My thanks to Netgalley for my copy of The Group, an intellectually written novel about a group of women friends as they approach their forties.

Despite the references to the #metoo movement and Love Island I felt that the novel felt less up to modern and almost seemed to be set, maybe in the 1940s. These women, members of the 'group' come across as a bunch of white, middle class, smug and self obsessed individuals that I found very hard to like or even empathise with.

I found that the fact that it was narrated by just one voice who seemed to know exactly what was happening, even what the others were thinking long after she'd left and gone home quite disconcertingly confusing at times.

I find it hard to understand why their brand of feminism has to cast all men as the enemy, although I appreciate that they didn't take it as far as the women younger than them now do.

Although I found it a strange book it wasn't an effort to read but it gave me no real pleasure and I was totally nonplussed when it just finished, no conclusion, nothing.

I found this very difficult to engage with unfortunately - the style of writing just didn’t absorb me?l, and the number of characters made it difficult to read without having any emotional attachment to them.

I’m glad I persevered, but it’s not one I’ll reread.

Stella, Priss, Helena, Kay and Polly are old university friends . We meet them twenty years later as they negotiate children, work, divorce, adultery and depression.

I think that Laura Fiegel can write, but this novel seems to be some sort of experiment with the fictional form, in which you write with as little emotional engagement as possible. It was like looking down the wrong end of a telescope. Stella is the omniscient narrator but towards the end of the novel Kay, who has struggled with depression, begins to write her own novel. So i did wonder if this novel is in fact meant to be the novel that Kay herself writes, the emotional distance and flat prose meant to indicate her own state of mind.
The five women are virtually indistinguishable from each other. Again i feel that this is deliberate but it doesn't make for very enoysble reading. I couldn't relate to their dislike of their children, or their endless extramarital affairs. It was a real struggle to finish this.

I did enjoy reading this book and to see how everyone’s lives are different and how it’s ok to be different and feel different things. However I was a bit confused at the end. It didn’t really seem to end even though I know the book went through the months and it was December when the book ended but I felt it lacked something.

Exploring the friendship of five middle class women in their forties who met as students at university, Lara Feigel’s The Group is a deliciously funny and poignant read. Moving between first person accounts of each woman, Stella, Kay, Polly, Priss and Helena, we’re treated to intimate ideas and insightful thoughts from each, as well as the relationships between them. Children, marriages, careers, relationships – all are up for exploration. Who has fulfilled their promise? Who is living life in the right way?

As well as their general lives, in a post #MeToo world the novel explores a controversial activity and the difficulties about knowing who is telling the truth. The modern landscape is difficult for both women and men, and the book doesn’t shy away from this.

It’s a little tricky to get into, and confusing at times, but very pointedly written. The women are a bot frustrating, and clearly very privileged – not that that means they can’t have problems.

It’s Lara’s first novel, and the critic and professor at UCL has written extensively about the lives of individuals in history, bringing in their personal lives to their public.

The Group clearly takes its cue from Mary McCarthy's 1963 frank, absorbing novel about a group of female graduates and is an interesting portrait of contemporary female life and friendship.

From university to mid thirties the group of five have kept in touch, expanding and contracting as relationships start and finish. The addition of children, returning to work or staying at home, the relationship eb and flow as circumstances change.

Lara Fiegel clearly is insightful and intelligent but I found the number of characters in her novel The Group unwieldy. I was constantly wondering who peripheral characters were. I found the device of one character being an omniscient narrator really odd and it didn’t work for me. Despite the fact that there were references to the Metoo movement and other contemporary issues, it felt strangely old fashioned, as if the women weren’t forty year olds now. . It was puzzling as, in many ways, it had a lot to say.

I really couldn't get into this and picked it up a few times over a couple of weeks but didn't finished. Some interesting characters but not enough to hold my interest. Great premise for a book though.

An absorbing unique look at a group of women who are about to turn forty.Best friends since college .They now are living their adult lives children marriages divorce.There is one overview one friend who comments on everyone’s lives decisions.At times hilarious at times snarky a book that is so well written will be recommending to all.#netgalley#johnmurraybooks

Feigel's "The Group" is modeled after McCarthy's '54 novel of the same name; it is a well-paced, well-written book, not paricularly funny, despite the blurb stating so, that mainly focuses on exploring the experience of the twenty-first century woman.

