Emerson and Amos met in college and have now been friends for over 30 years. As they meet with their families for a weekend a shocking even forces them to revisit their relationship and its meaning. A slow burning novel and to be honest I found the writing of this novel to be a little disjointed for me and I found that I was having to re-read many paragraphs several times to grasp the meaning. I think this is a case of the right book, but at the wrong time for me., I never warmed to any of the characters which made it difficult for me to connect to the story. However, although it was not to my taste, I do think that many other readers would enjoy it, and I will be interested to see what the author writes in the future. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARRC of this novel in return for an honest review.

When two men and their two families reunite for a weekend of birthday celebrations, a shocking event takes place. It should ruin their friendship. But it doesn’t. Because privileged men get away with their crimes and those closest to them lovingly lift up the rug that they’re sweeping everything under.

Maybe that is the point the author was alluding to, in which case, he has proved his point in demonstrating the selfishness of adults but honestly, I would have loved for some selflessness here.

I was initially drawn to this book as I was curious about reading about the close friendship between two men who, through knowing each other forever, claim to have a friendship like no other. Initially, I loved the intrusiveness I had as a reader, knowing their sometimes fleeting and impulsive thoughts about each other, the care they had for each other and the history they shared. The writing was sometimes sharp, sometimes beautifully descriptive but also quite disjointed at times and this was a struggle to keep cycling through.

Read if you’re up for some:
· Disappointing adults
· Teenagers who will end up being your favourite characters because the adults won’t be
· An interesting ending

Avoid if you’ve had enough of rich, privileged men.

Unfortunately I DNFed this at 34%. Surprised to see this as a BOTM July option which prompted me to write this so long after reading. The prose itself is good but it just felt like nothing was really happening even 30% in. Subtle— and don’t get me wrong, I love subtle— but it was hard to follow at times and didn’t seem like it was going anywhere even a third in. Really tried to get into this as I love lit fic and am grateful for the e-ARC

Two very male friends meet young and stay friendly over the years, in a complex and dependent relationship that changes over time. That's fine, until the women in their lives threaten their relationship with their needs. While I can see the book is well-constructed and trying very hard to be elegant and thought provoking, the treatment of women, both the writing of them and the characters created, are sorely lacking bordering on the offensive and the treatment of an incident between one man and his friend's daughter is appalling and leads to much soul searching in the course of the story which is never quite resolved. A difficult and unpleasant read.

This was another fantastic novel I picked up thanks to the Picador books debut showcase! Thank you so much for the eARC ♥️
There’s been some publishing chatter around this one and after devouring it in 24 hours (on Father’s Day weekend no less), I can absolutely see why. Hal Ebbott’s writing is delectable, with a keen eye for metaphor and a sharp pen for character. The sins and foibles of the New England upper crust are evergreen material for the American literary canon, true, but this really does stand on its own in that crowded landscape. Among Friends is a haunting tale of simmering jealousy and anger. A parable of what we allow to happen when we let people be treated like they’re disposable.
The brevity of the novel plays in its favour, because the second half in particular is not easy reading. Not in the sense that it’s not as good as the first half — it absolutely is — but because it feels so real and so uncomfortable. I could absolutely see this story playing out in real life, sad as that is, and the impactful ending sealed for me that Ebbott is an author to watch.

I’m not really sure how to review this if I’m honest.
Among Friends is a powerful piece of literary fiction, spanning the lives of two families if lifelong friends, Amos and Emerson. Each character is so thoroughly written that we know the ins and outs of each by the end, there are twists and turns and Ebbott’s tense, abrupt tone is very refreshing, and the language is so well commanded but, I have to admit, I was bored. I did enjoy it. but 300 pages was a bit much.

My honest review is it is another piece of fiction where crisis would have been averted if the two main characters just realised they wanted to sleep together …


Thank you to Picador and Netgalley for the ARC

This was a languid but engrossing book - you didn’t realise that it was drawing you in until the water was up to your nose and you were in danger of succumbing. The writing was claustrophobic, like the oppressive heat of a city in summer but it had me in its thrall, I was helpless to resist it.

