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Expectation
What happened to the women we were supposed to become?
Hannah, Cate and Lissa are young, vibrant and inseparable. Living on the edge of a common in East London, their shared world is ablaze with art and activism, romance and revelry - and the promise of everything to come. They are electric. They are the best of friends.
Ten years on, they are not where they hoped to be. Amidst flailing careers and faltering marriages, each hungers for what the others have. And each wrestles with the same question: what does it take to lead a meaningful life?
The most razor-sharp and heartbreaking novel of the year, EXPECTATION is a novel about finding your way: as a mother, a daughter, a wife, a rebel.
Hannah, Cate and Lissa are young, vibrant and inseparable. Living on the edge of a common in East London, their shared world is ablaze with art and activism, romance and revelry - and the promise of everything to come. They are electric. They are the best of friends.
Ten years on, they are not where they hoped to be. Amidst flailing careers and faltering marriages, each hungers for what the others have. And each wrestles with the same question: what does it take to lead a meaningful life?
The most razor-sharp and heartbreaking novel of the year, EXPECTATION is a novel about finding your way: as a mother, a daughter, a wife, a rebel.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published July 11, 2019
About the author
Anna Hope
22 books473 followersAnna Hope is an English writer and actress from Manchester. She is perhaps best known for her Doctor Who role of Novice Hame. She was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London, and Birkbeck College, London.
Anna's powerful first novel, WAKE, sold to Transworld Publishers in a seven-way auction. Set over the course of five days in 1920, WAKE weaves the stories of three women around the journey of the Unknown Soldier, from its excavation in Northern France to Armistice Day at Westminster Abbey. US rights were pre-empted by Susan Kamil at Random House. The book will be published in Doubleday hardback in early 2014.
- excerpted from Wikipedia and Felicity Bryan Associates Literary Agency
Anna's powerful first novel, WAKE, sold to Transworld Publishers in a seven-way auction. Set over the course of five days in 1920, WAKE weaves the stories of three women around the journey of the Unknown Soldier, from its excavation in Northern France to Armistice Day at Westminster Abbey. US rights were pre-empted by Susan Kamil at Random House. The book will be published in Doubleday hardback in early 2014.
- excerpted from Wikipedia and Felicity Bryan Associates Literary Agency
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,139 reviews
September 5, 2023
I’m conflicted about this book. Mostly, I enjoyed reading it – the focus on female friendships was great, the story lines were all interesting and felt realistic. I enjoyed the setting, the dialogue, and the prose is occasionally really lovely...
But, there is an aspect of the narrative that I am incredibly angry about. And, sorry to say that is pretty much all that is going to follow in this review.
Thanks to the publisher, author and netgalley for the eBook ARC for review.
But, there is an aspect of the narrative that I am incredibly angry about. And, sorry to say that is pretty much all that is going to follow in this review.
Thanks to the publisher, author and netgalley for the eBook ARC for review.
April 11, 2020
Do you ever feel the pressure to do it all? I’m sure we all do at times, probably even more so right now. Expectation is about three women: Hannah, Cate, and Lissa.
It's a thoughtful, compelling story of friendship and finding happiness. In many ways Expectation is a story of ordinary life and the triumphs we can find in each day. I found it realistic and thought-provoking. I read this slowly and chewed on it, and I sincerely appreciate the author’s messages.
I received a gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
It's a thoughtful, compelling story of friendship and finding happiness. In many ways Expectation is a story of ordinary life and the triumphs we can find in each day. I found it realistic and thought-provoking. I read this slowly and chewed on it, and I sincerely appreciate the author’s messages.
I received a gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
September 6, 2020
I’ve read two other books by Anna Hope, “Wake”, and “Ballroom”.....( both WWII stories) and now “Expectation”, (contemporary women’s fiction), which explores the dynamics of women’s friendships.
Add extended families, ( flashback memories), marriages, careers, infertility struggles, cheating & betrayal, loss and love.
Where as Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series revolves are two friends: Elena and Lila -
Anna Hope’s novel revolves around three friends: Cate, Hannah, and Lissa.
“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”.
Hannah, Cate, and Lissa are 29 years old. None of them have children.
The year is 2004 and they are living in a three-story Victorian townhouse on the edge of the best park in London fields.
The linoleum is peeling and the carpets are stained, but these things don’t matter when a house is so loved.
They work hard. They go to the theater. They go to galleries. They go to the gigs a friends’ bands. They eat in Vietnamese restaurants. They drink free beer and wine The bike everywhere all the time and rarely wear helmets. They go to the flower market everything morning on Sundays.
They worry. The worry about climate change— they worry about knife crime and gun crime— they were about their own relative privilege.
They worry about the guy who sits begging outside the liquor store, you only ever ask for a twenty pence.
“Sometimes they feel they should worry even more about these things, but at this moment in their lives they are happy, and so they do not”.
“They do not worry about nuclear war, or interest rates, or their fertility, or the welfare state, or aging parents, or student debt”.
Six years later: 2010....
Cate is married to Sam. They have a new baby boy.
Motherhood is exhausting to Cate. She is also depressed.
She tells Hannah:
“I think I was irresponsible having a child at all”.
The carelessness of Hannah’s statement...a luxury gift that came so easily to Cate, made Hannah furious, but she’d said nothing. Hannah is the Godmother to Cate and Sam’s baby
—but it’s killing Hannah that she doesn’t have her own.
Hannah is married to Nathan.
They had been trying to have a baby for three years before they started IVF.
Hannah got pregnant. She lost the baby. They tried again. Then many rounds of IVF.
The IVF rounds become exhausting - but Hannah was obsessed.
Nathan and Hannah had a fight. Nathan said the doctors were making thousands, millions out of peoples desperation. They’re quacks—fu#king faith healers.
Nathan reached a breaking point and told Hannah that he loved her but he just couldn’t do the IVF treatments any longer.
Lissa is beautiful, single, an actress. She was beginning to reevaluate her career choice.
It wasn’t as though she was dying to be married or have a child, but she was lonely.
Hannah asked Lissa to speak to Nathan.....thinking Lissa could influence Nathan to change his mind about the IVF treatments.
Instead.... sexual energy was passed between them. Seems Nathan was the one who did the influencing—
and Lissa didn’t push his fingers- or mouth away.
Time passes...we continue to follow the fragments of Cate, Hannah and Lisa.
Lissa’s mother, Sarah, had been an activist when she was younger.
There had been some mother/daughter friction.
Sarah tells Lissa:
“You’ve had everything. The fruits of our labor. The fruits of our activism. Good god, we got out there and we changed the world for you. For our daughters. And what have you done with it?”
“The question hangs, heavy in the summer air”.
Now, years later, Sarah is sick... dying of cancer. Lissa wants nothing more than to feel close to her mother again.
“While Sarah sleeps, they gather round the kitchen table. They take over. They make Lissa sit and drink wine, or tea. They take Lissa’s face in their hands and cry and kiss her cheeks and tell her how much she looks like her mother, and when they hug Lissa to their chests in their embrace, Lissa knows that they have lived through illnesses and lived through children and lived through no children and that they are a tribe, these women, with their battered bodies and their scars”.
“They worry about the future, about their children, about the world they will inherit, a world that seems so fractured and fast and even more splintered”.
I especially liked Anne Hope’s writing. Her vision and wisdom.
It wasn’t as though the topics and themes were inventive - but the writing was so seamless-readable - engaging - and real... that I’m glad I spent time with these characters.
Great women friendships are vital to most women.
Anna Hope examines these friendships and all their complexities - highs and lows...
through competitiveness, envy, jealousy, transgression, guilt, genuine emotional intimacy, and love.
Add extended families, ( flashback memories), marriages, careers, infertility struggles, cheating & betrayal, loss and love.
Where as Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series revolves are two friends: Elena and Lila -
Anna Hope’s novel revolves around three friends: Cate, Hannah, and Lissa.
“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”.
Hannah, Cate, and Lissa are 29 years old. None of them have children.
The year is 2004 and they are living in a three-story Victorian townhouse on the edge of the best park in London fields.
The linoleum is peeling and the carpets are stained, but these things don’t matter when a house is so loved.
They work hard. They go to the theater. They go to galleries. They go to the gigs a friends’ bands. They eat in Vietnamese restaurants. They drink free beer and wine The bike everywhere all the time and rarely wear helmets. They go to the flower market everything morning on Sundays.
They worry. The worry about climate change— they worry about knife crime and gun crime— they were about their own relative privilege.
They worry about the guy who sits begging outside the liquor store, you only ever ask for a twenty pence.
