Customer Reviews

The Friendship Test: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Friendship Test opens with Freddie having a real bad day. First, she had to drop her son Harry off at his private school. Second, on the way home, her husband Adrian rang her cell phone to tell her that he is having an affair and is leaving her for someone else. Third, she gets a call from the states and was told that her estranged father just died.
Freddies two best friends, Tasmin and Reagan offer to go to the states with her to help sort things out with her fathers estate and just in time for the funeral, Matthew, the widowed husband of the fourth best friend, Sarah arrives.
While these four people are in the US, several secrets, truths and betrayals are revealed and friendships are put to the test.
If you enjoyed The Reading Group, I truly think you will also enjoy The Friendship Test. You will love Freddie, Tasmin, and Matthew and Reagan is someone you will love to hate.

I really believe that women are healthiest and happiest when they have great girlfriends in their lives, not just spouses, jobs and/or children. Elizabeth Noble has captured this feeling so well in The Friendship Test, and along with the hilarity and candor of women's friendships, I got a fix of British humor, which I've come to need almost as much as chocolate since the Bridget Jones books. Noble is adept at sorting out the sometimes complicated dynamics of women's friendships and does so with both pithy humor and great insight. I was charmed to by the romance of the story, too, and the sweet image of Matthew carrying a torch for so long. I read this book in two sittings, and wanted to host a Tamsin-style lovefest dinner for all my girlfriends when I'd finished. You'll love it, too.

This marvelous book, THE FRIENDSHIP TEST by Elizabeth Noble, remindes me of a saying that my Mom used to tell me---"A friend is not a fellow who is taken in by shame, a friend is one who knows your faults and doesn't give a damn." Noble artfully uses the premise of an old World War II movie about women in a prison camp to characterize her main characters. Noble's characters love each other, commit to each other, forgive each other, and by all means accept each other. Though sometimes jealously rears it's ugly head and then how do friends respond?

THE FRIENDSHIP TEST shows us that no matter how you say it---and Noble says it masterfully and uniquely---friendships hold us up in fun, in pain, in failures, in every aspects of life, and sometimes in great book reads. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you will yell at some of the characters, but mostly, you will wish that this book never ends. Elizabeth Noble definitely "gets it". I now have a whole new cast of old friends!

I wanted to read something "light" but the characters were too simplistic and lacked depth. The story was predictable and the plot presentaton was choppy. Comparing this book to others where, I believe, friendships were the main theme, this book lacked substance.

This book was a selection in my book club. It definitely lacks the content and depth of most of the books we read. I found the characters pathetic, weak and self-absorbed. At some point, people need to realize that they can't blame their parents for everything that they don't like about their lives, and just move on. THis book would be a light read to take to the beach, but I was glad to be done with it. It just went on, and on and on.

I enjoyed Elizabeth Noble's previous novel, The Reading Group, but this one was even better. The characters here are more fleshed out and memorable. The novel is about 4 friends: Reagan (making American readers think of Ronald Reagan, but her name is actually taken and misspelled from King Lear), Freddie (short for Frederica), Tamsin, and Sarah. They meet at Oxford and swear to always stick together, putting each other above men, jobs, etc.

Then the novel fast-forwards several years to their thirties. Sarah has died (the cause is never explained); Reagan is a prickly, ambitious lawyer; Freddie has a troubled marriage; and Tamsin is an earth mother.

There's no real story line around Tamsin, and Sarah doesn't seem to have a plot function either, other than leaving her husband, Matthew, behind to get entangled with the others. The story is really about Reagan and Freddie, and Tamsin is just a listening ear to Freddie's problems. Reagan is difficult and hard to like, though not impossible, and it's easy to predict that problems in the friendship will begin with her.

Therefore, the story is kind of predictable, but Freddie, Matthew and even Reagan are engaging characters, and readers will find themselves quickly drawn into their lives. Although the novel was long (over 400 pages), it went quickly. Noble develops her characters well and gives them engaging, if somewhat melodramatic, problems and lives. I'm looking forward to her next novel.

No doubt that Noble can write! While she could easily succumb to the chick lit phenom and write half-baked, "Sex and the City"-type book. But instead, she gives real thought to the characters, their own backstories, and how they interact. The main three characters are complete, with issues and problems of their own.

The complaints I have are:
1. Things wrapped up a bit too neatly. I would have liked to see a little more change and friction instead of a "they all lived happily ever after" end.

2. Freddie is supposed to be American, but she uses turns of phrases that NO American would use. Same for some of the dialog when the story moves to Massachusetts. Noble should have had an American editor read through for these slips that really distracted me.

3. With all the talk about "The Friendship Test," I think they would have applied the test to all the women in the book they encountered -- including Rebecca and Grace. I was very interested to see how they stacked up.

Still, a great book that was a fun read.

In a matter of minutes Freddie finds out that her husband is leaving her and her father has died. It took me awhile to get into this book because at first I didn't care for Freddie and her friends. Then, as the story evolved, the characters become real. In the end, the book is a story of friendship, self-discovery and finding happiness.

I can't recommend it because I never got into the book - just sort of read straight through to the end for something to do, without being fully engaged in it. The characters are very one-dimensional, with the exception perhaps of Reagan - but we don't get to find out for sure, because she's only covered in a very peripheral way even though she seems the most complex. It is kind of irritating how wonderfully easy everything works out for the protagonist. She sails through all her difficulties with very little trouble, which is unrealistic and not relatable. It isn't a horrible book; it just doesn't provide much for the reader's efforts.

I bought this book after reading Alphabet Weekends, which I liked. It is an easy read and great book for airplane, sits by the pool or just laying around on the weekend.