I really enjoyed ‘Expectation’. It’s extremely atmospheric and Hope constructs characters and settings with wonderful depth. She is a writer that makes you feel as if you’re within the book - next to the characters, experiencing everything alongside them. (It probably helps that I live in London, where the majority of the book is set.) I found all of the characters and the plots surrounding them interesting, and didn’t get them confused, as I thought I would. It’s a brilliant exploration of female friendship, and will be extremely relatable to a lot of women. I’m excited to see more contemporary fiction from Anna Hope.

Expectation begins with an introduction to three friends, Lissa, Cate and Hannah living together in 2004 in London. Everything seems simple, idyllic almost:
'life is still malleable and full of potential'. But as the novel progresses we gain a much deeper insight into the lives of these awesome women. All struggling with issues that the writer doesn't shy away from discussing in brutal detail. Hannah's struggles with IVF and the heart wrenching loss that follows. Lissa, lost and in love with her best friend's husband. Cate feeling overwhelmed with motherhood and feeling that somehow she has become less. Something mothers everywhere will relate to. This book is smart, sexy and real. Expectation was pure joy to read. Moving, inspiring and written with real depth, I highly recommend this beautiful book.

This is a book exploring friendships, how they change over time and how we cope as we grow older and realise our dreams are no longer what we desire or what we need in life.

We follow the lives of Hannah, Cate and Lissa from their school days, through to university when life was full of possibilities and opportunities, and finally into the difficulties of being 40-somethings. Hannah and her husband, both successful in their careers, are struggling with IVF. Cate has a young baby but seems detached from her husband and is searching for a face from the past. Lissa is struggling to achieve success in her professional life and feels dissatisfied with her intimate relationships.

The story is told through shifting narratives and shifting time periods as we become privy to the inner worlds of each of the friends. We share both their joys and disappointments as they face various challenges.

I particularly liked the changing narratives, as it gives readers the opportunity to get to know each of the three characters. They were real, believable, fantastic and flawed humans. I felt invested in each character, I wanted them to achieve their dreams and to reach a place of inner peace and contentment.

I did feel some of the plot developments were a little convenient, such as Hannah’s trip to Scotland. Also, some characters seemed slightly one dimensional eg Cate’s husband. But to be honest, that’s me being REALLY critical. I absolutely loved this book. I loved the simple, understated prose. I found myself looking forward to my next reading session, already mourning the end before I reached it. It’s my book of 2019 so far, by far. Highly recommended.

Many thanks to Random House UK and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book.

I really enjoyed this book I struggled a little with the first few chapters until I got into the swing of the narrative style and the time jumps and the names of all the characters and their spouses etc but then the book zipped along. Great observational writing and resonated with me even though I'm a bit older and through the baby raising stage.
The novel follows three friends through their lives up until the present, jumping back and forwards in time. Two of the friends to reveal the characters histories. Hannah and Cate met at school and the third friend, Lissa meets Hannah at University. The book deals with the gap between their expectations of how their lives would unfold when they were younger and single and the reality of their situations in their mid thirtie.. Cate goes to Cambridge University but struggles to find her place in the world (after her mother dies) and feels out of place in a whirlwind relationship that has somehow produced a baby and marriage to a jobbing chef. Lissa's acting career started well but has stalled like her relationships with men and she often can't even afford her rent. Hannah has a plum job as a Charity boss, a Uni lecturer husband and a lovely London flat, she seems to have it all but fertility problems and her longing for a baby are causing her heartache and her marriage to fracture. A great read.

Having read both Ballroom and Wake by Anna Hope I was eager to read her latest offering. Featuring three friends, Lissa, Hannah and Cate the novel follows their friendship through the years and their interactions with one another, charting their hopes and disappointments. Lissa is the bohemian one, having a troubled relationship with her mother and failing to make her name as an actress. Hannah is married but struggling with her fertility which is placing her relationship with her husband Nathan under enormous strain. Finally there is Cate, recently moved out of London to Kent where she is a struggling with coming to terms with motherhood. These are all issues faced by women the whole world over and the author does write very eloquently about said dilemmas in a thought provoking and intelligent way. I think the themes of this novel will resonate with most women which makes it very readable and believable. Although I devoured this book very quickly, I have to say I found it to be a sombre read, which in all fairness seems to be standard for Anna Hopes books. This is contemporary women’s fiction at its finest in terms of the author’s compassionate and insightful look at ordinary lives and how they are affected by all that life can throw at us. Life is unpredictable and many things can derail you from your chosen path through life but all our hopes and failures make us who we are which the author expresses beautifully through the intertwining lives of these women. I recommend giving this space on your bookshelf and thanks as always to the publisher and Netgalley for allowing me to read ahead of publication.

