Aminatou Sow

Ann Friedman

A close friendship is one of the most influential and important relationships a human life can contain. Anyone will tell you that! But for all the rosy sentiments surrounding friendship, most people don’t talk much about what it really takes to stay close for the long haul. Now two friends, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, tell the story of their equally messy and life-affirming Big Friendship in this honest and hilarious book that chronicles their first decade in one another’s lives. As the hosts of the hit podcast Call Your Girlfriend, they’ve become known for frank and intimate conversations. In this book, they bring that energy to their own friendship—its joys and its pitfalls. Aminatou and Ann define Big Friendship as a strong, significant bond that transcends life phases, geographical locations, and emotional shifts. And they should know: the two have had moments of charmed bliss and deep frustration, of profound connection and gut-wrenching alienation. They have weathered life-threatening health scares, getting fired from their dream jobs, and one unfortunate Thanksgiving dinner eaten in a car in a parking lot in Rancho Cucamonga. Through interviews with friends and experts, they have come to understand that their struggles are not unique. And that the most important part of a Big Friendship is making the decision to invest in one another again and again. An inspiring and entertaining testament to the power of society’s most underappreciated relationship, Big Friendship will invite you to think about how your own bonds are formed, challenged, and preserved. It is a call to value your friendships in all of their complexity. Actively choose them. And, sometimes, fight for them.

How We Keep Each Other Close

Big Friendship

… except for the fact that she really didn’t want to live in a swamp full of status-obsessed former debate champions

Hannah Yoon

** spoiler alert **
           I say 3.8 for the book - mainly because I'm a sucker for anything related to friendships. I didn't start listening to their podcast until I stated reading this book so I had zero expectations. It's not a self help books or a psychology book on friendships. Its anecdotal but makes the reader to be reflective of their own friendships. There were times I'd skim quickly through a story they were going into, but overall I appreciated them being open with their friendship. The concepts aren't new but I think having them out there is freeing. I especially appreciated them talking about how friend breakups are tough and almost taboo to talk about because it seems so shameful to 'fail' at a friendship. I appreciated how each chapter had a topic. I especially appreciated the chapter on inter-racial friendships and it made me look back at some and wonder how my white friends saw me in their life.

It's also slow at the start but I promise it ends well.

I recommend reading it for those that are nostalgic, reflective and constantly think about their friendships.

OliviaPadilla

Best book I’ve read this year and I want everyone to read it. So important.

I’ve been thinking so much about what they wrote about becoming friends through sameness and staying friends through difference.

Amelia Hruby

Liz B

I enjoyed this book, and really enjoyed listening to it on audiobook because the authors read it. But as they rightly note, there's not a lot of research on creating and maintaining deep friendships as adults, and that does show in the content of the book I enjoyed what they had to share and the glimpses into their own friendship, but wish that there had been more about friendship in general. But given the dearth of research on this topic in general, it's not really their fault, but that did keep me from giving it five stars.

Jen Harris

I love the heir podcast so this was a great way to get an inside look at what their friendship is really like. 

Also reading this help me to put a lot of my own friendships into perspective

Sophia Rabon

this made me want to work for my big friendships. to put in effort, communicate, be vulnerable. even when it’s hard. this has pushed me and it is already affecting my life. 10/10

Brigid prior 

Wonderful book. I wish it had talked a little less about the intricacies of their friendship and more about friendship in general.

Francis Buggey

truly one of the best books i’ve read this year, and possibly in my adult life.

taryn

This made me want to write long love letters to all my friends. Reading during COVID times made understanding connections and how to maintain them even more emphasised. 

I’ve only listened to a couple of the podcast episodes so if you have or haven’t, the book still hit home. If anything it made it all more relatable because I haven’t listened to much.

Jennifer Dieter

"'We met at a friend's house' is the superficial narrative we tell strangers. But our real origin story is that we met at a time in our lives when we were both a little bit lost. We were both figuring out how to set a course for where we were hoping to go. And in each other, we found someone who already understood who we wanted to be."

Much like other reviewers, this book made me want to tell my friends how much I love them (and really made me wish I could also hug them). Sow and Friedman offer valuable tips on how to maintain friendships in the long-term, because unlike romantic relationships or familial relationships, there is very little guidance in the world on how to sustain a friendship, especially when you are forced to stretch and navigate big life transitions. This book was a quick but valuable read, and I loved getting deep into Sow and Friedman's own friendship journey, especially as I've recently become a regular listener of their podcast.

Tatyana

While this book head some good tips on friendship it just wasn't for me. I had to push myself to finish this one.