‘The Group’ by Lara Feigel is one of those novels that gives women a bad name. I appreciate that this is a pretty damning sweeping statement but it’s come from trawling through this story desperately hoping that at least some of her privileged five will become a little less self-centred and a little more outward looking.
Focusing on Stella, Kay, Polly, Priss and Helena, all of whom meet at university, the reader is presented with middle-class London lives in which all of them live in pleasant accommodation and enjoy interesting jobs – if they choose to! They angst about how difficult it is to look after their children, even though they have help or family close by. Or they choose to have children when they have been childless, or decide not to have children. Is Feigel giving us anything new? Or writing about everyday life in an engaging way? Or suggesting that we can learn something about our own lives from what her characters think, say and do? If she is, then this reader has massively failed to recognise these strengths!
Told in third person from recently divorced (and already partnered anew) Stella’s point of view, Feigel also uses the rather strange narrative device of Stella telling the others’ stories in third person too. Stella’s voice seems to fade almost immediately so that one wonders why the whole novel could not have been told in a more traditional third person narrative. This feels like a failed stylistic experiment.
I’m not a reader who has to ‘like’ characters before I can enjoy a novel. If that were the case, I wouldn’t have enjoyed classics like Graham Greene’s ‘Brighton Rock’ or the recent brilliantly written ‘Night Boat to Tangier’ by Kevin Barry. Feigel’s characters are certainly not likeable in the main: they are often self-absorbed, disloyal, and pretty dull but I can’t see what she is hoping to show her readers by presenting them as such. Is the patriarchy at fault? Not obviously – most of these women are using their men as much as the men use them.
Feigel can clearly write (hence 2 stars rather than 1) so this novel feels like a wasted opportunity, both for her and the reader!

Sorry but I really couldn’t get into ‘The Group’ by Lara Feigel. I dint finish the book as I couldn’t get on with the character and I found the writing a bit clunky.

This book completely drew me in.

It’s well written and relatable given the subject matter.

Revealing story of female relationships.

This book describes the lives of five women who met at university and remain friends 20 years later despite affairs, marriages and children. Narrated by one woman it is difficult to differentiate between them all. There is a sameness to their lives and indeed their expectations. They all come across as self absorbed, selfish one sided characters. I find these types of novel very difficult. There is no reality to their narrative. This particularly lacks something that would make the reader want to read more. I wanted to shake them in their "woe is me" mentality.

This was a book that I was excited to read and was glad to be auto approved, since it catered to characters of my age. I don't find many books where all or most of the protagonists are of the age group in late 30s or in their 40s, and this one was about female friendships in the current world.

The story revolves around the friendships of five women - Stella, Kay, Polly, Priss and Helena. They were a tight knit group in college and they remain friends into their 40s as well. The story is narrated by Stella, but there are PoVs for each character, but narrated in third person I think. All the women think the other has a perfect life or has it all, whereas, underneath, each woman is struggling in their own way.

The book touches upon some important subjects like gender equality, women having to manage career expectations with motherhood expectations, monogamy, sex, etc.

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this book after reaching half way through in the book. I tried my best to read further to see if my views on the story and writing changes, but that didn't happen. I think my only issue with this was the writing style. The narration felt complex for me to follow and the lack of dialogues made it slightly boring for me, despite the interesting subject matter.

I'm sure this book will be enjoyed by many others and readers should give it a chance. However, it didn't work for me :)

Disclaimer - I was sent a free digital copy of this book by NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Honestly I first I found it a little hard to get into this story and didn’t feel that pull to keep on reading. I think the book may be better suited to those maybe a little older than myself. However, I think the book does hold some promise and would be a good read for those around the 40 yo age.

I liked the sound of this book from the description, as it felt relevant to me. Stella is the story teller, sometimes in the third person, but the writing style is trying to be too modern. The Me Too movement wasn't really represented enough for me, nor the stagnant opinion of many men to this day.

However, it tried to please everybody and once you get over the lack of some punctuation and layout it is an OK read. Just not that funny and actually quite sad in places!

Thanks to John Murray Press and Netgalley for an early copy of The Group.

Whilst The Group had an interesting premise, I really struggled with reading this book.

I had hoped it would be an honest account of the lives of five grown up friends who had moved away from each other since their days of cohabitation and were struggling to keep the old friendship alive. Unfortunately this was not the case, most of the characters were quite unlikeable (a lot of middle class privilege) and at points it was very confusing as to what was true /what wasn't as well as what was about our narrator or her friends.

Really disappointed by this one but hopefully will enjoy Feigel's future work.

2.5/5

This book was Stella’s point of view of the friendships of a group of five university friends now in their forties. The challenges of motherhood, marriage, divorce, being gay, unmarried, affairs and one with the husband of one of the group. Each of these women with different lives connected solely by university. Many eventualities seems to have been thrown into the mix with all playing a strong part in the book.

There was not enough substance for me in this book with the middle class, privileged people whose worlds were not fulfilling enough to give them a full rounded concept of life.

I found it hard to know when Stella was referring to herself or one of the group. It was more a character study than a smooth flowing story. It was very disjointed in how it was written.

I had high hopes for 'The Group' by Lara Feigel. The comments on its front cover by Tessa Hadley and Rachel Cusk promised "pure pleasure," and a "very funny and intelligent book," and I was excited to read a story about women of a similar age to me, negotiating their lives and friendships.

However, from the get go I didn't enjoy this book and ultimately gave up on it quite quickly. This was largely because of the style in which this book was written. The point of view of the novel was solely Stella's, even when she wasn't present in the room and was describing the introspections of the other characters. This made it hard to invest, particularly as Stella didn't appeal to me as a character. It was also because things seemed to move very slowly and therefore I wasn't encouraged to keep reading in order to find out what was going to happen.