The Weekend

While many novels about female friendship focus on young women, The Weekend follows three women in their seventies, whose decades-long friendship has sustained them through illness, infidelity, divorce – and recently the death of their fourth close friend, Sylvie.

Drawn together over a weekend to clear out Sylvie’s house, the remaining women must grapple with their shared past and uncertain future. I loved this glimpse into the lives of older women – a reality not often portrayed in fiction – and admired Wood’s ability to make each of her three narrators flawed, relatable, and human.

If you like immersive character-driven… show more.

Three women in their 70s go to a beach house in Australia at Christmas to empty it out after a fourth friend has died:

Jude, a career waitress and restaurant manager, whose longtime lover is married; Adele, an actress who has been kicked out by her most recent lover; Wendy, a writer whose husband Lance died 17 years ago.

Then there’s Finn, Wendy’s ancient and decrepit dog. Wood is masterful at revealing their lives and inner lives in bits and pieces.

They irritate each other but are also bonded, which I found to be an accurate and lovely depiction of… show more.