Kimberly

Loved this book. It was thoughtfully written to provide useful and factual information woven in with the author's experiences. I borrowed this ebook, but I definitely would reread this one again. Must own a copy for myself.

Laura

This was an incredible book. I listened to it as someone who had never listened to the podcast which Aminatou and Ann have. The book was refreshing, fun and insightful.

A big part of this book is the story of Ann and Aminatou's friendship. They use that as a way to bring in concepts about friendship and also to bring in experts to expound upon the ideas that their friendship brought up. 

As someone going through a huge life transition that has brought me away from some of my friends and in a position where I am making new friends this book could not have come at a better time. Although I do not necessarily agree with everything in the book, it gave me food to thought about how to be a better friend and approach my friendships better.

Salam Kabbani

Favorite Quote: "...Not all friendships offer these things. So when you find a Big Friendship that does, hold on to it. Invest in it. Stretch for it. Even when the world is telling you it's fiiiiine to let it languish. Even when you're busy. Make a decision to create a world in which Big Friendships are valued as the identity-shaping, life-altering relationships they truly are. Start by valuing your own friendships-not just for their pleasures, but for their challenges too."

Amina and Ann are just the perfect duo and their platonic love story is so real and wonderful. This story resonated with me and my friendships on so many level. It talks about the honeymoon phase of close friendships as well as the more intimate phase, and finally when miscommunications start to arise. 

The authors describe big friendship as the highest level of platonic friendship that one can have. They talk about the steps that are typically required to achieve it, i.e. spending time together, sharing secrets, developing trust, etc, and why we may or may not be motivated to hold on to such a friendship. 

What I really loved about this book was the openness with which Ann and Amina described the difficulties and tribulations that they faced in their friendship and all the repair work that went in and is still ongoing to continue to be big friends for each other. I loved their identification of how traumatic a broken friendship can be especially when someone suddenly ghosts a friend, and how it is so acceptable by society to do that. 

This book was really beautiful and honest. If you are looking for a thriller or something with twists and turns this book is not it. It is as the title depicts a deep dive into big friendship and the work that goes on to keep it close. This book is highly female-oriented. I would imagine that a reader of any gender would benefit from this book, as friendships are important to all genders; however, I do think that is something worth mentioning for the reader.

Cindy

I've been thinking a lot about friendship for a while. There was an article in The Atlantic several years ago about the peculiar, unique nature of friendships that got me thinking. As somebody who has long held friendship in high esteem and somebody who has never quite been able to answer the question of HOW DO YOU MAKE FRIENDS AS AN ADULT, I've always been curious about how friendship evolves and holds up in adulthood, so to see an entire book devoted to the term of Big Friendship definitely piqued my curiosity.

It's probably important to note that this reads more like a memoir if anything; a lot of the major beats that Big Friendship hits are ones that have directly stemmed from Ann and Aminatou's personal experience, like projecting your friendship via social media while still relying on technology to keep your friendship thriving. I was impressed with their frankness on addressing the nuances of an interracial friendship. (One quote in particular stuck with me: When it comes to interracial friendships that involve a white person, it’s likely that the nonwhite friend is going to feel more negatively stretched, while the white friend gets to have a “learning experience.”)

I hadn't listened to the Call Your Girlfriend podcast before, so I came in here with zero context of Aminatou and Ann's friendship. I wouldn't expect anything prescriptive of the self-help variety or to learn anything terrifically groundbreaking, but there's something very warm and affirming about having these feelings about friendship acknowledged.

Faith Lee

This book wasn't for me. It could've been that it was non-fiction or maybe I just didn't like the writing style. I definitely liked the anecdotes and studies sprinkled in throughout the book. I might even enjoy their podcast, but their book was not for me. 

I am a person in a Big Friendship, but I felt like I couldn't relate to theirs at all. I have been friends with my Big Friend since we were 7 years old. We're 20 now, so we've technically been friends longer than the authors. I definitely don't know as much about maintaining this relationship as they might. We've been through some big things and stretched a lot, like they talk about. However, overall, I think we've experienced such different things and dynamics in our relationship (our schooling years and how one went to college and one little piggy stayed home), so I just don't think there was a lot of relate to for me.

Katie Cheng

A fun inside peek into a public friendship, peppered with a few relevant research tidbits. This is the first book I've read that makes friendship the object of analysis: the role friendships play in shaping our individual identities, the evolution of Western society's expectations for friendship throughout history, and the surprising benefits of friendship not only for our personal but also our professional lives. A particularly enjoyable read for CYG fans who are intimately familiar with Aminatou and Ann's broadcasted voices, personalities, and banter.

Big Friendship How We Keep Each Other Close

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