Asking For a Friend chronicles the evolution of a deep and lasting friendship between two women – Jess and Clara – over the years from meeting during the university years through young adulthood and into marriage and motherhood. Many topics and themes are covered in the novel, including the struggle to figure out one’s path and purpose in early adulthood; relationships and the inevitable stumbles on the road to finding a partner; sexuality, fertility and abortion; the joy and exhaustion of parenting and the challenge of striving for a career while being a mother.

This novel has a genuine and heartfelt appeal and feels like it is close to the author’s heart. Jess and Clara are two quite different personalities, as best friends often are. They support each other through difficult life experiences and ultimately land in very different lives. These differences threaten to tear them apart and in fact they do, for a time. What I enjoyed about this was the fact that the author never offered any easy answers or judgement for the differing choices and values. At times Jess and Clara do judge and criticize each other for their choices, but eventually come to appreciate and accept each other as they are.

As a mother with a career, I felt so seen and appreciated in Asking For a Friend. All the years of bone-aching exhaustion, anxiety, and striving to keep a shred of myself through the redefining experiences of marriage, pregnancy and motherhood were there in the pages. So too were many of the lighter and ridiculous moments: climbing over an endless sea of plastic toys that played inane ditties on an endless loop, and the feeling that I had bared my breasts to every member of my family and friends during the years of breast-feeding.

The ending felt so right – just two friends floating in the water and living in the present moment, accepting it and each other as is.