“Sometimes they feel they should worry even more about these things, but at this moment in their lives they are happy, and so they do not”.
“They do not worry about nuclear war, or interest rates, or their fertility, or the welfare state, or aging parents, or student debt”.
Six years later: 2010....
Cate is married to Sam. They have a new baby boy.
Motherhood is exhausting to Cate. She is also depressed.
She tells Hannah:
“I think I was irresponsible having a child at all”.
The carelessness of Hannah’s statement...a luxury gift that came so easily to Cate, made Hannah furious, but she’d said nothing. Hannah is the Godmother to Cate and Sam’s baby
—but it’s killing Hannah that she doesn’t have her own.
Hannah is married to Nathan.
They had been trying to have a baby for three years before they started IVF.
Hannah got pregnant. She lost the baby. They tried again. Then many rounds of IVF.
The IVF rounds become exhausting - but Hannah was obsessed.
Nathan and Hannah had a fight. Nathan said the doctors were making thousands, millions out of peoples desperation. They’re quacks—fu#king faith healers.
Nathan reached a breaking point and told Hannah that he loved her but he just couldn’t do the IVF treatments any longer.
Lissa is beautiful, single, an actress. She was beginning to reevaluate her career choice.
It wasn’t as though she was dying to be married or have a child, but she was lonely.
Hannah asked Lissa to speak to Nathan.....thinking Lissa could influence Nathan to change his mind about the IVF treatments.
Instead.... sexual energy was passed between them. Seems Nathan was the one who did the influencing—
and Lissa didn’t push his fingers- or mouth away.
Time passes...we continue to follow the fragments of Cate, Hannah and Lisa.
Lissa’s mother, Sarah, had been an activist when she was younger.
There had been some mother/daughter friction.
Sarah tells Lissa:
“You’ve had everything. The fruits of our labor. The fruits of our activism. Good god, we got out there and we changed the world for you. For our daughters. And what have you done with it?”
“The question hangs, heavy in the summer air”.
Now, years later, Sarah is sick... dying of cancer. Lissa wants nothing more than to feel close to her mother again.
“While Sarah sleeps, they gather round the kitchen table. They take over. They make Lissa sit and drink wine, or tea. They take Lissa’s face in their hands and cry and kiss her cheeks and tell her how much she looks like her mother, and when they hug Lissa to their chests in their embrace, Lissa knows that they have lived through illnesses and lived through children and lived through no children and that they are a tribe, these women, with their battered bodies and their scars”.
“They worry about the future, about their children, about the world they will inherit, a world that seems so fractured and fast and even more splintered”.
I especially liked Anne Hope’s writing. Her vision and wisdom.
It wasn’t as though the topics and themes were inventive - but the writing was so seamless-readable - engaging - and real... that I’m glad I spent time with these characters.
Great women friendships are vital to most women.
Anna Hope examines these friendships and all their complexities - highs and lows...
through competitiveness, envy, jealousy, transgression, guilt, genuine emotional intimacy, and love.
May 26, 2020
I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher (Harper Perennial) in exchange for an honest review.
This was an incredibly fascinating novel.
First off, this novel is a slow burn. The book starts off on the slow side and then gradually gets more and more interesting as it progresses.
The three women in this book are all very complicated and complex. I found them to be utterly riveting. They’re all morally grey which makes them feel more real and raw. Sometimes they make decisions that others may find irritating, but to me that makes they more dynamic.
I liked the flashbacks that were woven throughout the book. They helped highlight different things about the women. The flashbacks also gradually introduced new information about them. There’s no information dumping in this book. Everything gets revealed at just the right time.
This book does get compared to Sally Rooney’s books (Conversations with Friends and Normal People). I’m a big Sally Rooney fan and there is merit to that comparison. The writing style, tone, and pacing are similar in a way.
Lastly, I liked the ending because it brought the book full circle, but at the the same time I didn’t like it. To me, the ending didn’t fully resolve everything I wanted to be resolved.
Overall, this book is a compelling character study of three women coming to terms with how their lives turned out.
This was an incredibly fascinating novel.
First off, this novel is a slow burn. The book starts off on the slow side and then gradually gets more and more interesting as it progresses.
The three women in this book are all very complicated and complex. I found them to be utterly riveting. They’re all morally grey which makes them feel more real and raw. Sometimes they make decisions that others may find irritating, but to me that makes they more dynamic.
I liked the flashbacks that were woven throughout the book. They helped highlight different things about the women. The flashbacks also gradually introduced new information about them. There’s no information dumping in this book. Everything gets revealed at just the right time.
This book does get compared to Sally Rooney’s books (Conversations with Friends and Normal People). I’m a big Sally Rooney fan and there is merit to that comparison. The writing style, tone, and pacing are similar in a way.
Lastly, I liked the ending because it brought the book full circle, but at the the same time I didn’t like it. To me, the ending didn’t fully resolve everything I wanted to be resolved.
Overall, this book is a compelling character study of three women coming to terms with how their lives turned out.
July 9, 2019
This has rocketed its way into my top 10 books of 2019-it recalls a time I am all too familiar with and themes of feminism, female desire and hopes for thee future.
The three friends meet in the mid 90's , Lissa and Hannah at a course called Feminisms,and Cate who joins their group , sleeping on Hannah's sofa when she has nowhere else to go.
Starting in the early Millennium, with a portrait of 3 young women at ease with their lives, not rocking the boat but not conforming either, appearing as graces and objects of curiousity to outsiders , they represent the pinnacle of womanhood. Educated, in touch with their wants and desires , their expectations are that life will meet them at their points of need.
Fast forward to 2010 and life is very, very different. The weight of societal expectations has these women caught in a loop of success, fertility and motherhood. All 3 seem lost and dissociated from who they were and want they wanted from life. It's a disconnetion rather than a dissatisfaction, as though in their own way, the goals that all three chased have led them to a place that they feel lost in.
Cate, the only one of the three who is a mother is drowning in her new role-expected by everyone to be doing better at it than she is, she is absolutely struggling with her son. Her husband and mother in law expect more of her than she can give to motherhood, she feels she has lost herself in this-no one has told her that this is a natural way to feel so she sleepwalks through the days.
Successful Hannah, married to Nathan would kill to be in Cate's shoes as she undertakes another round of IVF. Her expectation of being able to get pregnant has been cruelly dashed and her marriage is reduced to her ability to conceive, this need has become all consuming.
Lissa is the only one who actually is still actively trying to achieve her goal of being an actress, juggling charity work, auditions and life modelling. She appears to have a freedom that the other two do not, but in that freedom-no partner, no children, no roots-she drifts endlessly in hope of making her mother, Sarah, proud.
''Your generation,'her mother says quietly.''Honestly .You baffle me you really do.''
''And why is that?'' Lissa pushes away her bowl,
''Well.You've had everything.The fruits of our labour.The fruits of our activism. Good God we got out there and we have changed the world for you.For our daughters.And what have you done with it?''
In this, Anna Hope has nailed the essence of the book and the essence of these women. She has gathered the experience of women, the expectation on them to do it all, have it all and with each of her protagonists the weight of expectation has them truly believing that they have somehow failed. 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.
But this is the modern feminist fallacy-given the choice, the opportunity, why do we always feel like we are failing? The mother who feels everyone else has motherhood down pat exceptt for her, the woman who feels it will complete her and has no backup plan , the woman without any solidly defined boundaries of her life. They represent us, at different junctures, and as a woman reader, this is keenly felt, in this perfectly named novel. We expect so much from ourselves,and feel we owe the world so much that we don't actually stop and be kind to ourselves anymore. It is as though we are in mourning for the grownup woman we expected to metamorphosize into whilst inhabiting her body.
It is a beautifully resonant novel that grips your heart,I think it will take many re-readings to entirely grasp the enormity of what Anna Hope is saying whilst feeling that the women , with their individual paths, will echo with the female reader more acutely at different stages of their lives.
Moving, elegant and with a lot to say about the lives of modern women with a firmly London centric sense of place, this is not to be missed.
The three friends meet in the mid 90's , Lissa and Hannah at a course called Feminisms,and Cate who joins their group , sleeping on Hannah's sofa when she has nowhere else to go.
Starting in the early Millennium, with a portrait of 3 young women at ease with their lives, not rocking the boat but not conforming either, appearing as graces and objects of curiousity to outsiders , they represent the pinnacle of womanhood. Educated, in touch with their wants and desires , their expectations are that life will meet them at their points of need.