At first glance, the book appears to be a literary tale of domestic drama but it’s so much more uncomfortable than you are expecting, taking you to unexpected plot points and character reactions. The beauty of the chosen words is in stark contrast to the story they’re telling, and that just enhances the ugliness of the situations, the failings of the people involved, the banality of cruelty.

I liked that one of the relationships that is explored is that of adult males who have known each other since they were teenagers. That isn’t something that I have read a lot, and male relationships are so different to female ones that it was interesting to see how they coped with decades-old jealousies and slights, the impacts that it had on both their lives and what part it played in the key event.

A gritty, unsettling, stunningly gorgeous novel.

Among Friends
By Hal Ebbott

Amos and Emerson have been friends since the first day of college. They have drawn their families into their intense friendship, the wives are friends, their teenage daughters have grown up together.

On a visit to celebrate Emerson's birthday, one of them does something that will expose just how shambolic their friendship actually is. The awful thing is not really the point, rather the narrative each character has constructed about their relationship with the others.

This is a story of how some of the worst people in our lives are the ones we hold the closest, and how proximity, time, habit and obligation often trump intuition.

This is such an uncomfortable read. At times I felt like crawling out of my own skin, but I found it hard to stop thinking about, and so, flew through it. I'm not a reader who needs to like the characters I'm reading about. Good thing, because even the voice of one of them in particular, his language choice and his smug superiority outs him as the antihero from the get go.

I'm not thrilled with the ending. It could have been delicious, but the journey there is something that will last in my memory.

Publication Date: 26th June 2025
Thanks to MacMillan for sending me the ARC

I received an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Pan Macmillan, Picador, and the author Hal Ebbott.
I'm afraid I can't give this more than 2 stars as I found the writing too pretentious at times.
It feels as though it is written to impress colleagues or a seminar of literature students, and the excessive hyperbole and flowery language detracts from the story.
Despite the obvious skill and effort put into the writing, the characters felt two dimensional and hard to sympathise with. I'm afraid I did not enjoy it at all. Not for me, 2 stars.

Immediately upon starting this novel I was confused. The writing was disjointed and full of so many similes it was hard to grasp any sort of narrative. It felt very contrived and pretentious and meant I had a hard time getting to know any of the characters.

Then, suddenly, the "big event" happens and the pacing becomes more manageable as the paragraphs and chapters lengthen and offer a deeper look at the thoughts and motivations of the characters. It was incredibly uncomfortable reading certain descriptions of Anna's maturation and her own mother's take on the sexualisation of a teenage girl. There is absolutely no world in which I can imagine a woman ever thinking in such a way and the fact that this comes from a male author makes it all the more abhorrent.

The only characters I felt were trustworthy were in fact the two teenage daughters. Anna and Sophie were depicted realistically as being caught up in their own worlds; this is crystal clear in the last interaction we see between them where both girls are worrying what the other is thinking about them and Sophie chooses to walk away rather than confront her own hurt.

My hopes were raised when Amos intervened on his daughter's behalf but the final chapter implies that he didn't take a proper stand for her after all. Retsy and Emerson were strange characters seemingly devoid of emotion and only interested in themselves. Claire seemed far too concerned about social standing and not wanting to tip the applecart rather than being there for her daughter in a time of need.

This was just an uncomfortable read on so many levels - the writing style didn't engage me, the characters were vapid and two dimensional and I was incredibly put off by some of the views expressed on teenage girls and sexualisation.

Usually I love this kind of literary fiction, which lingers in each character's mind, but I think six characters were too ambitious: one daughter and one mother were so thinly characterised that I struggled to remember them even while I was reading, and I feel like the overall ambition of the book couldn't keep up with the demands of those characters. I can see why this is raved about, and there are a few moments of real insight and stunning prose throughout, but I found the unlikability of the characters so troubling that I kept putting the book down with no desire to pick it back up.

