A delayed review unfortunately - my apologies.

Finally here we are:

So Thrilled for You was completely up my street!

A solid 4 stars. Holly Bourne a new mum herself, captures a really blunt raw honestly about female
Friendship with this character led book, each woman is someone to relate to for most women. Tackling serious topics whilst also having comic, memorable lines. The Little Women are all in some ways recognisable… flawed but real, Holly handles discussing tricky topics around motherhood with empathy and understanding which was good to see. Unsure on the ending feeling a bit meh, hence one less star but overall, it’s a relatable read. Thank you to NetGalley and hodder stoughton.

Four best friends meet up for a baby shower on the hottest day of the year, a baby shower that ends in a horrific fire.

Charlotte who is struggling with infertility has organised the shower for Nicki who is hating being the centre of attention, especially considering one of the guests Charlotte invited for her... Lauren has already had her baby and is secretly struggling following a traumatic birth and Steffi is happily child free by choice and her career is taking off. Everyone has their secrets and tensions are simmering.

I really enjoyed the writing style of this and the way everything was revealed slowly but it frustrated me that these women have been best friends since university yet they don't talk properly about anything. The characters were really well developed but I did want more from the ending.

Sharp, honest, and painfully relatable—Holly Bourne does it again! FIVE big fat ⭐s

So Thrilled for You follows four university friends—Nicki, Lauren, Charlotte, and Steffi—who reunite at a baby shower during a sweltering heatwave. What starts as a celebration quickly becomes a pressure cooker for long-simmering tensions, buried resentments, and the complexities of female friendship. As the day unfolds, the cracks in their seemingly polished lives begin to show, forcing them to confront uncomfortable truths about themselves and each other.

This is my first 5-star read of the year, which is no surprise because I love @hollybourneya’s writing. She has a way of making me feel so seen. Some passages just hit differently—so sharp, so true, so brutally accurate that I found myself nodding along while reading. I remember feeling the same way with Girl Friends, and So Thrilled for You had that same impact.

Bourne writes about everyday sexism in a way that’s so painfully accurate, you don’t even realise how ingrained it is until she spells it out—and honestly, sometimes that can be quite triggering! But this book is more than just a feminist gut-punch. It’s funny, scathing, and filled with vibrant, flawed, and deeply real characters.

It’s an exploration of the knotty dynamics of female friendship, the societal pressures around motherhood, and the unspoken resentment that can creep into relationships as life moves on.

I got so angry while reading—at men, at the expectations placed on women, and yes, even at the friends themselves! But that’s what makes this book so brilliant. Each woman presents a different perspective, and it serves as a much-needed reminder to think beyond our own situations, stop making comparisons, and actually show up for each other.

So readable, so thought-provoking—this was a cathartic read, and I loved it. Highly recommend!

PS: I read two Goodreads reviews that really stuck out for me about this book: “So good I forgot I was reading”, and “A morality tale about the consequences of bitching about people at the same party as you”...spot on 😂

As a woman who has chosen to be child free, I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this book. However, I would 100% recommend. It gave insightful Perspectives into the experiences of so many women and challenged my thinking about my own attitudes.

A great page turner, focusing on a group of friends navigating a pivotal moment in their lives. The backdrop of a heatwave add a nice element to the tension which builds and builds.

I thoroughly enjoyed this read - themes of friendship, womanhood and motherhood will always be favourites of mine!

I also didn’t anticipate how funny this book was going to be. I’m certain this book will do so well (I’ve already seen it front and centre in many popular bookstores - and for good reason).

I’ll be keeping an eye out for any future books by Holly Bourne!

This book gave me ANXIETY beyond belief. Claustrophobic and sweaty, and maddening, but equally brilliant. I found the description of the realtionships between the girls and their families/partners/babies incredibly realistic. A very modern book which I recommmend for millenial women.

A great page turner. The story follows a group of friends that have been friends since college. Now they're going off and starting families of their own (or not) and new tensions and old resentments surface at a baby shower.

Meet Nicki, Lauren, Steffi and Charlotte affectionately known as The Little Women, four best friends since they met in university. Now in their 30s oh how life has changed babies, pregnancies, infertility, voluntary childlessness. They meet on a scorching summer day to celebrate Nicki's pending arrival however all is not as it seems, the baby shower ends in a fire possibly deliberate. So we go back through the events through the day and the last 10 plus years to see what has led to this. Some really serious issues are dealt with in this book so definitely take a look at trigger warnings. However Holly Bourne has dealt with them amazingly and even made me laugh throughout. Cool Mum being the most relateable character I've ever read 🤣 First book from this authour but won't be my last. Thank you to netgalley & hodder books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4.5 stars
Having read a few of Holly Bourne's YA books, I was really intrigued by how she would handle women's fiction and this feels so apt for where I am (and I can imagine so many other women will be) in my life right now.
It feels really honest and definitely has an introspective feel to it, which I liked. But it was also funny, while being more nuanced at times, giving it a good mix of the two and keeping me reading along.
This is the kind of story that I'll be recommending to everyone else at the same point in life as me and the characters.
And I definitely can't wait to see what Holly does next, after reading this.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have read all of Holly Bournes books and always enjoy them.

