GIRL FRIENDS is a blistering, confronting, and utterly compelling read. It’s laugh-out-loud funny and disquieting in equal measures. This is Holly Bourne at her very best

I will never, ever forget this book. It explores some of the darkest and most difficult parts of womanhood and growing up in an engaging and profoundly compassionate way. 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. This book will leave its readers kinder and wiser, and it will inspire us all to forgive ourselves for our complicated pasts

A total tour de force – GIRL FRIENDS is all at once shocking, validating, shrewd and sharp-witted. 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. Just magnificent. Buy it for every friend you have, and then hold a book club to discuss immediately.

A fantastic, gripping read – a feminist manifesto driven by fury beneath a great story brilliantly told

With her usual laser-like focus and sharp writing that can veer from heart breaking to hilarious within the space of a sentence, Holly Bourne weaves a fraught and fascinating tale of female friendship . . . Set in the present day and the early 2000’s, Girl Friends will resonate with so many readers, not just for the noughties nostalgia but for the remembered agony and ecstasy of being a teenage girl

Holly writes so brilliantly on female friendship – 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. Read it, make your friends read it, and then let’s work out how we can pull everything down and reconstruct a matriarchal society

A laughter filled read which teases out the different angles of female friendship and conflict . . . razor sharp that lingers long after you finish

SO good, quite agonisingly accurate and vivid

So deliciously enjoyable, so powerful and so skilfully done. I’ll be thinking about it for ages

A forensic look at how the patriarchy impacts our self-image and even our friendships

It blew me away! Couldn’t put it down and couldn’t stop thinking about it afterwards. Made me laugh and cry and look at lots of things in a new way

This book absolutely sparkles with wit and heart. Joyous

Equally funny and heartbreaking

Another brilliant reassessment of gender dynamics we take for granted. Holly’s flashbacks to millennial teens took me straight back – and stayed with me. Perfect on flirting, fitting in – and the need to feel ‘picked’ that messes with so many female friendships. It’s so good

Wow! Such a thought-provoking read. This was so, so good and will definitely stay with me

Hands down the best fiction book I have ever read. 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

GIRL FRIENDS is funny, painfully relatable and at times shocking, as Holly Bourne explores the growing pains of teenage girls and learning to let go of the past

An incredible read about friendship, choices and the importance of seeing things from another person’s perspective

Unpacks just how much women internalise misogyny

Thought-provoking and confronting, this story will stay with you

An astute novel

Girl Friends is funny, painfully relatable and at times shocking, as Holly Bourne explores the growing pains of teenage girls and learning to let go of the past

A clear-eyed depiction of female friendship and the anxieties of girlhood

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