Thirteen years. Three women. One annual sleepover.
13 February 2013. Alicia, Marnie and Hannah have their first Galentine’s Day sleepover. They’re eighteen, single, and the world is at their feet. Soon they’ll go their separate ways after college, but they promise that every year, they’ll have their sleepover.
13 February 2026. There are only two friends at the annual sleepover. Their friendships have been tested by life, by partying, breakdowns, and even by pregnancies. Are their best Galentine’s Days now behind them?
"Perhaps it's more about accepting that our friendship looks different now to when we were eighteen ... choosing to reconnect with each other again and again, even after bust-ups, drifting away and busy lives."
When I met my best girlfriend, it was actually almost thirteen years ago just like our story. We used to spend our weekends drinking cheap beer, discussing our latest dumb decisions at sleepovers and being silly teenagers. Flash forward, our precious and pre-scheduled weekends include cooking each other dinner, just the one glass of prosecco, weddings, playing with her kid - we are entirely different people and I still love her just as much, if not more, than I did back then.
This book is an ode to lifelong female friendships, the love of sisterhood and the way we become friends over and over again as we change throughout our life. Exploring the growth and changes of a group of friends as they grow up, the real impact friends can have our lives and the deep sadness when we think we've lost them.
We first join Hannah and Alicia on their first sleepover without Marnie - and right away I was locked in. I felt awkward, uncomfortable, desperate to know why these two people who were once everything to each other are struggling to talk. We jump back to the ghosts of Galentines Days past, seeing our trio go through life, watching them grow up and figure out who they are. They take it in turns to switch perspective, sometimes I can find a third person style with multiple voices a little clunky but it worked here, keeping a quick, energetic pace throughout.
It might not always feel like there's a plot per se, but instead it's a brilliant collection of snapshots with it's own charm. We watch over many phases of their lives, seeing them take different paths and the changes that happen each Galentines Day. It was just so unapologetically relatable at every single turn.
The characters were just on point. The girls jumped off the pages for me; so distinct, full of personality, with their own lives to discover. Through them, we explored what it's like to live with the shadow of tradition or expectation, of wanting to grow up, of your plans being derailed, of feeling behind and ahead and everything in between. I absolutely loved them. Reading their stories felt like getting an update from old friends.
Warm, funny and relatable with characters that could be your own friends - this is a beautiful coming-of-age story and a love letter to female friendship. I'll leave you with the one quote that honestly made me rather emotional and resonated so deeply with me: "I fucking love cheesy garlic bread."
⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Galentines Day will be available from January 6th with Avon Books.
- I received a reviewers copy of this title - this book contains potentially upsetting content including unplanned pregnancy, discussions of abortion, divorce and alcohol.
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