Fast forward to 2010 and life is very, very different. The weight of societal expectations has these women caught in a loop of success, fertility and motherhood. All 3 seem lost and dissociated from who they were and want they wanted from life. It's a disconnetion rather than a dissatisfaction, as though in their own way, the goals that all three chased have led them to a place that they feel lost in.
Cate, the only one of the three who is a mother is drowning in her new role-expected by everyone to be doing better at it than she is, she is absolutely struggling with her son. Her husband and mother in law expect more of her than she can give to motherhood, she feels she has lost herself in this-no one has told her that this is a natural way to feel so she sleepwalks through the days.
Successful Hannah, married to Nathan would kill to be in Cate's shoes as she undertakes another round of IVF. Her expectation of being able to get pregnant has been cruelly dashed and her marriage is reduced to her ability to conceive, this need has become all consuming.
Lissa is the only one who actually is still actively trying to achieve her goal of being an actress, juggling charity work, auditions and life modelling. She appears to have a freedom that the other two do not, but in that freedom-no partner, no children, no roots-she drifts endlessly in hope of making her mother, Sarah, proud.
''Your generation,'her mother says quietly.''Honestly .You baffle me you really do.''
''And why is that?'' Lissa pushes away her bowl,
''Well.You've had everything.The fruits of our labour.The fruits of our activism. Good God we got out there and we have changed the world for you.For our daughters.And what have you done with it?''
In this, Anna Hope has nailed the essence of the book and the essence of these women. She has gathered the experience of women, the expectation on them to do it all, have it all and with each of her protagonists the weight of expectation has them truly believing that they have somehow failed. 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.
But this is the modern feminist fallacy-given the choice, the opportunity, why do we always feel like we are failing? The mother who feels everyone else has motherhood down pat exceptt for her, the woman who feels it will complete her and has no backup plan , the woman without any solidly defined boundaries of her life. They represent us, at different junctures, and as a woman reader, this is keenly felt, in this perfectly named novel. We expect so much from ourselves,and feel we owe the world so much that we don't actually stop and be kind to ourselves anymore. It is as though we are in mourning for the grownup woman we expected to metamorphosize into whilst inhabiting her body.
It is a beautifully resonant novel that grips your heart,I think it will take many re-readings to entirely grasp the enormity of what Anna Hope is saying whilst feeling that the women , with their individual paths, will echo with the female reader more acutely at different stages of their lives.
Moving, elegant and with a lot to say about the lives of modern women with a firmly London centric sense of place, this is not to be missed.
October 5, 2022
Anna Hope writes well, as ever, but I was disappointed by how clichéd this story of three women reassessing their lives in their thirties became. It promises to explore female friendship, but is yet another story of women who don't really have each others' backs; all of them screw the rest over at one time or another. Cate has the most potential of the three, but gets the least screen-time, and the most intriguing aspects of her past are barely explored. And without giving anything away, I was disheartened by how little the novel seemed to value both creative practice and childlessness. This could have been great, but its characters end up moving within such narrow bonds, all wanting the same things.
December 28, 2019
DNF.
I'm so bored. I'm reading this book and realising that I'm not paying attention anymore. I just dont care for the characters, they're constantly complaining and rather uninteresting. Also the time frame just keeps jumping around everywhere which confuses me and I keep forgetting who is who. They all just blend into one.
My colleagues loved this book and let me borrow it so naturally my expectations (I had to) were quite high. Sadly, it was not for me.
I'm so bored. I'm reading this book and realising that I'm not paying attention anymore. I just dont care for the characters, they're constantly complaining and rather uninteresting. Also the time frame just keeps jumping around everywhere which confuses me and I keep forgetting who is who. They all just blend into one.
My colleagues loved this book and let me borrow it so naturally my expectations (I had to) were quite high. Sadly, it was not for me.
August 3, 2019
This is a surprisingly unambitious novel from Anna Hope after her wonderful Wake and the unusual The Ballroom. 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.
The three girl friends: the one who is so obsessed with having a baby that she drives her husband away; the lost drifter who falls pregnant and marries too fast; the beautiful, wild one who has never settled down. Fundamentally, a sort of upmarket version of chick lit/'women's fiction' (what a patronising category that is!), this is engrossing but doesn't push any boundaries.
The three girl friends: the one who is so obsessed with having a baby that she drives her husband away; the lost drifter who falls pregnant and marries too fast; the beautiful, wild one who has never settled down. Fundamentally, a sort of upmarket version of chick lit/'women's fiction' (what a patronising category that is!), this is engrossing but doesn't push any boundaries.
July 13, 2019
The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
2.75 Stars
Full review here
Expectation is a novel that explores the highs and lows of friendship. There are three main characters that we follow throughout the book. The three women used to be very good friends but now, due to several reasons, they have kind of drifted apart a little bit and nothing is how it used to be when they were younger. This book surely shows what happens when people take different paths in their life and how sometimes you can lose touch with the people you felt the closest with in the past. It's something that can totally happen and I think it was truthfully described. I must say that I expected a little bit more of female friendship from this book and in the end it was not what I found. The moments when they were together kind of fell flat to me.
I don't think that the big plot-twist of the book
Overall it was an okay read that made me reflect on some important themes, but I definitely expected more from it.
2.75 Stars
Full review here
Expectation is a novel that explores the highs and lows of friendship. There are three main characters that we follow throughout the book. The three women used to be very good friends but now, due to several reasons, they have kind of drifted apart a little bit and nothing is how it used to be when they were younger. This book surely shows what happens when people take different paths in their life and how sometimes you can lose touch with the people you felt the closest with in the past. It's something that can totally happen and I think it was truthfully described. I must say that I expected a little bit more of female friendship from this book and in the end it was not what I found. The moments when they were together kind of fell flat to me.
I don't think that the big plot-twist of the book
Overall it was an okay read that made me reflect on some important themes, but I definitely expected more from it.
October 28, 2019
The back-cover praise tells me that this book will 'resonate with 99 percent of women'. Well, Red Magazine, call me the one percent.
Let's start with the timeline in the blurb. It's supposed to be 'ten years later'. But Cate spends her early twenties in activism in Brighton. At thirty-three, she marries a man who impregnates her within three months of their meeting. Hannah is with her husband thirteen years by age of thirty-six. She appears to be thirty-six at the same time that Cate is thirty-three. Lissa is in a long-term relationship for about the same length of time. So Hope is saying that two women in their late twenties, who are both with partners about five or six years, move into a house-share instead? That can last - in the book's timeline - maybe one or two years, but this is their golden time?
It sounds like nitpicking, but in a book that's greatly concerned with women and having babies, you get a very limited timespan to play with. Whether Hannah is thirty-three or thirty-six when she starts having fertility treatment is going to hugely influence the outcome.
Which brings me to the second reason I'm in the one percent. This is a book with two themes: babies (having them, not having them, difficulty having them) and the tension between motherhood and career. Wow. Groundbreaking. It wouldn't be interesting even if Hope had something new to say on the subject, which she definitively does not. She throws some half-hearted activism plot points into the mix, presumably to earn the title quote of 'what happened to the women we were supposed to become?' Can't tell you, because I can't identify with any of the characters at any age.
"Yes, there's bugger all between thirty and fifty, not just in Chekhov, but in everything else. Perhaps in life. Perhaps this is it - Womanhood. The Wasteland Years."
WOW. HELPFUL.
Let's start with the timeline in the blurb. It's supposed to be 'ten years later'. But Cate spends her early twenties in activism in Brighton. At thirty-three, she marries a man who impregnates her within three months of their meeting. Hannah is with her husband thirteen years by age of thirty-six. She appears to be thirty-six at the same time that Cate is thirty-three. Lissa is in a long-term relationship for about the same length of time. So Hope is saying that two women in their late twenties, who are both with partners about five or six years, move into a house-share instead? That can last - in the book's timeline - maybe one or two years, but this is their golden time?
It sounds like nitpicking, but in a book that's greatly concerned with women and having babies, you get a very limited timespan to play with. Whether Hannah is thirty-three or thirty-six when she starts having fertility treatment is going to hugely influence the outcome.
Which brings me to the second reason I'm in the one percent. This is a book with two themes: babies (having them, not having them, difficulty having them) and the tension between motherhood and career. Wow. Groundbreaking. It wouldn't be interesting even if Hope had something new to say on the subject, which she definitively does not. She throws some half-hearted activism plot points into the mix, presumably to earn the title quote of 'what happened to the women we were supposed to become?' Can't tell you, because I can't identify with any of the characters at any age.
