Thank you so much to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book early!
I was a huge fan of Holly Bourne’s YA work as a teenager, so I was very excited to experience her adult fiction for the first time. It’s a testament to her writing that I was so hooked on the story and the main relationships as a young adult who has nothing in common with most of the characters. The differing representations of motherhood and adulthood were very interesting, and I found the way the female friendships were presented very true to life. I really liked the way it all wrapped up, and where the characters ended. Holly Bourne has such a unique writing voice and a very specific style of humour which is what made me fall in love with her writing as a teenager - it was nice to read this and still recognise her voice. I really enjoyed this and I think anyone could find something to take from it!

Holly Bourne is an automatic read author for me. I love how she weaves contemporary stories about women with really hard topics, without it ever feeling heavy. I was beyond thrilled to receive my first ever arc of one of Holly’s books.

So thrilled for you, was the most honest and insightful look into being a women in your 30s I have ever read. Being a women in your 30s, with other female friends can be the most difficult time to hold a friendship group together and to be a friend. Everyone’s lives can look so dramatically different. Are you trying to have children, already have children, don’t want children? Your life choices and choices in partners can completely dictate and change your relationship with your best friends and no one ever truly prepares you for that. Or for what others are going through. I truly believe every women should read this book to help not only understand themselves and how they view their friends but also how your friends could view you. We are all full of our own biases to a situation and what struck me the most about this book was how it’s all a matter of perspective.

I always leave a Holly Bourne book having enjoyed it and also having learnt something. It’s like subtle therapy with a side of cocktails. Once again reminding me why she is my automatic buy author. Immense thank you to netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for approving me for an e-arc, it was an honour to read and review this book

Holly Bourne is a genius and this book is perfection. I stayed up wayyyyy too late to finish this proof, which was unwise, as I am deep in the trenches of new parenthood, which is explored so viscerally in this novel. I loved every part of this - all the beautifully nuanced and flawed narrators, the police interviews inserted between chapters, the dissection and excavation of long-term female friendships and all the feelings they stir up, the knife-sharp depiction of envy and jealousy that we all experience but never talk about, and the devastation brought about by infertility and PND. Hard recommend.

If you are looking for a fascinating mystery with a group of female suspects, look no further! An excellent and suspenseful story.

This was an incredibly perceptive read about four very different women and the paths their lives have taken, it has a mystery element running through it but that’s more background noise in comparison. Set during a very tight timeframe which is the day of Nicki’s baby shower but also looking back on some elements of their past this features heavily pregnant Nicki who is only having the baby shower at the insistence of Charlotte who arranged all of it, exhausted new mum Lauren and child free by choice Steffi. I found Charlotte quite a difficult character especially with her fixation on throwing the perfect baby shower which was more of a displacement activity to ignore her issues regarding her fertility problems and to prove she’s totally ok about Nicky’s pregnancy. Nicki has some interesting backstory but despite this being her baby shower I don’t think I really got to know her, Steffi offered a good juxtaposition but this focuses more on her work than her. The main character in this for me was undoubtedly Lauren who I just felt such emotion for as such a horrific birth as she experienced would cause such problems for any new mother and then the issues with her son sleeping just felled her but what stood out was how much she loved her son and would actually do anything for him. The combination of each of these women’s issues made for a tense read as they gradually crack under different pressures which put all their friendships to the test. The mystery element helps weave it all together somewhat but the culprit was extremely unexpected but added an interesting element to the women’s friendship.

So Thrilled For You follows a baby shower gone wrong. Nicki, Lauren, Charlotte and Steffi are all characters in this novel and they have been friends since university. They are in their thirties now and life has pulled them in different directions. Nikki is pregnant and the baby shower is for her but tensions rise as Steffi is child free, Lauren is struggling with motherhood and Charlotte wants to conceive more than anything.

This felt very dated to me and it feels like I’ve read this novel before. It felt like something that should have been published years ago rather than 2025. I’ve read a lot of books from this author before but her newer work just feels dated if I’m completely honest.

