Profoundly intelligent and humane. Deserves to feature on many a prize shortlist

A brilliant exploration of friendship, feminism and thwarted ambition

One of the most intensely readable novels I've encountered this year

I loved it . . . 10 out of 10!

Will resonate with approximately 99 % of all women

Thoughtful, beautifully written, honest. A sensual book. I URGE YOU TO READ IT

Brilliant portrayal of long-term female friendships . . . I was gripped.

A Sally Rooney-esque evocative examination of female friendship

The real joy of this novel – while exploring just what second wave feminism has done for this generation of women (“you’ve had everything… we changed the world for you. For our daughters. And what have you done with it?”) – is in it’s writing; the dialogue and the honesty behind these characters who are doing their best, who are trying to live up to the fictional counterparts that they themselves have created… It’s the perfect summer reading

Absolutely encapsulates what it means to be a young woman today, and beyond

Hope’s writing is sublime and her characters so well fleshed out they will feel like friends at the end

BEST BOOKS FOR JULY: Expectation has defied all my expectations and completely redefined the friendship novel. Each of the characters resonated with me and I’m in awe of the way Anna Hope captures what it means to be a woman, right here, right now, with all the precision of a surgeon’s knife.

EDITOR'S CHOICE: I enjoyed this contemporary novel about the gulf between the expectation of how life will turn out and the reality... [it] taps into the current conversation about finding fulfilment and living a meaningful life.

Jaw-droppingly good

Anna Hope has a way of getting inside difficult and painful moments, turning them inside out. I felt I knew these women as my own friends. Taut, electric, complex, funny.

Few novels leave me genuinely breathless with their brilliance. EXPECTATION is one of them. This book is beautiful. I am in AWE

Succulent, tender and honest, EXPECTATION is about the relationships between women: love, loss, triumph and betrayal. It was one of those books that knowingly flirted, then seduced me and then utterly ravished me

A generation-defining book, honest and relatable on motherhood, ambition and sex. Like NORMAL PEOPLE with female friendship under the microscope

I loved it. Raw, honest, unputdownable.

I tore through EXPECTATION at the weekend. Exceptional gorgeously written and reads like a love letter to London. I highly recommend it

I absolutely loved this. What really appealed to me was the depiction of the parents, about legacy and about what the mother's generation leaves for the one that comes after

An intimate and touching portrayal of female friendship that shows it's okay to just be

So fresh, human, kind and relatable

Such a dark, relatable, elegant take on how time alters female friendships: how we become THESE people and our friends become THOSE people. Anyway, I loved it. You probably will, too

A must-read. Will make you want to hug the women in you life

A deftly crafted hymn to the comfort and frustration of female friendship from one of our most gifted contemporary writers

Sensual and evocative, deeply attuned to both the inner lives of the protagonists

The prose is beautiful, the characters achingly real, their flawed decisions enraging and yet somehow still relatable. This wonderful book will resonate with every woman who reads it

A quietly political story that suggests historic battles have left women with new impossible burdens of expectation. A marvellously tangy London novel

Hope beautifully examines how female friendship, its issues entirely relatable, ebbs and flows over time in this wise and engaging read

Hugely absorbing, massively enjoyable

A deftly crafted hymn to the comfort and frustration of female friendship from one of our most gifted contemporary writers

Sensitive, resonant, addictive

A story that resonates with anyone who has tried and failed and tried again as they contemplate that gap between what is possible and what is not.

Compulsive and beautifully told storytelling - an ode to 21st century London and an examination of the pressures of modern society

completely redefines the friendship novel. I am in awe of the way Anna Hope captures what it means to be a woman, right here, right now.

Hope is adept at characterisation. The friends are fantastically well-realised.

The story of 3 college friends, if you're a fan of Sally Rooney, you'll love EXPECTATION

A grown-up, honest take on female camaraderie. Packed with talking points

Fantastic. Beautifully written, sharply observed and saying important things

BOOK OF THE YEAR. It's the book we're all buying for our sisters and besties this Christmas.

Brings to vivid life that particular tension one feels just before middle age, when it begins to become clear that life won’t end up looking exactly they way we thought it would. An outstanding novel

Anna Hope's beautifully observed study of female friendship is a moving account of the collision between aspiration and reality

Fantastically well-realised portrait of female friendship's joys and pains from an exciting new voice in British fiction