"Yes, there's bugger all between thirty and fifty, not just in Chekhov, but in everything else. Perhaps in life. Perhaps this is it - Womanhood. The Wasteland Years."
WOW. HELPFUL.
June 22, 2019
Female friendship is put to the test in this three-way narrative set over ten years. Anna Hope has brought a time-worn theme up to date: thirty-something, ex-college friends looking back over their life choices and facing the realisation that previous generations of women have had to accept - that they can't easily ‘have it all’ when the biological clock is starting to speed up.
Hope's novel is being compared to Sally Rooney's award–winning 'Normal People', but I personally found this author’s lower-key writing style more accessible and her characters rather more believable.
Hope's novel is being compared to Sally Rooney's award–winning 'Normal People', but I personally found this author’s lower-key writing style more accessible and her characters rather more believable.
February 24, 2020
(2.5/5 stars)
Really surprised by how much I didn't enjoy this. Listened to on audiobook which didn't really help. I feel like this book perpetuates the idea that your 20s are fun, carefree, joyful, full of colour, and your 30s are droll, exhausting, disappointing, depressing. There weren't any moments of happiness or hope to balance out the hopeless and grey in this novel, which for me was difficult to get through. Also struggled with just how terrible all of these characters are to each other - why on earth are you friends??? They snap at each other and constantly do and say horrid things. They can't even get through a dinner party without bickering or a catastrophic fallout. Slightly baffling. The writing surrounding the issues of fertility and motherhood were poignant and affecting, but everything else just wasn't really for me.
Really surprised by how much I didn't enjoy this. Listened to on audiobook which didn't really help. I feel like this book perpetuates the idea that your 20s are fun, carefree, joyful, full of colour, and your 30s are droll, exhausting, disappointing, depressing. There weren't any moments of happiness or hope to balance out the hopeless and grey in this novel, which for me was difficult to get through. Also struggled with just how terrible all of these characters are to each other - why on earth are you friends??? They snap at each other and constantly do and say horrid things. They can't even get through a dinner party without bickering or a catastrophic fallout. Slightly baffling. The writing surrounding the issues of fertility and motherhood were poignant and affecting, but everything else just wasn't really for me.
September 27, 2019
This is the best fiction story I have read in a long time that tackles the difficulties women face when trying to embrace career, family life and friendships. It's a book I also found very compelling, as gripping as the best thriller around yet there are no crazy twists or grizzly happenings, just three very realistically drawn female characters whose lives are portrayed through flashbacks and their struggles and successes in the present. I say 'just' but really mean to say that this book shows that a person's everyday true to life struggles and triumphs can make for an amazing page-turning reading experience. I highly recommend it!
January 20, 2022
"Es ist Samstag, Markttag. Es ist später Frühling, oder früher Sommer. Es ist Mitte Mai, und im verwilderten Garten vor dem Haus blühen die Heckenrosen." - Anna Hope, "Was wir sind"
Cate, Hannah und Lissa sind beste Freundinnen. Sie kennen sich aus Schul- und Studienzeiten, haben gemeinsam eine alte Villa in London bewohnt und früher viele Träume und Hoffnungen geteilt. Mittlerweile, mit Mitte 30, leben sie alle ihr eigenes, sehr unterschiedliches Leben, ihre Lebenswege sind nur noch lose verknüpft und doch treffen sie sich regelmäßig im Café oder Theater. Während Cate eher zufällig Mutter geworden ist und an der ihr nun zugeschriebenen Rolle zu zerbrechen droht, kämpft Hannah in einer eigentlich glücklichen Ehe mit einem unerfüllten Kinderwunsch. Lissas Leben verläuft hingegen in ganz anderen Bahnen - sie ist Schauspielerin und steht endlich vor ihrem Durchbruch auf der Theaterbühne.
Der Originaltitel von "Was wir sind" lautet "Expectation" - und nichts könnte besser zu diesem Roman passen! Es geht nämlich genau darum: Um die Erwartungen, die wir selbst, unsere Partner*innen, unsere Freund*innen, unsere Mitmenschen, die Gesellschaft an uns stellen. Wir sind umgeben von Erwartungshaltungen, manche erfüllen wir, anderen werden wir nicht gerecht und können das auch gar nicht. Anna Hopes Roman, übersetzt von Eva Bonné, greift dieses Erwartungs-Motiv auf ganz eindringliche Weise auf, sie lässt uns Lesende ihren drei Protagonistinnen sehr, sehr nahe kommen und schafft Figuren, mit denen wir uns auf ganz unterschiedliche Weisen identifizieren können.
Dabei fällt das Lesen nicht immer leicht, es ist mitunter sehr schmerzhaft und auch zuweilen fast unangenehm, Hannah, Cate und Lissa auf ihren sich immer wieder kreuzenden Wegen zu begleiten. Die Geschichte ist wie ein Sog, aus dem man sich nur schwer befreien kann - ich konnte mich vor allem gedanklich lange nicht mehr von den drei Freundinnen losreißen. Zusätzlich wird der Roman auf ganz großartige Weise in prägnante Schauplätze (London, Canterbury) und das jeweilige (feministische) Zeitgeschehen eingebettet - inklusive einiger wirklich hinreißender Nebencharaktere, die mein Herz gewinnen konnten.
Am Ende passt der deutsche Titel dann aber doch sehr gut, denn der Roman ist "Was wir sind" - voller Hoffnungen, voller Ziele, voller Pläne, aber eben auch voller Enttäuschungen, voller Rückschläge und voller unerfüllter Erwartungen. Dass eben das aber genau das Leben ausmacht zeigt Anna Hope mit diesem so starken, schönen und von mir sehr bewunderten Werk.
Cate, Hannah und Lissa sind beste Freundinnen. Sie kennen sich aus Schul- und Studienzeiten, haben gemeinsam eine alte Villa in London bewohnt und früher viele Träume und Hoffnungen geteilt. Mittlerweile, mit Mitte 30, leben sie alle ihr eigenes, sehr unterschiedliches Leben, ihre Lebenswege sind nur noch lose verknüpft und doch treffen sie sich regelmäßig im Café oder Theater. Während Cate eher zufällig Mutter geworden ist und an der ihr nun zugeschriebenen Rolle zu zerbrechen droht, kämpft Hannah in einer eigentlich glücklichen Ehe mit einem unerfüllten Kinderwunsch. Lissas Leben verläuft hingegen in ganz anderen Bahnen - sie ist Schauspielerin und steht endlich vor ihrem Durchbruch auf der Theaterbühne.
Der Originaltitel von "Was wir sind" lautet "Expectation" - und nichts könnte besser zu diesem Roman passen! Es geht nämlich genau darum: Um die Erwartungen, die wir selbst, unsere Partner*innen, unsere Freund*innen, unsere Mitmenschen, die Gesellschaft an uns stellen. Wir sind umgeben von Erwartungshaltungen, manche erfüllen wir, anderen werden wir nicht gerecht und können das auch gar nicht. Anna Hopes Roman, übersetzt von Eva Bonné, greift dieses Erwartungs-Motiv auf ganz eindringliche Weise auf, sie lässt uns Lesende ihren drei Protagonistinnen sehr, sehr nahe kommen und schafft Figuren, mit denen wir uns auf ganz unterschiedliche Weisen identifizieren können.
Dabei fällt das Lesen nicht immer leicht, es ist mitunter sehr schmerzhaft und auch zuweilen fast unangenehm, Hannah, Cate und Lissa auf ihren sich immer wieder kreuzenden Wegen zu begleiten. Die Geschichte ist wie ein Sog, aus dem man sich nur schwer befreien kann - ich konnte mich vor allem gedanklich lange nicht mehr von den drei Freundinnen losreißen. Zusätzlich wird der Roman auf ganz großartige Weise in prägnante Schauplätze (London, Canterbury) und das jeweilige (feministische) Zeitgeschehen eingebettet - inklusive einiger wirklich hinreißender Nebencharaktere, die mein Herz gewinnen konnten.
Am Ende passt der deutsche Titel dann aber doch sehr gut, denn der Roman ist "Was wir sind" - voller Hoffnungen, voller Ziele, voller Pläne, aber eben auch voller Enttäuschungen, voller Rückschläge und voller unerfüllter Erwartungen. Dass eben das aber genau das Leben ausmacht zeigt Anna Hope mit diesem so starken, schönen und von mir sehr bewunderten Werk.
