GIRL FRIENDS is <b>a blistering, confronting, and utterly compelling read</b>. It's laugh-out-loud funny and disquieting in equal measures. This is <b>Holly Bourne at her very best</b>
Louise O’Neill
I will never, ever forget this book. It <b>explores some of the darkest and most difficult parts of womanhood and growing up in an engaging and profoundly compassionate way</b>. It's more than a page turner - it's the sort of story you inhale. Fern is one of the most real, most loveable heroines I've met. <b>This book will leave its readers kinder and wiser, and it will inspire us all to forgive ourselves for our complicated pasts</b>
Daisy Buchanan
A total <i>tour de force </i>- GIRL FRIENDS is <b>all at once shocking, validating, shrewd and sharp-witted.</b> I didn't even know female friendship could be altered by the male gaze until I read this! And that is what is so astounding about Holly's work: she makes you understand what you didn't know you needed to examine . . . put words to my experience of growing up in the noughties and how the boys back then affect who I am now. <b>Just magnificent. Buy it for every friend you have, and then hold a book club to discuss immediately.</b>
Laura Jane Williams
A <b>fantastic, gripping read</b> - a feminist manifesto driven by fury beneath <b>a great story brilliantly told</b>
Lucy Mangan
With her usual<b> laser-like focus and sharp writing that can veer from heart breaking to hilarious within the space of a sentence</b>, Holly Bourne weaves <b>a fraught and fascinating tale of female friendship </b>. . . Set in the present day and the early 2000's, <b><i>Girl Friends</i> will resonate with so many readers, not just for the noughties nostalgia but for the remembered agony and ecstasy of being a teenage girl</b>
Red
<b>Holly writes so brilliantly on female friendship</b> - there's a queasy accuracy that makes you want to cry for every teenage girl in the world, including yourself. Her characters are so relatable, I just wanted to reach into the book and hug Fern. <b>Read it, make your friends read it, and then let's work out how we can pull everything down and reconstruct a matriarchal society</b>
Sophie Cousens
A <b>laughter filled read</b> which teases out the different angles of female friendship and conflict . . . <b>razor sharp</b> that lingers long after you finish
Glamour
SO good, quite <b>agonisingly accurate</b> <b>and vivid</b>
Mhairi McFarlane
<b>So deliciously enjoyable, so powerful and so skilfully done. </b>I'll be thinking about it for ages
Lauren Bravo
A <b>forensic look </b>at how the patriarchy impacts our self-image and even our friendships
Grazia
It blew me away! Couldn't put it down and couldn't stop thinking about it afterwards.<b> Made me laugh and cry and look at lots of things in a new way</b>
Helen Cooper
This book absolutely <b>sparkles with wit and heart</b>. Joyous
Jane Fallon
Equally<b> funny and heartbreaking</b>
Cosmopolitan
<b>Another brilliant reassessment of gender dynamics we take for granted</b>. Holly's flashbacks to millennial teens took me straight back - and stayed with me. <b>Perfect on flirting, fitting in - and the need to feel 'picked' that messes with so many female friendships. </b>It's so good
Harriet Walker
Wow! Such <b>a thought-provoking read</b>. This was so, so good and <b>will definitely stay with me</b>
Amanda Reynolds
Hands down <b>the best fiction book I have ever read.</b> Just OUTSTANDING. Genius. This book makes you think about your behaviour and see your decisions from a more third person perspective. Couldn't recommend it enough
Michelle Elman
GIRL FRIENDS is <b>funny, painfully relatable </b>and at times shocking, as Holly Bourne explores the growing pains of teenage girls and learning to let go of the past
Press Association
<b>An incredible read </b>about friendship, choices and the importance of seeing things from another person's perspective
Sun
Unpacks just how much women internalise misogyny
Evening Standard
<b>Thought-provoking and confronting, this story will stay with you</b>
Fabulous Magazine
An<b> astute </b>novel
Woman’s Weekly
Girl Friends is <b>funny, painfully relatable and at times shocking</b>, as Holly Bourne explores the growing pains of teenage girls and learning to let go of the past
i Paper
A <b>clear-eyed depiction of female friendship </b>and the anxieties of girlhood
i News Online
Magnificent, gut-wrenching, searingly honest, Girl Friends is absolutely unputdownable. I read it full of agonising identification and memory and yet - somehow - I laughed and laughed. Holly Bourne is peerless; a huge talent
Rosie Walsh