I loved this cover and thought it was different from her previous books.

This is about 4 university friends reuniting for a baby shower.

this is about friendships and how things change.

Was a good read

A harrowing and hard-hitting novel that details some extremes of motherhood that need to be written about!

I am so glad that this book has been written. The different types of mothers that the author portrays are so important for a woman to recognise and normalise. Obviously this plot is fiction and an extreme case, but it's important nonetheless.

This book was such a page turner. i was so invested in the story of the 4 friends that i couldn’t put it down!
so many twists and though it jumped from character to character the way it was written was genius and i loved it!
definitely recommend

This is really women’s fiction, but it’s quite funny. There’s a hilarious monologue about breastfeeding which anyone who’s tried to breastfeed will empathise with
The trauma of birth is laid bare as is there typical difficulties of early days with a small baby?
IVF, miscarriage post depression There’s lots of weighty stuff in this novel but it’s all dealt with with subtlety poise and sense of humour that ultimately makes the book a fantastic read. as the author herself puts it the share audacious every day relentless effort of motherhood.

There’s something in here about millennial generation and social media making us all feel that our friends are having such beautiful glorified lives when we see their posts but can’t see what’s going on behind them
I always love it in a novel when there is discussion about novelists writing their first novels and publishers because obviously all of this has happened to the author of the book quite recently too
I originally copy of the novel on NetGalley UK and return for an honest review. The book was published in the UK on the 16th of January 2025 by Hodder and Stoughton.
This review will appear on NetGalley UK, Goodreads, StoryGraph, and my book blog bionicSarahSbooks.wordpress.com. It will also appear on Amazon Uk

As a new mum, this book made me feel more seen than anything else has in the last five months. I highlighted so many quotes that resonated with me and felt less alone as a result as the girls kept me company during naps.

At times the plot dragged a little, hence the reduction to four stars, but ultimately this was a hugely insightful read, and one I will recommend to all of my friends having children.

I have seen a lot of good reviews for this book online so thought I would give it a read but it did take me a while to get into it.

This is the story of four friends from university and how their lives have gone in different directions since leaving university and going into their thirties. This is a story of friendship, motherhood and different decisions that women make during their lives.

The main focus of the story is on the baby shower which ends in disaster and you are kept guessing who the culprit is.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the advanced reader copy.

Incredible book about the very real truth to friendships - especially as a woman i find - as you grow up. Some truly messy characters that just fit right into the image in your head and honestly relatable either to yourself or someone you know/have run into before.

I didn't know exactly what to expect from 'So Thrilled For You' - the synopsis made me think it would be a tense thriller, but I actually felt it was a (still very tense) drama focused on a group of female friends who have stayed in touch, but whose lives have changed a lot since they all became close at university many years ago. We meet Lauren, struggling hugely as a new mother; Nicki, who is pregnant; Charlotte, who is desperate for a baby but has never been able to conceive; and Steffi, who has never wanted children but feels her friends treat her differently because of this. They are all invited to Nicki's baby shower, organised by Charlotte and shaping up to be a very 'extra' shower - and tensions rise as the friends' relationships get put to the test in different ways - with some secrets peppered amongst the drama.

What we do know, however, is that somehow, a fire is started at the venue - but who started it? And why?

I definitely found I was enjoying the journey to get to the 'whodunnit' as much, if not more, than the mystery element, and I'm someone who LOVES a mystery in books usually. The main character's relationships, backstories, and interactions are dramatic and incredibly entertaining. I didn't necessarily like them all but I loved reading about them.

I don't have any experience with pregnancy, children or anything else to do with this topic, but I was entirely absorbed by this story. I didn't want to put this book down and I found it completely gripping. I would highly recommend whether you have children or no interest!

This is funny in many places and therefore fun to read. The challenges and tropes of being a women in today's world will resonate with many.
It's not my usual genre and I didn't get on well with the plot (I basically didn't care) but it's a good comedy, fun, and emotional.

This is not a genre I would normally go for but something stood out for me here. I really enjoyed the relationship of the four women and thought each of them had a convincing story.. Between them, they represent so many young women’s lives today. At times the narrative was funny but mostly I found it quite thought-provoking. I didn’t always love the style of the writing, which is sometimes quite informal, however, I can see what the author was achieving by doing this. I enjoyed the police interviews interspersed throughout.