What an unsuspectedly amazing book! After I read it I wished I had read it when I was in my early twenties, but there is no way I would ever get it at that point in my life.

There is definitely something generational about it, about being at that exact point in life when you have some history behind you in your adult life. And, it looks a lot different than what you expected.

I got this as an audiobook at first but then switched to a Kindle version because the language was so beautiful I wanted to go back to certain sentences to read them all over. The plot was not very original, that's true. But, in this book, the plot is just a vehicle. The real value is in the unsaid, between the lines. Tiny reflections, passing thoughts, seemingly unimportant actions.

After months of reading books without much emotional depth (despite it always being promised on the blurb), this one packed a punch. There were some insanely well-written passages, never overly sentimental, but really deep. The chapter describing the death of Sarah, Lissa's mother, was devastatingly beautiful, especially the part with Lissa and Ida cleaning her body.

This is a piece of women's fiction I love to read and that I would love to reread.
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we! love! british! authors!!!!! Expectation explores the dynamics of women’s friendships. and you add in extended families, memories, marriages, careers, infertility struggles, cheating, betrayal, loss and love and ugh you get a wonderful book! “Much of their lives is still before them. They have made mistakes, but they are not fatal. They are no longer young, but they do not feel old. They still have time, time to look backwards and time to look forwards. Life is still malleable and full of potential. The openings to the road not taken have not yet sealed up”. “They still have time to become who they are going to be”. two quotes from the book that i love. Anna Hope's writing is lovely. the topic of this book wasn't anything new, but her writing is very engaging and readable and real. these characters were everything! truly felt like i knew them personally. female friendships are important and Hope examines these friendships and all their complexities. the highs and lows. this book is also about the expectations we put on ourselves and the milestones we expect to have reached at certain points in our lives. and about the expectations we have of others, how they ultimately fall short and people stumble from the pedestals we put them on. just a beautifully written book that i loved ( )

I initially enjoyed this book. I liked the introduction of the characters, how they came to be friends, etc... I liked the back and forth between different time lines. But at some point this book became a chore to read. It might have been when the characters started being horrible to each other. ( )

There were some parts in this book which I liked a lot, but for the most part I didn't feel like I was immersed in the experiences of the main characters. I found myself wanting to know more about the side characters and what they were up to. For the most part it was sad and the friendships between the three protagonists seemed strained, like there was an underlying hatred between them. ( )

Probably the most depressing book of my life. (And I grew up with Russian classic literature.) ( )