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See Friendship: A Sharp Coming-of-Age Novel About Grief, Loneliness, and Male Friendship Online
“A sharp and affecting meditation on the contours of friendship, the seams of our digital lives, and the elasticity of memory. Wickedly funny and deeply impactful. . . . It's a literal triumph.”—Bryan Washington, author of Memorial and Lot
“Astonishingly intelligent. . . . A stunning first novel.” —Brandon Taylor, author of The Late Americans
“At heart a millennial’s take on grief-inflected nostalgia. . . . “See Friendship” rejects catharsis in favor of the diffuse grays of extended mourning. . . . The final chapter decenters Jacob in order to unfold outward — wonderfully so, like its own small metaphor of the internet. Gordon’s smart novel on the warping effects of nostalgia and technology asks us to follow some Forsterian advice from a century Only connect.” — The New York Times Book Review
Critic Jeremy Gordon makes his literary debut with this whip-smart novel about a young man who learns the devastating truth behind his friend's death, propelling him on an odyssey of discovery into the nature of grief in the digital age, the meaning of friendship, and the limits of memory.
Amid the ongoing decimation of media, Jacob Goldberg, a culture writer in New York, knows what will save a podcast. And not just any podcast, but something that will demonstrate his singular thoughtfulness in an oversaturated, competitive market. When Jacob learns the true, tragic circumstances behind the mysterious death of Seth, one of his best friends from high school, his world is turned completely upside down. But when the dust settles, he realizes he has an idea worth digging into.
Of course, it’s not so simple. Learning the truth—or at least, the beginning of it—sends Jacob spiraling. His increasing obsession ultimately leads him back home to Chicago, where he tracks down Lee, a once up-and-coming musician who probably knew Seth best at the end of his life. As his investigation deepens, Jacob's drive to find out the truth—and whether there’s a deeper story to be told about the fault lines of our memories, life and death on the internet, and the people we never forget—grows into a desperation to discover whether it even matters.
A poignant and funny novel about grief, loneliness, memory, and the unique existential questions inherent to the digital age, See Friendship introduces a new voice in fiction—a writer known for his pitch-perfect cultural criticism, with a depth of literary talent.
“Astonishingly intelligent. . . . A stunning first novel.” —Brandon Taylor, author of The Late Americans
“At heart a millennial’s take on grief-inflected nostalgia. . . . “See Friendship” rejects catharsis in favor of the diffuse grays of extended mourning. . . . The final chapter decenters Jacob in order to unfold outward — wonderfully so, like its own small metaphor of the internet. Gordon’s smart novel on the warping effects of nostalgia and technology asks us to follow some Forsterian advice from a century Only connect.” — The New York Times Book Review
Critic Jeremy Gordon makes his literary debut with this whip-smart novel about a young man who learns the devastating truth behind his friend's death, propelling him on an odyssey of discovery into the nature of grief in the digital age, the meaning of friendship, and the limits of memory.
Amid the ongoing decimation of media, Jacob Goldberg, a culture writer in New York, knows what will save a podcast. And not just any podcast, but something that will demonstrate his singular thoughtfulness in an oversaturated, competitive market. When Jacob learns the true, tragic circumstances behind the mysterious death of Seth, one of his best friends from high school, his world is turned completely upside down. But when the dust settles, he realizes he has an idea worth digging into.
Of course, it’s not so simple. Learning the truth—or at least, the beginning of it—sends Jacob spiraling. His increasing obsession ultimately leads him back home to Chicago, where he tracks down Lee, a once up-and-coming musician who probably knew Seth best at the end of his life. As his investigation deepens, Jacob's drive to find out the truth—and whether there’s a deeper story to be told about the fault lines of our memories, life and death on the internet, and the people we never forget—grows into a desperation to discover whether it even matters.
A poignant and funny novel about grief, loneliness, memory, and the unique existential questions inherent to the digital age, See Friendship introduces a new voice in fiction—a writer known for his pitch-perfect cultural criticism, with a depth of literary talent.