August 21, 2020
While the story didn't feel particularly new, something about the way Hope writes just pulled me in and I ended up reading this in any spare moment, even standing up cooking the dinner. The author doesn't show herself in even the tiniest way and so it was as though I wasn't reading at, but walking along the London streets with these women, lying in the park in the dusk, smoking in their flat with them. Hannah, Cate and Lissa are in their mid 20s and best friends who live together in London. They have the rest of their lives ahead of them: they can be anything, go anywhere, do anything. The book skips ten years on (and back again) to see how their lives have unexpectedly turned out. For fans of Ann Tyler, Maggie O'Farrell, and Esther Freud.
April 6, 2021
Elliptical, elegant, devastating.
Perhaps this is a narrative that’s been done before – but I doubt any forerunners spoke so powerfully from personal experience. 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. What is original in Hope’s approach is the intimate and yet dispassionate elegy to what might have been.
It’s been a while since a novel has spoken to me quite so viscerally (I devoured this in a day). Maybe it’s because I’m at the ‘pivotal’ stage in my life where the heroines of Expectation are at their most hopeful, alive with the hope of it all - and to comprehend the possibility that in ten years' time I might not be where I had hoped is devastating.
Hope leaves no aspect of everyday existence untouched. My only complaint is that I did not know the characters as well as I would have liked. They stray occasionally into the archetypal, especially in terms of their own personal conflicts. The novel encapsulates much in scope – not quite so much in depth.
A beautiful novel, not as ambitious as Hope’s previous historical fiction, but possessed of an exceptional veracity.
Perhaps this is a narrative that’s been done before – but I doubt any forerunners spoke so powerfully from personal experience. 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. What is original in Hope’s approach is the intimate and yet dispassionate elegy to what might have been.
It’s been a while since a novel has spoken to me quite so viscerally (I devoured this in a day). Maybe it’s because I’m at the ‘pivotal’ stage in my life where the heroines of Expectation are at their most hopeful, alive with the hope of it all - and to comprehend the possibility that in ten years' time I might not be where I had hoped is devastating.
Hope leaves no aspect of everyday existence untouched. My only complaint is that I did not know the characters as well as I would have liked. They stray occasionally into the archetypal, especially in terms of their own personal conflicts. The novel encapsulates much in scope – not quite so much in depth.
A beautiful novel, not as ambitious as Hope’s previous historical fiction, but possessed of an exceptional veracity.
Want to read
March 28, 2020Giveaway win!
January 16, 2020
2.5 stars.
‘Expectation’ has been compared a bit to Sally Rooney’s writing. I finished both of Rooney’s novels before reading this, and I can definitely see why people make the comparison. Both authors deal with frustrating characters and their inane and complicated relationships with each other. But where Rooney knocks this out of the park, Hope’s writing falls a bit flat for me. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think Rooney is able to subtly reveal the absurdity of the situations and characters she writes about, whereas this novel really just felt like it was a bunch of middle class white women complaining about middle class white women problems without any reflection or acknowledgement of that fact. Maybe I’m being unfair? I just didn’t like these characters on a fundamental level.
‘Expectation’ has been compared a bit to Sally Rooney’s writing. I finished both of Rooney’s novels before reading this, and I can definitely see why people make the comparison. Both authors deal with frustrating characters and their inane and complicated relationships with each other. But where Rooney knocks this out of the park, Hope’s writing falls a bit flat for me. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think Rooney is able to subtly reveal the absurdity of the situations and characters she writes about, whereas this novel really just felt like it was a bunch of middle class white women complaining about middle class white women problems without any reflection or acknowledgement of that fact. Maybe I’m being unfair? I just didn’t like these characters on a fundamental level.
July 24, 2020
This is a book I personally struggled to click with. This was primarily down to the plot itself which felt somewhat unoriginal. The woman so desperate for a child she ‘drives her husband away’ and the restless suburban mum who regrets settling so soon, felt clichéd. Moreover, I found the depiction of the ‘man-stealing’ single, childless, friend at best trite and at worst sexist.
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.
Consequently, much of this novel read like a passive accounting of already much told experiences of clichéd characters I was minimally engaged with or invested in.
Mostly, this book left me disappointed that this may be some people’s experience of female friendship and thankful for my own friends.
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.
Consequently, much of this novel read like a passive accounting of already much told experiences of clichéd characters I was minimally engaged with or invested in.
Mostly, this book left me disappointed that this may be some people’s experience of female friendship and thankful for my own friends.
August 15, 2019
(3.5) Hope makes a successful crossover from literary fiction (she previously published two WWI-set novels, Wake and The Ballroom) into commercial women’s fiction. This story of three best friends and their struggles to find lasting relationships and purpose spans several decades but focuses on 2010, when Cate, Hannah and Lissa are 35. Cate lives in Canterbury with her husband Sam, a chef. She’s a new mum to Tom and is feeling adrift and overwhelmed. In London, Hannah and her academic husband Nathan have been trying to have a baby via IVF for years and are considering giving up, though Hannah is still desperate to become a mother. Lissa is an underemployed actress who finally gets a good role in a Chekhov play but can’t seem to get her personal life together. It doesn’t help that her mum Sarah, an aloof painter, makes her feel guilty for not living up to the feminist legacy that Sarah and her generation left through their activism at Greenham Common: “We fought for you to be extraordinary. We changed the world for you and what have you done with it?”
This is hugely readable: perfect for sticking in your bag for a plane ride, a sit on a beach, or your daily commute. I think the marketing minds behind it have tried to make it sound weightier than it is, though, with the blurb claiming it “explores themes of love, lust, motherhood and feminism, while asking the greater question of what defines a generation.” That last bit is especially overblown, though the reference to a particular generation does indicate that this is really meant for an early-40s female audience, though women some years either side of that should still enjoy it.
Ultimately, the novel’s message is a simple one: life is tough and we will often make mistakes and compromises, but we just do the best we can and try to be there for each other. The specific plot twists are slightly predictable, a few threads aren’t investigated as fully as they might be (Cate’s history with Lucy, chiefly) and I didn’t always feel as close to the main characters as I wanted to – first-person narration might have been better for creating that intimacy. My favorite relationship / subplot was Lissa and her mother.
In a nutshell: I’m not saying it’s profound or even very memorable, but it’s relatable and enjoyable, and it made me sad that I don’t have any really close girlfriends.
Some favorite lines:
(Lissa thinks) “there’s bugger all between thirty and fifty, not just in Chekhov, but in everything else. Perhaps in life. Perhaps this is it – Womanhood. The Wasteland Years.”
(Sarah says) “You must keep hold of your friendships, Lissa. The women. They’re the only thing that will save you in the end.”
(Cate thinks) “why should it matter what her friends are doing? Why should her happiness be indexed to theirs? But it is.”
(Hannah thinks) “Thirty-six. She is almost middle-aged.” [Well, crap – I turn 36 this year!]
This is hugely readable: perfect for sticking in your bag for a plane ride, a sit on a beach, or your daily commute. I think the marketing minds behind it have tried to make it sound weightier than it is, though, with the blurb claiming it “explores themes of love, lust, motherhood and feminism, while asking the greater question of what defines a generation.” That last bit is especially overblown, though the reference to a particular generation does indicate that this is really meant for an early-40s female audience, though women some years either side of that should still enjoy it.
Ultimately, the novel’s message is a simple one: life is tough and we will often make mistakes and compromises, but we just do the best we can and try to be there for each other. The specific plot twists are slightly predictable, a few threads aren’t investigated as fully as they might be (Cate’s history with Lucy, chiefly) and I didn’t always feel as close to the main characters as I wanted to – first-person narration might have been better for creating that intimacy. My favorite relationship / subplot was Lissa and her mother.
In a nutshell: I’m not saying it’s profound or even very memorable, but it’s relatable and enjoyable, and it made me sad that I don’t have any really close girlfriends.
Some favorite lines:
(Lissa thinks) “there’s bugger all between thirty and fifty, not just in Chekhov, but in everything else. Perhaps in life. Perhaps this is it – Womanhood. The Wasteland Years.”
(Sarah says) “You must keep hold of your friendships, Lissa. The women. They’re the only thing that will save you in the end.”
(Cate thinks) “why should it matter what her friends are doing? Why should her happiness be indexed to theirs? But it is.”
(Hannah thinks) “Thirty-six. She is almost middle-aged.” [Well, crap – I turn 36 this year!]
December 24, 2020
4.25/5
June 9, 2020
The plot is unoriginal and the characters stereotypical (how comes it is always the control freak that struggles with infertility!?) The characters are in fact so stereotypical that the whole narrative becomes borderline man-chauvinistic, these women are entirely defined by either their beauty/sexuality or their motherhood status. It is almost like they are not even capable of thoughts that go beyond motherhood or relationship. It is ironic that the Bechdel test is mentioned, twice, because this book would hardly pass it.
