Friends Like Us

I am fascinated by this thing we call adulthood. When I was younger, I assumed that at some point in the hazy, distant future, I would magically transform into an adult, with all the confidence and organization I saw in the grown-ups around me.

Of course we all know now the process of becoming an adult is complex—equally joyous and painful. Years or decades in, we find ourselves still fumbling around in one way or another, doing the best we can, and occasionally stumbling across a miracle.

Lauren Fox’s Friends Like Us powerfully illustrates these painful, joyful moments as we cross the tricky threshold of adulthood. Willa, the novel’s whip-smart and laugh-out-loud funny narrator, is a loyal and devoted daughter, sister, and friend, especially to her roommate, Jane. Willa and Jane’s friendship is giddily intimate—their drive to “establish and reestablish the specific degree of our astounding similarities” is a reminder of teenage friendships lost and a harbinger of the coming end of their protracted adolescence. They are overeducated and underemployed, and nearing the time in their lives when those things will become frustrating rather than charming. Willa’s only broken relationship is with her high-school best friend, Ben, so when she runs into him at a reunion, she is delighted to welcome him back into her life, and thrilled to connect her friendships with Jane and Ben into a circle.

I cringed and laughed sympathetically watching Willa, Jane, and Ben try to navigate their way through this new relationship, opening a door to adulthood that they are not all ready to go through. Someone, inevitably, must be left behind, someone must be left out, and all of them have to change, whether they want to or not.

Friends Like Us is funny most of the time, and devastating when it’s not. It is a novel about loyalty, identity, and lost chances. It is also about what happens to friendships as we grow up, and how we fight even the right changes in all the wrong ways. Lauren Fox is a smart, clever writer, with a heartbreakingly keen insight into human nature. Friends Like Us may possess a light exterior and an effervescent sense of humor, but beneath these easy pleasures lies a beautifully complicated and true heart.