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

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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. Expectation opens in 2004 and has the kind of structure that I find irresistible, exploring themes of friendship, motherhood, love and feminism through the lives of Hannah, Cate and Lissa who share a house together in their twenties. Dass eben das aber genau das Leben ausmacht zeigt Anna Hope mit diesem so starken, schönen und von mir sehr bewunderten Werk. Although she has taught herself to ignore the many happy mothers and babies in the street, sometimes even she, practised and adept as she is, can’t resist looking, eyes wide to a sight that hurts a little more each time. 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.

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. 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. 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. The ending brought it back around a little bit but the detour made me lose my interest and it was hard to get back.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. The linoleum is peeling and the carpets are stained, but these things don’t matter when a house is so loved. It’s an ambitious structure, and one that demands the reader’s attention, but is all the more satisfying for it.

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. 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".

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. 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. 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. Even Lissa’s relationship with her artist mother, Sarah, a feminist who was at Greenham Common, is not without its difficulties - Sarah tells her daughter: “You’ve had everything. It is as though we are in mourning for the grownup woman we expected to metamorphosize into whilst inhabiting her body.

The young woman whose desire for a baby eats into her marriage and her husband who the reader can see from the start will stray because of the pressure. 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.Furthermore, the language is simplistic, and the few lyrical attempts or rhetorical tricks feel artificial and frankly poorly executed. Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here. EDITOR'S CHOICE : I enjoyed this contemporary novel about the gulf between the expectation of how life will turn out and the reality. And, I appreciate the variety of perspectives on the subject included in it – including the struggles of the dads which are touched on meaningfully a few times. I finished both of Rooney’s novels before reading this, and I can definitely see why people make the comparison.

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. Each woman has something the other wants—Lissa has freedom, Hannah has success, and Cate has a family.She finally has to admit failing professionally as an actress and then spirals into self-loathing as she decides to feel like she is selling herself while making ends meet working as a life model. 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. As the years in which she might conceivably conceive have diminished, she has felt a corresponding, surprising sadness rise. 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.