Book Review: Expectation
‘Life is still malleable and full of potential… they still have time to become who they are going to be”
You’re young, single and living with your two best friends, life is amazing, its great. You live in London and you’re brimming with potential. But then suddenly, life happens. Out of nowhere your friends are getting married, having kids, trying to have kids but can’t, trying to have a career but stalling. All three of you are stalling, all of you thinking, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this? Each of you wants what the other person has. A husband, a child, freedom. But that’s just not on the cards for you yet. Why is it not on the cards for me yet? Will ‘it’ happen?
So, here’s the thing about expectations, as we leave the forest fire of 2020 behind, going into 2021 you can’t help but have many expectations. Such as, maybe we’ll get a dog? Maybe I’ll get to hug my family and friends without worrying about a damn virus! Maybe I’ll get bubble tea?! Maybe this year will be my year! Think about it! Take a look at the beginning of 2020 and all the expectations we had for the coming year! And then look at the aftermath. Sure, hindsight can be a funny thing, but expectations can also lead to false hope and we only end up disappointed. Forgive my pessimism, but I’m writing this in the last six minutes of 2020, so it’s kinda a given.
But I digress, ‘Expectation’ made me laugh, it made me cry, it gave me one hell of a reality check. Because this book, these characters could be anyone, heck it could even be you. That’s the thing about real life, it’s scary, but good… occasionally. Actually, it’s exhausting. And our three protagonists, Cate, Hannah and Lissa, go through a lot. Cate is now married and a mother to a baby called Tom, Hannah is a highflyer, hardworking career driven woman who is desperately trying to have a child and has had many failed IVF treatments and then you have Lissa who is an actress. Lissa went to Oxford and then onto RADA, she was all set for an amazing career as an actress, but somewhere along the way it didn’t seem to go as planned. For all these women it didn’t seem to go as planned. Hannah and Cate are childhood best friends, they were initially rivals in school. Which of them would be the best at everything? They were the best, so they fought each other tooth and dagger, until they realised that they had a lot more in common than they thought. Small problem, they were both, are, incredibly bright. They both applied for Oxford. Only Cate got in. Hannah was stuck with not her first choice, not her second choice, but her third. Ouch.
Jealousy, ambition and hidden resentments are what drive these women. whilst they have little successes, there are bigger failures. Lissa oversleeps for an audition and misses what could’ve been her big break. Hannah got pregnant via IVF only to lose the child and Cate marries a man she hardly knows all because she got pregnant. They’re all trapped in a reality that doesn’t seem real to any of them. Lissa wishes for a better career; Hannah wishes for a child and Cate wishes for an escape. All these longings and desires from each of these women bubble up to the surface when Hannah’s desperation to have a child results in her pushing her own husband, Nathan, away. Cate has a huge outburst at her husband, Sam, as to whether she should’ve even married him in the first place, which naturally makes him feel a little worthless. And Lissa, well, she wants something tangible in her life, roots. So, she has an affair with Hannah’s husband, Nathan. Oh, and then her mother dies from cancer. I mean talk about a climax. These women seem to go through it all, yet somehow in the end they still seem to be able to love each other unconditionally. Love between women seems to know no bounds when you go through the wheels of life and life throws it all at you. They’re all okay in the end, but none of them are the same people they once were.
Hannah finally gets pregnant from Nathan and gives birth to a little girl, even though they eventually break up they are still able to be friends. Cate and her husband Sam reconcile after Sam gave Cate a non-ultimatum, “I asked you to marry me because I fell for you, I want to be chosen” and Lissa? Well, after quitting acting she flies off to Mexico where she now teaches English as a second language, she’s happy, she doesn’t have children, but she doesn’t need a child. In the end they all get a happy ending, just not the type of ending that they were all expecting.
Read this book if you must, but be warned for at times it will feel less like a work of fiction and more like you’re looking at a reflection in the mirror.