Expectation: The most razor-sharp and heartbreaking novel of the year

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I certainly enjoyed reading it, pretty much gulped in down in one session, but the whole thing replays stories that have been done before many times.

Most of all, it explores that liminal space between expectation and reality, the place - full of dreams, desires and pain - in which we all live our lives.There's even a bit where Lissa brings up her abortion and dutifully bursts into tears, because heaven forbid that a woman terminate her pregnancy and not regret it later. However, the outside would casually remark that they do have it all-the house, the job, the freedom, the child, the ability to try or give up on IVF, all this is a luxury fought for by our feminist forerunners.

Well, if you don't get the part, you could always do a one-woman show, Directors I Have Known and Been Rejected By. When I first finished this book, I rated it a 4 stars but looking back, that was too generous and I think it was more of a 3 stars. BEST BOOKS FOR JULY: Expectation has defied all my expectations and completely redefined the friendship novel. At the very beginning of the book, she is introduced as the one who stays out late and wakes up hungover. I need not rattle off in detail the spiel of the pressures faced by modern women; the expectation to juggle marriage, motherhood, a high-flying career, adhere to beauty standards etc.Successful Hannah, married to Nathan would kill to be in Cate's shoes as she undertakes another round of IVF. Over the course of the novel the history of the friendships are unfurled, from first meetings to sharing a house in London, and the pace is perfect, filling in the gaps for the reader, fleshing out the relationships, explaining certain behaviours or built up grudges between the three. The novel focuses on the story of three women, their friendships and how their lives and relationships change over a decade. through competitiveness, envy, jealousy, transgression, guilt, genuine emotional intimacy, and love. This tale of three women as they navigate their friendship and life events was a fast and easy read.

Presumably her friendship with Dea, the aforementioned fellow mum, helps her to pull through, but it's a bit jarring when Cate rocks up in the epilogue with a SECOND child in tow. Der Originaltitel von "Was wir sind" lautet "Expectation" - und nichts könnte besser zu diesem Roman passen! According to this book, there really is nothing worse than being childless, and it's Lissa who deserves our pity in the end. Being a mother isn’t quite what Cate expected; she is sleep-deprived, unsure of herself, she finds her mother-in-law and sister-in-law interfering, and her relationship with her husband is suffering.Instead she simply lays these women’s lives out for you and lets you, the reader, experience it alongside them.

And without giving anything away, I was disheartened by how little the novel seemed to value both creative practice and childlessness. It is just that sometimes, lately, on the way to work, or walking through the weekend markets, she will stop, made suddenly breathless at the sight of a baby. It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that the only character who doesn’t have a kid is the one who is villainized and made to suffer repeatedly. This is a surprisingly unambitious novel from Anna Hope after her wonderful Wake and the unusual The Ballroom. Furthermore, despite it’s somewhat novel structure, I found the writing style of this book lacklustre and dull; Descriptions of characters and events lacked and real depth and failed to draw me in.

Does she find out that raising a child isn't all joy and laughter - that it can also be stressful, if not downright nightmarish? The book is thoughtful, complicated and relatable, I found myself feeling the rollercoaster of emotions that the characters did but also reassured that as a woman in today’s world where our plans are always being tested, I'm not alone. Her feet are in thin sandals and she carries a canvas bag on her shoulder - inside it: good tomatoes, bread, Rioja, a goat’s cheese covered in ash. The artist mother, a Greenham Common activist, who had brought up her daughter in such a haphazard way that the daughter has a chip on her shoulder she carries around until the inevitable reconciliation due to illness.