldberg on himself, or whether this is the case of write what you know. But what he and/or his protagonist know here boils down to a sort of tepid navelgazing quite on brand for people just entering their thirties and looking to "interrogate" their life and experiences, so much so that at some point the protagonist actually tells himself to stop using the word interrogate.

This is much along the same lines of young people penning memoirs these days, despite the fact that there just aren't enough tree rings on them to be all that interesting.
Nor is it that interesting to read about someone's high school experience.

The writing is good enough to keep the pages turning, but there's no reward for your time. Just more talking about the same thing or nothing at all, all muted revelations, and uninteresting characters that leave you wildly indifferent.
Even the cover is peculiarly cheap looking and underwhelming for a Top Five press.

Didn't work for me. User mileage may vary. Thanks Netgalley.

This is a great book! It had a bunch of funny moments, parts that made you think, and parts that were relatable. I did like the themes of friendship, digital age issues, and technology, as well as the obsession our character goes through. I liked the writing style and how the characters were written!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

Great cover and grateful to read an advance copy from NetGalley. Jacob is a journalist on leave from his job and decides he wants to create a podcast revisiting his high school years, particularly since an unusual number of his classmates died. He focuses on the death of one of his best friends, Seth, and learns things that surprise him and cause him to process his grief in a fresh way.

Jacob is a narrator that I cared about and I liked his distinct voice. I found some of the encounters he has with his former classmates to be repetitive and therefore there was a bit of a slow middle. When I got to "Part 2" in the book, the story picked up and I was engaged until the end.

Side note - the meaning of the title was fun to uncover and I'm going to look on Facebook (hint) to see if this feature still exists.

(3.5/5, rounded up)

Immediately after finishing I knew this would be one I'd want to sit with before reviewing fully...

But in the meantime, some misc thoughts

- definitely a specific audience, and outside of that idk if you'd enjoy
- if you/your school didn't experience a student's tragic death, this won't be as poignant. truthfully you likely won't get out this everything that you could from this, had you lost someone in HS. what weird concept, having a "leg up" so to speak, because you have an understanding that will actually help you identify <i>more</i> w this novel.
- the middle really lost me, a major lull that i'm not sure I would have worked past had this not been for NG - which is unfortunate because in the end I did get a lot from this. I started typing out that I hope others don't do that... But if this isn't for you, it just isn't for you. You'll know if this is something relatable or not fairly quickly.

Again, I'm definitely coming back to organize and add to this, but for now...

{Thank you bunches to NetGalley, Jeremy Gordon and Harper Perennial for the DRC in exchange for my honest review!}

ight now this is a 3.5 but I have a feeling I’ll be thinking about it for a while and maybe that makes it a 4?

The story, overall, felt a bis disjointed to me- The back and forth between present day, some time earlier, some time a bit earlier than that and the past all told through the the storytelling device of Jacob’s job stressors felt a bit belabored.

Even still, the writing was beautiful, made me a bit introspective, and positioned grief as a lens in which we see ourselves; how the absence of someone might blur the lines of who we were and who we are.

There was also a lot that was relatable as a millennial that also felt smart and it was interesting to see it crystallized on a page and to think like, “yeah, I’ve that thought before too.”

TY NetGalley for the ARC - looking forward to talking about this one with friends once it’s out.

The book puts a stake in an intelligent position that seems well suited for the millennial generation—that social media has only served to detach us from true friendships, substituting the commodity of surface connection for the vulnerability of actual intimacy. Additionally, it maps out relationships in a literal timeline, allowing us to retrace them, but also leaving so little separation from our pasts that it challenges emotional growth.

Gordon has given us a narrator that we can trust to probe this subject with sensitivity even as his actions may belie ethics. Jacob is rehashing his relationship with Seth for career reasons, but also to resolve some sense of dissatisfaction with how his friend’s life ended. He lays out enough of this for us with a believable earnestness that makes the story ring true.

A large problem with the book is that its concept automatically installs a narrative distance: we hear so much about Seth through these mildly disinterested characters, former classmates who are pressed (through interviews) to remember him. It ends up being a very talky story with little action that would at least alter the pace. And not having the story in front of us, so to speak, creates a lack of immediacy that removes us from any investment in the resolution.

This book is a profound examination of how grief shapes memory and vice versa; it's also about friendship and personal fulfillment and connection in a post-internet world, but it's memory that shapes both the crux of the story and the reader's experience of it. At alternating moments throughout the story, you will pity Jacob, you will roll your eyes at him, and you will also see yourself in him; you will be mad about it and also grateful that someone else understands these things that feel inarticulable most of the time. See Friendship is a singular novel that, to lean entirely on cliche, will stay with you for a very long time after it's over.