Book Review: Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

Book: 7/100

Rating: 5/5

“That was the thing about best friends. Like sisters and mothers, they could piss you off and make you cry and break your heart, but in the end, when the chips were down, they were there, making you laugh even in your darkest hours.”

Summary: In the summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey is miserable. We’ve all been through that brutal young teenager age where you go through a weird transition where you and your friends outgrow each other. Then, “the coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street. Tully Hart is beautiful, confident, and ambitious; Kate is smart, shy, with an overbearing mother. After spending the night together after one of them experiences something traumatic, they make a pact to be best friends forever.

The rest of the book follows them for the next 30 years of their lives. The ups and downs, love and heartbreak, chasing careers and experiencing motherhood.

Thoughts: Guyssssss. What a beautiful book. This is the quickest I’ve ever fallen in love with a book. Within the first 10 pages I knew I was going to love it. I fell in love with Tully and Kate's friendship. They both have their strengths and their flaws, as do all of the supporting characters, but that's just what makes the story more real. Kristin Hannah is such a phenomenal author because I could envision each character perfectly. I just loved every aspect of this book.

This was a very emotional book; I rarely have visceral reactions when reading. More than 3/4 of the way through when that thing happens, my jaw dropped and I had to re-read a few paragraphs to make sure I was understanding what was happening correctly. And the last 30 or so pages of the book my throat was swelling and my eyes were tearing up the whole time I was reading it.

I would LOVE to talk to some people who have read this book (thankfully I’m in a buddy read for it so there will be lots to chat about!), because it is really hard to give a spoiler free review! I like how the author challenged typical tropes throughout the novel: I told myself if a certain plot point happened I would knock the book’s rating down to a 4.5 because I really didn’t want it to happen. And it didn’t! So it’s a 5 star from me! She totally led me to believe that this one thing would happen, but then it didn’t (man it can be hard to write a spoiler free review!).

I’m so happy I own this book so I can re-read it and lend it out. I’ve re-read the last page at least six times now, it’s so beautiful and the ending comes together so perfectly. This one is going down as one of my all time favs!