Expectation By Anna Hope

Hello Bookish People!

I’m back with another review. Now, this post was scheduled to go up back in July but due to some personal reasons, I had to take a much-needed break from social media and especially from my blog. My sincere apologies. Although I will be VERY busy during the next 3 months because of my A-Levels, I will definitely try to post once in a while. Once my exams are over, I’ll be free as a bird! 

A HUGE THANK YOU to Doubleday Books for kindly sending me a copy!

Onto the review...

Imprint: Doubleday 

Published: 11/07/2019

ISBN: 9780857524904

Length: 336  Pages

Blurb: 

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? 

My Thoughts: 

Rating: 4 / 5 STARS 

Expectation is a beautiful novel about friendship, the highs, the lows and finding your way in life. It explores the liminal space between expectations and reality.

The three main characters we follow throughout the book are Cate, Hannah and Lissa. We follow them through the years with a look at pivotal times in their lives. Most of the story takes place in 2010. We get to witness everything from how their lives intertwined, then diverged, their careers, relationships and basically EVERYTHING.

Cate has recently moved from London to Cambridge in order to be closer to her husband Sam’s family, she rarely sees her husband. She’s a new mother and now has a baby boy called Tom. Cate is going through quite a struggle due to numerous reasons starting from the baby not sleeping at night to problems regarding her relationship with her husband. She’s completely drained and exhausted.

Hannah and her husband are desperately trying for a baby, they’ve been trying for years. They're dealing with infertility and the IVF treatments unfortunately are just not working. This distances Hannah and her husband Nathan; they slowly start to drift apart.

Lissa is an aspiring actress who hasn’t had her big break yet. She hasn’t been lucky enough regarding her dream job and only gets proposed a few small roles. Lissa takes up other jobs just to earn enough money to scrape a living. 

Expectation is a relatable, evocative, emotional and brilliant novel. It has rocketed its way into my top 10 books of 2019 which I will be writing up a detailed blog post about towards the end of the year. I was fully immersed in the book the whole time and just could not put it down.

This is my first novel from Anna Hope and I surely look forward to reading more from her. The writing was absolutely exquisite, it’s such a well-written novel. 

I honestly love the fact that this book does not contain any extreme drama, it’s a relatively quiet novel, but the story is 100% SPOT-ON. I feel like so many women will be able to relate to the story on different levels.

I strongly recommend you to pick up this book the next time you pop into a bookshop. Expectation, I feel is a novel that will be enjoyed by many, it has already received tons of raving reviews so please do not, I repeat do not miss out on this fantastic story. 

You can also order your copy here 

If you do decide to pick up the book, please let me know your thoughts and I would love to discuss more on the story without worrying about spoilers! 

Until next time,