I believe that it was probably harder for people who were already feeling lonely before or people who had not considered this question of “What do my friends mean to me, and how do I slot into my community that way?” The pandemic was hard for every single human being. It was a real stark reminder that you can’t predict the future, but you can put in the work not to be lonely in those moments. That said, the last year has rocked all of us to our core. We are asking everybody to reconsider the place that friendship has at the heart of their lives. We wrote a book that was in part to challenge the social norms around this kind of platonic relationship. Where to buy: The Lit.In the year since Big Friendship came out, I was curious about what you’ve made of the reactions to the book so far, especially with the release happening during the pandemic.Īminatou Sow: It is both remarkable and unremarkable that our book came out in a pandemic. I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I definitely recommend this book to my readers. But the friends I have now are the ones I have stretched for (when you read Big Friendship, you’ll know what I mean). I’ve lost friends, some that I still think about to this day. I can honestly say most of my friends are the ones who have been there for me and (I hope) vice-versa. I’m glad I was able to read Big Friendship because it helped me think about my own friendships. Although the book is based on the friends’ own experiences, Ann and Aminatou were very thorough with their research and include links and information to every book, article and video they mention. It’s a little weird for the first few pages, but once they explain why they decided to use this particular device, I was more comfortable with it and completely forgot about it as I kept reading.

The only negative (and I can’t really call it that, to be honest) is the way Aminatou and Ann refer to themselves throughout the book.

The book is an easy read, so it shouldn’t take long for readers to get into it. No sugar-coated nonsense, but honesty that sometimes put them both in a bad light. Many of us who listen to the podcast think of Aminatou and Ann as “friendship goals,” but they give us the real deal, which I appreciated. What I love about this book is how honest they were about their feelings and what they did to keep the friendship from falling apart completely. In Big Friendship, the two “long-distance besties” talk about how they met, how their friendship grew and what happened when things started going wrong. Not just theirs, everyone’s friendships and what it means to keep, nurture and sometimes let go of them. Two of my podcast faves, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, have written a book on friendship.

Big friendship ann friedman