Furthermore, the language is simplistic, and the few lyrical attempts or rhetorical tricks feel artificial and frankly poorly executed. Overall a waste of time, but at least it is an extremely quick read.
Furthermore, the language is simplistic, and the few lyrical attempts or rhetorical tricks feel artificial and frankly poorly executed. Overall a waste of time, but at least it is an extremely quick read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 4, 2021
Oof. I was really into this book, but I'm afraid the ending poisoned it for me.
Expectation was very nearly a compelling and incisive story about a trio of thirtysomething women - Hannah, Cate and Lissa - struggling to get their lives on track. I've no complaints about the writing. The emotional beats were honest and perceptive, reliably hitting the mark and never resorting to cliché. The characters were complex, yet distinct enough that one could imagine Buzzfeed running a 'Which of the Expectation gals matches your personality?' quiz. But by the time I reached the epilogue, I felt like I was reading pure parenthood propaganda.
If you'll indulge me, I'd like to talk about each of the three main characters in turn.
1) HANNAH
Hannah has a rewarding career, a loving partner, and a swanky London flat, but what she really, really wants is a baby. At the beginning of the story, we find her preparing to try IVF for the third time and promising her husband Nathan that, whatever happens, this will be their final attempt. Unfortunately, the pregnancy fails yet again; Hannah immediately goes back on her word and starts gearing up for attempt number four. Nathan, the cad, ends up having an affair with Hannah's friend Lissa - more on whom in a moment - and it looks as though Hannah will have to find fulfilment on her own, without a baby and without a husband.
Now, I found Hannah fairly unlikable from the get-go. Aside from the fact that I personally don't want kids and thus had trouble identifying with the character's primary motivation, Hannah's interactions with the other two protagonists in the first half of the book made it clear that she considered her fertility problem far more dire than anything her friends might be going through. New mum Cate, struggling to hold it together in those difficult early months, admits that she sometimes wonders whether having a child was the wrong choice for her; this infuriates Hannah, who responds by curtly advising Cate to "see the doctor" and "take some pills".
Elsewhere, during a conversation with struggling actor Lissa, Hannah makes a joke:
Lissa later reflects on this moment in one of her POV segments:
I loved that bit. That was the moment I knew I was sticking with this book. Because it's true - people do sometimes act as though a woman without a child is The Most Tragic Possible Thing, and Lissa's desire to see her career woes treated with equal sensitivity really resonated.
But I digress. The point is that Hannah struck me as a selfish and excessively single-minded character, and I was looking forward to seeing her grow. Once Nathan's infidelity had come to her attention, I was ready to see her learn that there's more to life than reproduction - that a life can be worth living even without children.
Then she gets pregnant, and this time it sticks, and she doesn't have to learn anything. Does she ever experience the same regrets that Cate expressed earlier? Does she find out that raising a child isn't all joy and laughter - that it can also be stressful, if not downright nightmarish? If she does, we don't see it; after Hannah goes into labour, the book skips seven years ahead to the epilogue, and forty-something Hannah seems perfectly happy with her perfect daughter. We don't even see the birth.
2) CATE
Cate, as mentioned above, has recently become a mother. She is doing her best to look after Tom, her newborn son, with precious little help from Sam, her husband, and a little too much help from Alice, her overbearing mother-in-law. This desperate situation is juxtaposed against rose-tinted flashbacks to Cate's past life as an activist, and her relationship with a wild, free-spirited woman named Lucy.
I enjoyed reading Cate's segments, past and present. Whereas Hannah and Lissa live in London, Cate has recently relocated to Canterbury, so her bits are mostly separated from the rest of the narrative and feature a completely different cast of characters, including a friendly fellow mum and a truly ghastly brother-in-law. It's particularly interesting to witness the contrast between Cate's younger self and the person she is now.
My problem with Cate's piece of the story is that it lacks closure. She considers running away from her responsibilities - reuniting with Lucy and making a fresh start somewhere else - but when an old friend sends her Lucy's contact details and she actually has the opportunity to bolt, Cate reconsiders and decides to stick with her husband and their son.
Fine. But aside from a brief hint that she and Sam are rediscovering their former closeness - we see that they are sleeping together again after spending most of the book in separate beds - we don't really see Cate overcoming any of the problems she has when we first meet her. 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. At some point, she went from 'maybe this baby was a mistake' to 'another? ooh, go on then', and I for one don't feel like I saw the whole transition.
The intended message, it seems to me, is as follows: every first-time mother goes through what Cate was going through in the first few chapters of Expectation, but that's no reason to deny yourself the unparalleled joy of having kids.
3) LISSA
Oh, Lissa. You were my favourite. Your author did you dirty.
With Hannah trying to have a baby and Cate dealing with the fallout of having a baby, childless singleton Lissa is the only member of the main trio whose motivation has nothing to do with babies. In fact, she doesn't want to have a baby at all - it is revealed that she had an abortion at some point in the past, and she suspects that her own mother would have been happier without a daughter getting in the way of her goals.
But as the book would have it, Lissa is wrong to not want children. She should have been more like Hannah - desperate to get pregnant at any cost. There's a terribly disappointing passage in the epilogue that made me roll my eyes:
So it turns out that the line I quoted earlier, a line I read as sarcastic - nothing beats Hannah's pain - was in fact meant sincerely. According to this book, there really is nothing worse than being childless, and it's Lissa who deserves our pity in the end. It's Lissa who missed out, Lissa who made the wrong choice, Lissa who gets left behind while the other two holiday together in France.
The more I think about the handling of Lissa's character, the worse it all seems. She is repeatedly stated to be the most beautiful member of the group. At the very beginning of the book, she is introduced as the one who stays out late and wakes up hungover. The party girl. And yet she is also the only one of the main three we ever see working - we see Hannah at work, but the author never actually describes the work itself, only the phone calls from the fertility clinic that Hannah steps out of the office to answer. Whereas we see Lissa attend multiple auditions, rehearse with other actors, star in a Chekhov play, and eventually return to her soul-destroying gig as a life drawing model.
But what is it all worth - the beauty, the parties, the doomed attempts to forge a career - what is it all worth, Anna Hope seems to ask, without a baby to make your life truly complete? 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.
All that being said, giving this book 2 stars feels stingy. It has a lot going for it - I haven't even mentioned Hannah's visit to Orkney, or the death of Lissa's mother, or the fact that most of the action takes place against the backdrop of the 2010 student protests. But ultimately, the story and its message left a sour taste in my mouth, and everything I liked about Expectation was tainted by its conclusion.
Expectation was very nearly a compelling and incisive story about a trio of thirtysomething women - Hannah, Cate and Lissa - struggling to get their lives on track. I've no complaints about the writing. The emotional beats were honest and perceptive, reliably hitting the mark and never resorting to cliché. The characters were complex, yet distinct enough that one could imagine Buzzfeed running a 'Which of the Expectation gals matches your personality?' quiz. But by the time I reached the epilogue, I felt like I was reading pure parenthood propaganda.
If you'll indulge me, I'd like to talk about each of the three main characters in turn.
1) HANNAH
Hannah has a rewarding career, a loving partner, and a swanky London flat, but what she really, really wants is a baby. At the beginning of the story, we find her preparing to try IVF for the third time and promising her husband Nathan that, whatever happens, this will be their final attempt. Unfortunately, the pregnancy fails yet again; Hannah immediately goes back on her word and starts gearing up for attempt number four. Nathan, the cad, ends up having an affair with Hannah's friend Lissa - more on whom in a moment - and it looks as though Hannah will have to find fulfilment on her own, without a baby and without a husband.
Now, I found Hannah fairly unlikable from the get-go. Aside from the fact that I personally don't want kids and thus had trouble identifying with the character's primary motivation, Hannah's interactions with the other two protagonists in the first half of the book made it clear that she considered her fertility problem far more dire than anything her friends might be going through. New mum Cate, struggling to hold it together in those difficult early months, admits that she sometimes wonders whether having a child was the wrong choice for her; this infuriates Hannah, who responds by curtly advising Cate to "see the doctor" and "take some pills".
Elsewhere, during a conversation with struggling actor Lissa, Hannah makes a joke:
"Jesus," says Hannah, laughing. It always astonishes her, the crap Lissa puts up with. "Well, if you don't get the part, you could always do a one-woman show, Directors I Have Known and Been Rejected By."