I really enjoyed this book, it was written very well and the interconnecting stories of the three main characters were plotted out really well. Anna uses quite plain language in the book and it really worked well. The theme of parenthood both as a mother and as a daughter were explored really well and, while the stories were fairly bleak at points, it all came together very neatly at the end. I will definitely recommend this book.

3.5 stars. This is written with a lot of style, lyrical language and good pacing. The story centres around three female friends and the way they have moved through each others’ lives during the course of their relationships. As they mature and begin settling down, none of them is quite happy with the way things have turned out, and they each seem to envy what the others have, whether that’s a child, a career, a secure relationship, or freedom. It’s about the strength and brittleness of female friendships and there were elements I loved, but it didn’t always click for me.

This book tells the story of three women, friends since childhood/university, through their various trials and tribulations. At times I found the book excellent, but it lost me towards the end, hence only 4 stars. Some readers will identify more with the three main characters, and get a lot more out of the book than I did.

The book opens at a brief, golden time when Cate, Hannah and Lissa live together in Hackney, in their 20s, full of potential and hope for the future. Most of it is set in 2012, when Hannah is struggling with IVF, Cate has moved out of London with her husband and new baby and doesn't know where she fits any more, and Lissa is facing up to her lack of success as an actress and the difficulties that being late 30s brings to that career. There are flashbacks to when Cate and Hannah met at school, and to Hannah and Lissa meeting at university and relationships and experiences that happened in the late 90s for all of them.

It's about the gaps between how you thought life would work out, and how it actually has, between how it appears to those on the outside, even close friends, and what it feels like to live it. Hannah's resentment of Cate, Lissa's betrayal, Cate trying to work out where she fits in what is still a new relationship with her husband - and for all of them, who they really are in their 30s. It's a very realistic portrayal of the expectations versus the realities, and how your friends fit, and they're recognisable characters. I enjoyed it, whilst also having a bit to reflect on as only a little younger than the characters!

I love a book that weaves multiple viewpoints and stories together seamlessly, and Hope did not disappoint in this tale. Set in modern London, as opposed the the usually historic settings favoured in the past by Hope, the book follows three friends and their timeline of life and is a really enjoyable plot. It feels familiar, its interesting and it prompts empathy with the characters. I recommend this book.

This is a book about expectation versus reality, friendship and the fragility of relationships. We are introduced to three female friends in their 20s and follow them through the trials and tribulations of their 30s, while also reflecting on their past. This shows us how individual lives change or progress in different ways and each of them have something another one of them longs for, causing friction among them. The writing style makes it a pleasant read and I think this is a story that a lot of women will identify with as it is certainly relatable.

While I felt that it was far more realistic than a lot of other contemporary fiction (in terms of the modern lives of women), there were several trite or sudden moments, which I found disappointing. I would have liked to see more character development, as I felt that following three main characters did water this down slightly. It's also a shame that it's yet another novel set in London (for the most part) - I think it would have worked just as well set in another city (in this case, possibly Manchester).

What does it take to live a meaningful life? That’s the subject of Anna Hope’s new novel, Expectation.

Hannah, Cate and Lissa are young, vivacious and close to each other as only young people are. Living in East London,  they spend their days exploring romance, art, activism and merriment, and are convinced that the world to come will give them everything they hope for, and more. Truly best friends, they believe that they will be inseparable forever. Ten years on, and things have changed. Their once electric world is now faltering amid flailing careers and fractured marriages. Each longs for what the others have.

Hope’s prose is spiky and acute. She’s on form when writing witty prose, and gets inside the complex moments with tenderness and intimacy. Female friendships are the subject, rather than romantic, but these relationships are deep and meaningful, and underpin the lives of the protagonists.

