Book Review: Big Friendship by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman
Today I’m so excited to be back at The HerStories Project for the first time in a few years with a full review of Big Friendship, a new memoir by the popular podcasters of Call Your Girlfriend, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman. I mostly liked the book with some mixed reactions, too.
My Review
As a friendship advice columnist and a longtime listener of the popular podcast Call Your Girlfriend (“a podcast for long-distance besties everywhere”) co-hosted by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, I was eager to read Big Friendship (Simon & Schuster, 2020), Sow’s and Friedman’s recently-released memoir about the ups and downs of their friendship and the need to take friendship as seriously as we take romantic and familial relationships.
In other words, I am the ideal audience for this book.
Big Friendship, has the tagline, “How We Keep Each Other Close” in large capital letters. Readers shouldn’t be surprised that staying close takes work. Even the best of friends like Sow and Friedman have to fight internally to move on from layers of real and perceived slights. Reading about their real-life examples, however, could help people who are tempted to let a friendship drift apart when things get hard to the point where a friendship ends.
Sow’s and Friedman’s strong chemistry and mutual desire to become and remain close didn’t spare them from actually drifting apart at one point for a variety of reasons. If not for their willingness to work on their issues—in their case, in therapy—I could see a scenario in which they went their separate ways. I have an inbox full of anonymous letters for my column from people whose friendships are beyond repair. Many friendships do end, and at least one party is haunted by the friendship for years, even decades.
Read the rest of the review HERE!
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