Lissa later reflects on this moment in one of her POV segments:
Hannah's comment from last night comes back to her: a one-woman show. Directors I Have Known and Been Rejected By. It was funny, of course it was, but it had stung. She wouldn't make a comment like that about Hannah. Hey! Han! What about All the Times I've Tried IVF and It's Failed. What about that? Wouldn't that be hilarious? But of course the comparison doesn't stand. Because nothing beats Hannah's pain.
I loved that bit. That was the moment I knew I was sticking with this book. Because it's true - people do sometimes act as though a woman without a child is The Most Tragic Possible Thing, and Lissa's desire to see her career woes treated with equal sensitivity really resonated.
But I digress. The point is that Hannah struck me as a selfish and excessively single-minded character, and I was looking forward to seeing her grow. Once Nathan's infidelity had come to her attention, I was ready to see her learn that there's more to life than reproduction - that a life can be worth living even without children.
Then she gets pregnant, and this time it sticks, and she doesn't have to learn anything. Does she ever experience the same regrets that Cate expressed earlier? Does she find out that raising a child isn't all joy and laughter - that it can also be stressful, if not downright nightmarish? If she does, we don't see it; after Hannah goes into labour, the book skips seven years ahead to the epilogue, and forty-something Hannah seems perfectly happy with her perfect daughter. We don't even see the birth.
2) CATE
Cate, as mentioned above, has recently become a mother. She is doing her best to look after Tom, her newborn son, with precious little help from Sam, her husband, and a little too much help from Alice, her overbearing mother-in-law. This desperate situation is juxtaposed against rose-tinted flashbacks to Cate's past life as an activist, and her relationship with a wild, free-spirited woman named Lucy.
I enjoyed reading Cate's segments, past and present. Whereas Hannah and Lissa live in London, Cate has recently relocated to Canterbury, so her bits are mostly separated from the rest of the narrative and feature a completely different cast of characters, including a friendly fellow mum and a truly ghastly brother-in-law. It's particularly interesting to witness the contrast between Cate's younger self and the person she is now.
My problem with Cate's piece of the story is that it lacks closure. She considers running away from her responsibilities - reuniting with Lucy and making a fresh start somewhere else - but when an old friend sends her Lucy's contact details and she actually has the opportunity to bolt, Cate reconsiders and decides to stick with her husband and their son.
Fine. But aside from a brief hint that she and Sam are rediscovering their former closeness - we see that they are sleeping together again after spending most of the book in separate beds - we don't really see Cate overcoming any of the problems she has when we first meet her. 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. At some point, she went from 'maybe this baby was a mistake' to 'another? ooh, go on then', and I for one don't feel like I saw the whole transition.
The intended message, it seems to me, is as follows: every first-time mother goes through what Cate was going through in the first few chapters of Expectation, but that's no reason to deny yourself the unparalleled joy of having kids.
3) LISSA
Oh, Lissa. You were my favourite. Your author did you dirty.
With Hannah trying to have a baby and Cate dealing with the fallout of having a baby, childless singleton Lissa is the only member of the main trio whose motivation has nothing to do with babies. In fact, she doesn't want to have a baby at all - it is revealed that she had an abortion at some point in the past, and she suspects that her own mother would have been happier without a daughter getting in the way of her goals.
But as the book would have it, Lissa is wrong to not want children. She should have been more like Hannah - desperate to get pregnant at any cost. There's a terribly disappointing passage in the epilogue that made me roll my eyes:
When Cate and Hannah talk, they talk about their children mostly [...] And their children talk, too - they know each other well, it is clear; they tell Lissa about a holiday they all took last summer to France. As Lissa watches, she feels a familiar ache. She will be forty-four next birthday. As the years in which she might conceivably conceive have diminished, she has felt a corresponding, surprising sadness rise. It is not that she wants a child, not really, she is happy with her life [...] 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.
So it turns out that the line I quoted earlier, a line I read as sarcastic - nothing beats Hannah's pain - was in fact meant sincerely. According to this book, there really is nothing worse than being childless, and it's Lissa who deserves our pity in the end. It's Lissa who missed out, Lissa who made the wrong choice, Lissa who gets left behind while the other two holiday together in France.
The more I think about the handling of Lissa's character, the worse it all seems. She is repeatedly stated to be the most beautiful member of the group. At the very beginning of the book, she is introduced as the one who stays out late and wakes up hungover. The party girl. And yet she is also the only one of the main three we ever see working - we see Hannah at work, but the author never actually describes the work itself, only the phone calls from the fertility clinic that Hannah steps out of the office to answer. Whereas we see Lissa attend multiple auditions, rehearse with other actors, star in a Chekhov play, and eventually return to her soul-destroying gig as a life drawing model.
But what is it all worth - the beauty, the parties, the doomed attempts to forge a career - what is it all worth, Anna Hope seems to ask, without a baby to make your life truly complete? 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.
All that being said, giving this book 2 stars feels stingy. It has a lot going for it - I haven't even mentioned Hannah's visit to Orkney, or the death of Lissa's mother, or the fact that most of the action takes place against the backdrop of the 2010 student protests. But ultimately, the story and its message left a sour taste in my mouth, and everything I liked about Expectation was tainted by its conclusion.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 27, 2020
This tale of three women as they navigate their friendship and life events was a fast and easy read. The women were very relatable in the beginning of the book and I enjoyed the first half. The second half went to a place I wasn’t expecting it to go and it was no longer relatable. The ending brought it back around a little bit but the detour made me lose my interest and it was hard to get back. My thanks to the publisher for sending this free review copy my way!
May 3, 2020
Expectation was the satisfying, complex yet somehow airy, read that I want right now. We follow three friends from college, Hannah, Lissa and Cate, who are now in their late thirties. Chapters alternate perspectives between the three women. There are also a few chapters interspersed throughout the book that tell how they all met, and memories from when they were younger.
This story chronicles around a year in their lives, and the changing dynamics between each of them. Hannah and Cate were best friends before college, and Lissa joined their group in college. Each woman has something the other wants—Lissa has freedom, Hannah has success, and Cate has a family. As time goes on, the balance of friendships continue to shift, as jealousies and arguments push them away and, sometimes, bring them closer together. I found it fascinating to read about their ever-evolving friendship and the conflicts simmering under the surface, both interpersonal and individual. The struggles that each woman is facing are so relatable and understandable. It was kind of cathartic to read—to see the passage of time and how a friendship might stretch, change, deepen, or fade.
I can see how some have made comparisons to Sally Rooney, but I think Hope's writing is less crisp and insular, and more expansive. Also, Hope's pacing is amazing—I found myself continuously flipping pages, and becoming completely absorbed in the story of each woman. This is a beautiful story of female friendship and the struggles women face, about wanting to have it all. It is a story of grief, mistakes, forgiveness, and figuring out who you want to be. I would highly recommend this!
Thank you to Harper Perennial for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for honest review.
This story chronicles around a year in their lives, and the changing dynamics between each of them. Hannah and Cate were best friends before college, and Lissa joined their group in college. Each woman has something the other wants—Lissa has freedom, Hannah has success, and Cate has a family. As time goes on, the balance of friendships continue to shift, as jealousies and arguments push them away and, sometimes, bring them closer together. I found it fascinating to read about their ever-evolving friendship and the conflicts simmering under the surface, both interpersonal and individual. The struggles that each woman is facing are so relatable and understandable. It was kind of cathartic to read—to see the passage of time and how a friendship might stretch, change, deepen, or fade.
I can see how some have made comparisons to Sally Rooney, but I think Hope's writing is less crisp and insular, and more expansive. Also, Hope's pacing is amazing—I found myself continuously flipping pages, and becoming completely absorbed in the story of each woman. This is a beautiful story of female friendship and the struggles women face, about wanting to have it all. It is a story of grief, mistakes, forgiveness, and figuring out who you want to be. I would highly recommend this!
Thank you to Harper Perennial for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for honest review.
April 18, 2020
Wow. What an amazing book. Best 2020 read so far. ♥️ (Oh London...)
August 11, 2022
✨Aitäh raamatu eest, Rahva Raamatu kirjastus!✨
•
Eks meil kõigil ole oma ootused, kuidas elu peaks kulgema ja mis ajaks me peaks olema midagi saavutanud jne jne. Aga kui tihti need ootused ja lootused tegelikult täituvad? Siin raamatus on kolme naise lugu just nendest ootustest ja sellest, mis siis tegelikult kõigest välja tuli.