When I first started this book, I thought "I know these ladies".
I think we all do to some extent.
There's always trials and troubles in groups of friendships, but it's good to know you've got people on your side.
My heart went out to Lauren a lot, she was realistically broken.
This story raised the odd laugh, the odd moment to reflect, and the wonder of who exactly did start the fire.
An enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for this ARC.

Nicki is pregnant and her friend Charlotte is throwing her a baby shower and gender reveal party. Lauren and Steffi are invited too. Those four have been friends since university ten years ago but each has a different attitude to motherhood. Lauren has a nine month old baby called Woody but had a traumatic childbirth and hates motherhood. Nicki struggles with her sexuality and has sacrificed a lot to have a baby but she doesn't want this over the top baby shower. Steffi is happily child-free whereas Charlotte wants nothing more than to have a baby but three rounds of IVF later she is still struggling. She is throwing Nicki the shower she's always wanted herself, and it will be perfect.

It is a swelteringly hot day and they all literally sit in a glasshouse, while Charlotte had the bright idea to announce the baby's gender with a smoke rocket without actually letting anyone know this part. This can only go wrong and it does so spectacularly.

This is an exploration of motherhood and female friendship from all angles. The husbands don't really get a look-in. All four women feel judged for their life choices and actions. There is so much rage and resentment and failure to understand each other between the four that it seems almost insurmountable. They are accusing each other of being selfish and ungrateful, culminating in an almost hilarious 'Shut up, no you shut up!" shouting match on the parched lawn.

Like Steffi, I am happily child-free. I cannot understand the urge to have a child but even if I did I think the description of Lauren's traumatic labour and treatment in hospital would have turned me off children for life. Consider this a trigger warning for extreme description of labour. I still haven't recovered. I could however sympathise with all four women, at least for the most part.

The book is well-written and brings all the points across but suffers from repetition. I wasn't terribly interested in who ultimately started the fire. It was a scorching day with about 100 degrees, it was almost inevitable that something would catch fire sooner or later. I felt the police interviews boring and distracting.

You might get on better with this book if you have children and can recognise the longing and the feeling of inadequacy, either (not) becoming pregnant or being a new mother. There is a lot of backstory for everyone but Steffi and I would have wanted to give her life and job more prominence than it got.

I really loved this. It was such a brilliant observation of female friendships and the different trajectories life can take in your early thirties. Although I am most aligned with child-free Steffi, I could empathise with all the characters. The characters were so well-rounded and all had unique voices, so it was always clear whose perspective you were reading from.

I enjoyed the conversational writing style, it all felt really natural to read. I liked how we got backstory on all the characters and their friendship so that we could understand why they feel and act the way they do in the present. I was invested in all of the storylines and found the book really hard to put down.

If I have to be nitpicky, I would have preferred the book without the 'whodunit' element, as for me the reveal was underwhelming.

Overall I would 100% recommend this book.

What. A. Book!

Holly Bourne is truly one of the greatest authors of our time, and ‘So Thrilled For You’ is her best book yet. Honestly, I think it should be required reading for everyone.

This book follows four different women who all have different feelings around pregnancy and children, who come together in a huge glass house in the middle of a heat wave to celebrate a baby shower. But, funnily enough, a heatwave mixed with a gender reveal firework takes what should’ve been the perfect day into what the media call a ‘blaize-ic bitch baby shower’.

As with every Holly Bourne book, these characters are crafted in such a perfect, human way that they are so flawed, but so relatable and full of surprises. You can feel the the justified anger at how society fail women in so many different ways, from your decision on having children to how you act with them once you have them.

Honestly, all of the characters would’ve been justified in starting the fire and watching the world burn.

Exceptionally written, endearing, enraging, entertaining and extremely unputdownable - everyone needs to read this book.

Huge thank you to NetGalley and Hodder Books for the ARC.

Beautiful reflective book on all aspects of motherhood. Would make a great movie or miniseries. Perfect for fans of Big Little Lies.