Debut novel from an American author which I admit I initially found quite a struggle. It is the tale of two families joined together by a long-lasting intense friendship between Amos and Emerson and an even longer association between Emerson and Amos’ wife, Claire. At the start of the novel the couple are heading up to Emerson’s house with their teenage daughter Anne to celebrate his birthday with his wife, Retsy, and daughter, Sophie. I found it difficult to warm to these self-obsessed navel-gazing characters with their petty jealousies and micro-aggressions over their friendships. The men, in particular, now in their fifties, with their privileged lives and need to interpret every gesture of the other protagonists I found somewhat wearying. The author’s language is rich in simile and metaphor, feels distinctly over-written at times and occasionally jars. These characters will say what they think but it will take them time to do so.
However, during this weekend an incident occurs which ignited my interest and will have significant ramifications for the relationships between these characters. This gives the novel far more of a direction and even though I continued to get frustrated by the writing style and its tendency to slow things down and also with these character’s actions the whole notion of the value of friendships and whether they can trump family drew me back into the plot.
So, a strong premise with the odd issue over the writing style and for me a difficulty to relate and be consistently convinced by these set of characters made for a worthwhile read but it is not amongst the strongest debuts I’ve read this year.
Among Friends is published by Picador in the UK on 26th June 2025. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

From the blurb, this sounded like the sort of book I enjoy but I very much did not enjoy the writing. I found the style almost unreadable and sometimes I was not sure who was speaking or even what they were talking about. There are so many occasions where something is happening and then,, suddenly, with no explanation we get a paragraph about something unrelated which happened at another time. A bit like stream of consciousness I suppose but I found it jarring.

The book is filled with similes, many of which seemed to me to be forced, and not at all apt. There was almost a feel of The Aeneid etc., where everything is described in terms of something else. I prefer more straightforward descriptions. There are many examples I could quote such as "the house smelled of women's hair"? Huh? Firstly, what does women's hair smell like, does it differ from men's hair, and how can a house smell like this? "The air was lush, near, like that of a coat closet." Eh? The various people in the house were all in different rooms and this is described as "They were scattered about the house, tossed like clothes by lovers moving to bed".

I found it quite disturbing that a male author feels he is qualified to write about how women and especially a young woman, a child really, feel about physicality, adolescence and sex. According to this man, women learn from a very young age that they have sexual power over men and use this all the time to amuse themselves and to disconcert men.. His description of Claire discovering this power when she was young certainly bears no resemblance to my experiences and understanding as a woman. Lots of stuff about Anna learning how to inhabit her body. At best this is male wishful thinking/fantasy, at worst I find it rather distasteful for a man to claim a knowledge of these things.

The characters are very thinly drawn and I did not feel I "knew" any of them. For me, there are far too many passages of introspection which seem entirely unrealistic, none of the adults can do anything, even the simplest thing or have the simplest conversation without then mulling it over for deeper meanings and implications. Everything that happens seem to remind them of something else - maybe this is meant to be Proustian?

3.5/5

Hal Ebbott's writing is the epitome of "showing not telling" and the way she creates characters and explores their relations to others was super satisfying to read. Even though we get an omniscient narrating style that dives into each character's head, I felt the characters were still incredibly nuanced and interesting, almost requiring readers to unravel the mysteries within them rather than explaining anything at all. While I enjoyed this immensely, I also found it a little tiresome and abstract at times, especially at the end when our characters are presented with a choice. The ending fell a little flat for me, but I still really enjoyed the character work throughout the entire book (first 50% especially) and am excited to see what other readers think of this story.

Disappointingly I found this book really difficult to get into, I started it twice but found the style quite off putting and difficult to follow as it seemed to change tense a lot. Once established the characters weren't people I wanted to spend time with and I didn't finish the book
Thank you to netgalley and Pan Macmillan for an advance copy of this book

Please see link for review.