The novel was inspired by American TV series The Affair.

It’s a warm and emotional novel that shimmers with brilliance. Well worth adding to the 'to read' list.

2.75 Stars

Expectation is a novel that explores the highs and lows of friendship. There are three main characters that we follow throughout the book. The three women used to be very good friends but now, due to several reasons, they have kind of drifted apart a little bit and nothing is how it used to be when they were younger. This book surely shows what happens when people take different paths in their life and how sometimes you can lose touch with the people you felt the closest with in the past. It's something that can totally happen and I think it was truthfully described. I must say that I expected a little bit more of female friendship from this book and in the end it was not what I found. The moments when they were together kind of fell flat to me.
I don't think that the big plot-twist of the book (Nathan cheating on Hannah with Lissa) was dealt with in a good way. Hannah comes to this shocking revelation on her own and totally out of the blue. It wasn't very realistic in my opinion.
Overall it was an okay read that made me reflect on some important themes, but I definitely expected more from it.

A bitter sweet examination of the gap between promise and fulfilment, dreams and reality, Expectation follows the lives of three women, Cate, Hannah and Lissa from the easy hope of their late twenties to the harsher reality of their thirties and forties.
School friends Cate and Hannah have always enjoyed a competitive friendship, a competition both tempered and heightened when Hannah meets Lissa at university and the duo become a trio, sharing a house in Hackney at the beginning of the century. Golden girl Cate is already unsure of her path, her First from Cambridge squandered on heartbreak and years working in a cafe while Hannah took the disappointment of rejection from Cambridge and turned it into a successful career. Meanwhile Lissa enjoys her youth, beauty and talent, convinced her big break is on the horizon. But ten years later Cate is stuck with a squalling baby and a husband she isn't sure she loves in a house miles away from her friends, Hannah is about to embark on yet another course of IVF and Lissa is single and facing the knowledge that she may never make it after all. How did they get here - and where do they go next?
Betrayal, heartbreak and unpleasant truths await all three as we follow them from their carefree twenties, back to their troubled teens and forward to their even more troubled thirties as they face the difference between their reality and the expectations they once so blithely held. Expectation is an elegant, taut examination of womanhood in the twenty first century. Recommended.

Female friendships are beautiful, complicated things, and Expectation captures that amazingly. It’s easy to read without being fluffy, and is surprisingly sad and moving at times. Really enjoyed this.

A book about life. Life for three women who came of age in the late 1990s. We follow periods of their lives mainly in the 21st century, their lives, the things that bind them - and the wedges driven between them.

Loved it - a gentle, good humoured, loving look at life.

I enjoyed this light and fluffy book, totally stole my heart. It was so entertaining to read about the lives of three friends. I liked their story, it was very approachable and smooth writing. I'd recommend it if you're looking for a nice summer read.

Thanks a lot to the publisher and NetGalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was an enjoyable enough book about three friends Cait, Lissa and Hannah and how they develop over the course of ten years. They each have to come to terms with how their life is turning out whether it is dealing with the trials of having a child or not being able to conceive or reconciling yourself to the fact that you're not going to have the career you expected. It's all very London centred and middle class and frankly, safe. Sometimes I just yearn for something a bit more gritty. But it's pleasant enough and will appeal to lots of people. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I loved this book as much as I hoped I would! I'm a bit of a dreamer and a romantic and the description of this book really appealed to me. I'm forever thinking back to my teenager years mainly because I moved away for university and lost touch with school friends. All the hopes and dreams I had as a teenager seem a lifetime ago and so this book sounded the perfect for me.
It's the first novel I've read by Anna Hope and wow what a beautiful writer she is. My favourite parts of the book were the clever observations, for example; when Hannah described the kindness exuded by her Mum and Dad and their seemingly mundane lives. I can completely relate to this sort of comfort and stability in a family. Similarly the panic felt by Cate when venturing out of the house with a new baby - particularly the meeting between Hannah and Cate where Cate has a hate hate relationship with her changing bag - so relatable!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will definitely be recommending it.

I enjoyed this book, but found it a bit too light and fluffy. It's an entertaining story of the lives of three friends, but none of them really seems real, or even particularly likeable, so it is difficult to care very much about what happens to them in the end. A good holiday read, but no more than that.