Olive: The acclaimed debut that’s getting everyone talking from the Sunday Times bestselling author

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In this novel, we’re introduced to Olive, a thirty-something year old, still trying to figure out life (does it ever stop 💀?). While she’s figuring out everything, we see how she navigates herself around relationships, motherhood (especially since her friends are mothers or expecting mothers) and by extension womanhood. Olive is a book about motherhood and guilt, and that's why I ended up loving it. Guilt of not wanting to be a mother, being a good enough one, being a wife as well as a mither, guilt over not being able to have children, of choosing to let someone go so they can have what they want without you. The positive comments, the notes of changing minds, the pressure to have kids, have it all, succeed at work, live life. We meet Olive in her early 30s, where she's coming to terms with the fact that she doesn't want children. Through scenes between the past and present we get to know her and her group of best friends, seeing all their lives change through the decisions they make and how this impacts their relationships. This review is also published in my book blog (with pretty graphics yay!): https://bookaholicdreamer.wordpress.c... The book also went over the top in other areas. I found many of the characters annoying or one-sided; I felt like some characters refused to see anything from each others’ perspectives, and the dialogue was cringey at times. I even found a couple different disturbing remarks that the characters make, here is one of them:

I’d already read Emma Gannon’s The Multi-Hyphen Method, and followed her work from the early days of the “Girl Lost in City” blog, so I was interested to see what her first novel, Olive, would be like. The story is told from the perspective of Olive, a millennial journalist living in London whose life is at crossroads. As her university friends settle down and start to have families, she realizes she’s “different”: she’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to have children. As their lives take different paths, tensions take hold, and Olive wonders what it is she really wants in life. This is going by their consistency in reviewing mediocre-to-astonishingly-bad books with universally positive – indeed glowing – epithets. Now, there’s a whole other essay to be written on how your outlook changes – at least in public – when you become a writer with writer friends. Certainly, if Emma Gannon was my friend, the strongest move I would make against her work is to damn it with faint praise. However, Gannon is not my friend, she is not a good writer, and this is not a good book. There are so many examples of missing commas, which, if you have any sensitivity to how a sentence flows, is incredibly jarring. And it makes the writing read like a high schooler’s first fiction essay. Overall, this is a well written book which looks at relevant issues and is thought provoking. It’s funny, sad, happy with tension as the main characters different perspectives tests their friendship but ultimately it’s a message about acceptance about who we are rather than whether we do or don’t wish to reproduce and being happy in our own skin. The author has proved that it is possible to look at feminist issues in an entertaining way and I applaud her for that. The story is a haphazard patchwork of events, present jumbled with past, with no clear storyline in sight. I had no idea where the book was going. The author has no sense of pacing. Seemingly important events are tossed aside - e.g. Jeremy cheating on Bea; Olive seems to completely forget or not care about this until she suddenly has the presence of mind to randomly call her ‘best friend’ while sitting on the toilet. So much for deep and lifelong friendship? And then skipping entirely over the start of Olive and Marcus's relationship? They're just suddenly together, comfortable, and cooking each other food; no mention of how this must feel coming out of a 9-year relationship. Unimportant events are included for no reason, such as getting ready to go out to a club with colleague Colin - but then the actual outing is skipped entirely.Olive is at a crossroads in life. The crossroads being her partner of nearly a decade wants kids, and she doesn't. I know, none of this sounds particularly important or life changing, but for me they really bounced me out of the story. Please don't hate me for a 3-star. That's easily the highest I've given something in this genre in a long time. Olive is worth a read and could be a good choice for a book club - just don't be surprised if the discussion comes to blows and you end up with prosecco all over the carpet.

I'm 'child-free by choice' (CFBC as the books terms it) and I've never found it to be the cause of any drama whatsoever. I am almost 33 years old and I am child free by choice. thought I was going to really like this. but I didn't. at all. here are the notes I wrote in my phone as I read this book in one sitting. Jacob's best mate starting a healthy delivery food business so Jacob got free membership.... sorry WHAT. was this just an excuse to prove how Jacob and Olive were able to affordably eat well? the privilege dripping off this book, oh my days. how is this relatable? Wow, thanks for hammering home that moral. Would you like to borrow Mjölnir* and beat it into my head some more, just in case I missed your Big Point?Finally, because they were too hilariously horrendous not to mention, here are my favourite quotes: right yes, the continuity issues in this book are so damn obvious. it's been mentioned that Olive may need to get a flatmate to help pay the rent. but when Isla comes to stay, she has to get out the sofa bed? She's a terrible friend - she has zero empathy for the other women (especially Isla, who desperately wants a child through IVF) and constantly feels like she's the one owed an apology. She'd rather feel she's right than make up with her friends - in fact at one point she contemplates walking away from her friends completely. I mean, for what?! What terrible crime have they apparently committed against her? This was a debut novel but it didn’t read like a debut. Gannon is a broadcaster and Webbie nominated podcaster and has written a business book. And it’s probably this self confidence that comes through in her novel. Olive has just ended a ten year relationship with Jacob because he wants kids and she doesn’t. She has to be the adult because he thinks there could be a compromise.