I have reviewed Among Friends for book recommendation and sales site LoveReading.co.uk. I’ve chosen this title as a Liz Pick of the Month and a LoveReading Star Book.

On the whole I didn't enjoy this book at all. The principal event was unpleasant and the consequences handled very badly by the characters. The explanations were to my mind murky.
The characters were not to my taste.
Some readers will enjoy this complex miasma of thoughts and ideas, but not for me.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

i love books like this. i cant tell you what kind of book but im sure many could lock it down. all i know is when this type of book is done well it truly is up there with my faves. im totally all in, enveloped in these peoples lives until the end. im not sure whether i like any or all. and that might be because they are sometimes so real and relatable. do we feel awkward at what we see in ourselves or those around us. or is just watching something so real and close just a bit "eeesh". but put that aside i love it. i love to watch this playing out of a family or group of people and really feel like we have a listening ear or watching eye of what you ordinarily might not.
but actually that comes mostly down to Hal and that writing. because wow it was stunning. done to some of the best ive read. it felt like i floated through this book with ease. right down to the fonts!
this book follow a group of friends as extension of two original friends. and now the families are a gang. entwined into each others lives. they've grown up together and then their children have now done the same. and lets just say its a little bit blissful their lives as they have a definite wealth.
but on one weekend and one meeting its not going to be the same old get together this time. because something happens which shocks and fractures and puts everything into question.
but what if this is the end. then how do either or all carry on when this will lead them to question everything. they would question who they are, what they hold dear, what they thought of the others and what they mean to others. because can you explode everything if the fallout feels too great? because you do everything for those you love right? right?
well this led me to asking questions of the characters, wondering where it would go and also required me to overthink my own life, ha! i did have to stop myself and say remember its a book. its a book you can just put it down and not question your life!
but no in all seriousness its just so good at getting completely into your mind but for this short time you read it that is for all the right reasons. i love coming across a book that manages to do that for that little time you are reading it. and perhaps longer still afterwards.
you see ive over thought and over written into my own review. youve got to the end so you cant now ignore me review so sorry about that. haha. but at the time it makes sense to all my waffling mind about this book.

Overall I enjoyed this book, but I did feel that it was a little slow to get started. The "act of violence" as advertised on the blurb didn't occur until nearly halfway through, and I felt that for a relatively short book I would have liked it to get going a bit sooner.

However, it is beautifully written and the characters are very well done - they're all clearly flawed, and yet some of them are really sympathetic too (in particular Amos and Anna). I thought the novel really captured the reality of a difficult situation, human relationships, and the differences between how we hope we'd behave in a crisis and how we actually do.

🤝 REVIEW 🤝

Among Friends by Hal Ebbott
Release Date: 26th June

Thank you @netgalley and @picadorbooks / @panmacmillan for the e-ARC!

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

💭 - It’s an autumn weekend at a comfortable country house where two deeply intertwined families have gathered to mark a fifty-second birthday. Together, the group forms an enviable portrait of middle age. The wives and husbands have been friends for over thirty years, their teenage daughters have grown up together, and the drinks, dinners, rituals, and games that form their days all reflect the rich bonds between them. This weekend, however, something is different. An unforeseen curdling of envy and resentment will erupt into an unspeakable act, the ramifications of which are enormous. Accusations, denials, and shattered illusions follow, driving wedges between friends, spouses, children and parents, and exposing the treacherous fault lines on which these families have dwelt.

📝 - Okay this was a rollercoaster and one I read in a single day, which I simply do not do. The first 20% of this I was so expecting to DNF - the characters were so severely unlikeable it didn’t make sense why they were friends in the first place. Then as different perspectives on the crux of the story unfolded I got a lot more invested (the characters were still really quite horrible though). I was engrossed and intrigued, the writing really carried me along. However! That ending. Not necessary. Big thumbs down. I understand the idea and I know some will like it, but for me… not the one. Ebbott is a talented writer (especially for unlikeable characters), and I do think this is a good debut, a name I’ll keep an eye out for, but that ending has irritated me beyond belief.

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