Mulle meeldis eriti raamatu lõpp. Just see, et hoolimata kõigest suutsid nad lõpuks siiski oma ootustega ja purunenud lootustega rahu teha. Vähemalt suuremas osas. Kuidas see ütlus ongi, et inimene teeb plaane ja Jumal naerab. See ongi lugu täpselt sellest. Ma ütleks, et see on väga eluline raamat.
Kindlasti soovitan lugeda!
•
Eks meil kõigil ole oma ootused, kuidas elu peaks kulgema ja mis ajaks me peaks olema midagi saavutanud jne jne. Aga kui tihti need ootused ja lootused tegelikult täituvad? Siin raamatus on kolme naise lugu just nendest ootustest ja sellest, mis siis tegelikult kõigest välja tuli.
Mulle meeldis eriti raamatu lõpp. Just see, et hoolimata kõigest suutsid nad lõpuks siiski oma ootustega ja purunenud lootustega rahu teha. Vähemalt suuremas osas. Kuidas see ütlus ongi, et inimene teeb plaane ja Jumal naerab. See ongi lugu täpselt sellest. Ma ütleks, et see on väga eluline raamat.
Kindlasti soovitan lugeda!
June 1, 2020
Expectation follows three friends: Hannah, Cate and Lissa, who, through flashbacks, are shown to be close friends but ten years on, when the story starts, none of the girls are where they hoped to be in life.
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. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy this book, because I did, it kept me wanting to read on, but there was just something missing from it. Like it didn’t meet my expectations (Sorry, had to put that in there). So this book follows three friends and through flashbacks, we find out how they met and how they got to where they are in life as we meet them when the story opens. But since friendship is a big part of this book, it was a problem for me when I never really felt like the three girls had any sort of close bond. Also this book felt more like following the three girls through their daily lives rather than an exploration of what it means to lead a meaningful life or the way time distorts how you view what you want from your own life.
The characters were somewhat likeable, but quite stupid in their decision making. Hannah, for example. Her whole character arc was about trying to have a child but that was it. It was like her whole personality was constructed around wanting to have children and if you took that away from her, there was nothing left to her character and for me that’s incredibly weak characterisation. Also, I knew from the very first page that Lissa was going to sleep with Nathan, who is Hannah’s husband/boyfriend, I don’t know, so that was so predictable. They're both trash characters and didn't deserve any happiness. What annoyed me the most was the fact that after Nathan cheats on Hannah and comes back to collect his things, she sleeps with him and that’s how she finally gets pregnant. But that to me was just so irresponsible. So you’re that desperate to have a child that you're prepared to bring it into what is probably a really unhealthy environment between you and your partner. Imagine the stories you'd tell that child. Oh we conceived you because I hate fucked your Dad. What the fuck!
Cate also needed to grow a fucking backbone, but what annoyed me the most was how her husband treated her. I can’t even remember his name, that’s how much I hated him. I think it was Sam? Well Sam was a fucking loser. He can clearly see that Cate is struggling with being a mother, and offers to give her a day or two off but throughout the whole book, we never see him lift a finger to take care of his child. It’s almost as if this child is just Cate’s and Sam has no responsibility. What a joke of a man. Like he actually did nothing and was so useless that Cate should have just left him and ran back to the girl she fell in love with before him. Now that would have been a perfect ending.
Overall, Expectation failed to meet my expectations. The plot never really felt like it was going anywhere, I couldn’t connect with any of the characters, and hated quite a few of them, and I feel like the novel missed so many opportunities to explore really interesting topics.
''Your generation,’ her mother says quietly. ''Honestly. You baffle me, you really do.''
''And why is that?''
‘'Well. You've had everything. The fruits of our labour. The fruits of our activism. Good God, we got out there and we have changed the world for you. For our daughters. And what have you done with it?''
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. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy this book, because I did, it kept me wanting to read on, but there was just something missing from it. Like it didn’t meet my expectations (Sorry, had to put that in there). So this book follows three friends and through flashbacks, we find out how they met and how they got to where they are in life as we meet them when the story opens. But since friendship is a big part of this book, it was a problem for me when I never really felt like the three girls had any sort of close bond. Also this book felt more like following the three girls through their daily lives rather than an exploration of what it means to lead a meaningful life or the way time distorts how you view what you want from your own life.
“You must keep hold of your friendships, Lissa. The women. They’re the only thing that till save you in the end.”
The characters were somewhat likeable, but quite stupid in their decision making. Hannah, for example. Her whole character arc was about trying to have a child but that was it. It was like her whole personality was constructed around wanting to have children and if you took that away from her, there was nothing left to her character and for me that’s incredibly weak characterisation. Also, I knew from the very first page that Lissa was going to sleep with Nathan, who is Hannah’s husband/boyfriend, I don’t know, so that was so predictable. They're both trash characters and didn't deserve any happiness. What annoyed me the most was the fact that after Nathan cheats on Hannah and comes back to collect his things, she sleeps with him and that’s how she finally gets pregnant. But that to me was just so irresponsible. So you’re that desperate to have a child that you're prepared to bring it into what is probably a really unhealthy environment between you and your partner. Imagine the stories you'd tell that child. Oh we conceived you because I hate fucked your Dad. What the fuck!
“Sometimes I feel like I failed.”
“At what?”
“Everything.”
Cate also needed to grow a fucking backbone, but what annoyed me the most was how her husband treated her. I can’t even remember his name, that’s how much I hated him. I think it was Sam? Well Sam was a fucking loser. He can clearly see that Cate is struggling with being a mother, and offers to give her a day or two off but throughout the whole book, we never see him lift a finger to take care of his child. It’s almost as if this child is just Cate’s and Sam has no responsibility. What a joke of a man. Like he actually did nothing and was so useless that Cate should have just left him and ran back to the girl she fell in love with before him. Now that would have been a perfect ending.
“Do you pray for a baby?”
“Yes, love. I did.”
“You did?” she says. “And now?”
Her mother steps forward, takes Hannah’s cheeks in her palms. “Now, I pray for your happiness, love. For you to be happy. That’s all.”
Overall, Expectation failed to meet my expectations. The plot never really felt like it was going anywhere, I couldn’t connect with any of the characters, and hated quite a few of them, and I feel like the novel missed so many opportunities to explore really interesting topics.
November 5, 2019
Expectation is a book for all of us who have turned round at some point in our lives and wondered “how the hell did I get here?”
⚜️ This is for the school girl me who wanted to do as well in English as my friend Catherine and was scared that I was failing
⚜️ This is for the teenage me who wandered aimlessly around town on a Saturday wanting desperately for life to start
⚜️ This is for the student me when summers still felt endless and afternoon drinking seemed like a good idea
⚜️ This is for the twenty-five year old me who had expectations of how my life might map out
Expectation is a nuanced examination of the lives of three women; Cate, Hannah and Lissa. At times it’s an uncomfortable experience for the reader as their relationships are dissected and the underbelly of their friendship exposed. I can certainly understand the comparisons to the writing of Sally Rooney. It has that same claustrophobic, compulsive quality that pushes you on to the end of the novel just so that you can breathe again. One of the predominant themes is motherhood in all its forms. The author captures the cyclical devastation of infertility and the dissociative fog of having a newborn with equal sensitivity and skill. Having read and enjoyed Anna Hope’s historical fiction, this contemporary novel shared many of the same qualities in terms of characterisation and seemingly effortless narrative flow, but was perhaps tighter and more focussed. I read this book in a day, finishing in the small hours of the morning and keeping a box of tissues to hand.
⚜️ This is for the school girl me who wanted to do as well in English as my friend Catherine and was scared that I was failing
⚜️ This is for the teenage me who wandered aimlessly around town on a Saturday wanting desperately for life to start
⚜️ This is for the student me when summers still felt endless and afternoon drinking seemed like a good idea
⚜️ This is for the twenty-five year old me who had expectations of how my life might map out
Expectation is a nuanced examination of the lives of three women; Cate, Hannah and Lissa. At times it’s an uncomfortable experience for the reader as their relationships are dissected and the underbelly of their friendship exposed. I can certainly understand the comparisons to the writing of Sally Rooney. It has that same claustrophobic, compulsive quality that pushes you on to the end of the novel just so that you can breathe again. One of the predominant themes is motherhood in all its forms. The author captures the cyclical devastation of infertility and the dissociative fog of having a newborn with equal sensitivity and skill. Having read and enjoyed Anna Hope’s historical fiction, this contemporary novel shared many of the same qualities in terms of characterisation and seemingly effortless narrative flow, but was perhaps tighter and more focussed. I read this book in a day, finishing in the small hours of the morning and keeping a box of tissues to hand.
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