287 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 4, 2025
52 people are currently reading
8672 people want to read
About the author
Jeremy Gordon
1 book36 followersHi — I'm the writer of the novel SEE FRIENDSHIP (Harper Perennial, 2025) whose work has also been published in the New York Times, the Atlantic, GQ, the Nation, Pitchfork, and many other places. I used to work at Pitchfork, Spin, and the Outline; I'm currently a senior editor at the Atlantic, working on the culture desk.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
January 13, 2025
✰ 2.75 stars ✰
Jeremy Gordon's debut novel See Friendship is an exploration of how our memories shape the impressions of what we remember of the times better gone by. For when thirty-one-year old journalist, Jacob Goldberg is in his own personal pursuit of life and has to focus on a writing project for an upcoming podcast that will help in saving his career, it leads him on a spiral of unresolved feelings and startling revelations related to his best friend's sudden death over a decade ago. 'You’re looking into it because we all deserve an answer, and nobody else has the time'. 💟 In the search to find the missing pieces that could have been the cause of his death, it takes him on a path down memory lane, revisiting old friends and flames, forgotten friendships and discovering buried secrets - weaving through the digital framework that froze the memories that we cling to, but somehow don't quite reveal the truth behind them. And whilst attempting to better understand what could have led to his death, there is that cautious but prevailing understanding that the truth was always right there, but somehow we simply don't allow ourselves to see it for what it is, in the hopes that perhaps somewhere in the recesses of our recollections, there is that yearning desperation to finally accept the undeniable truth no matter how our hearts ache to deny it. 😞
“There are some things you can’t come back from, but most of the time you can just move on. The years go by and the past barely matters, I’m telling you. You can do whatever you want, if you want.”
I have a passive-aggressive relationship with the protagonist, thirty-one year old Jason Goldberg. Passive, maybe because he's literally portraying the age I am - nostalgia hitting hard, bittersweet reminiscent of good times gone. 😢 And aggressive due to his ambivalent stages of pursuing his own self-centered reasons for an explanation for Seth's death. What started off as the basis of exemplifying on technology changes the trajectory of relationships, it slowly delved into detective work, determined to figure out the cracks in the past - some indication that he may have missed that could have prevented his death. '... all I’d found were the limitations of my ability to understand, and the depths of how unsatisfied I felt.' It was unsettling and saddening all in one; one that almost felt cathartic and therapeutic only for himself, rather than simply letting Seth rest in peace. 🤨 His loneliness felt like a shadow that followed him into the depths of Seth's past; whereas others seemed to have found their niche, while he was still struggling. And at the same time, I was annoyed with his often condescending if not self-righteous stance that made him feel like he was of significant bearing to other - of how it mattered little to what he did to find out the truth as long as he got it. 🙅🏻♀️
“... the righteousness of my approach and the certainty of my judgment would be not unlike the Grand Inquisitor’s from The Brothers Karamazov, if they’d ever read that.”
And I have read The Brothers Karamazov, thank you very much. 😤💪🏻💪🏻
Or maybe I'm just taking it a little too personally. 😅
The writing was a struggle; in the sense that the tone rang rather flat and distant at times. 😕 It also felt as if the author had on hand a thesaurus to convey a basic point. I mean, if you're going to be verbose and grandiose in stating an observation, and then follow it up by explaining it in simpler terms, does that not defeat the purpose if not effort it took into expounding it in that state. See example.
“Each of us comprised an ocean of psychic sediment and detritus, dissolved into formless slurry.”
immediately followed by *⁀➷
“You couldn’t holistically recall the past, only try to approach it from the present and account for all the factors that explained why the past wasn’t even the past, not as you’d remembered it.”
I mean why put in all that effort of being so much more figurative than literal? It was a chore then to truly connect and appreciate Jacob's trials and thoughts - a challenge to truly empathize with him when the wording made it so much more - not stilted, but closed-off. 🙎🏻♀️ The foresight and insight he gained from his interactions felt remote and distant rather than feeling this sense of closure and familiarity. 😮💨
“And the denial of that—the idea that you could run out of time before you got to where you needed to be—just seemed so overwhelming, something I needed to avoid for myself.”
I did appreciate the nonlinear narrative that allowed Jacob to relive selective moments that stood out for him through his recent meet-ups. It was interesting, but not exactly a novel approach to see how the stages of the Internet have allowed us to capture only the times that we wish to cherish and make public - hiding behind a lense, or perhaps capturing the stolen and forsaken dynamics that remain frozen in time forever. 🥺 'It was chilling now, too, a reminder that our lives were overseen... hidden forces cataloging and shaping our perception of reality.' It captured the lost intimacy of those friendships that felt like a promise for forever, only to find the little indications that perhaps we all remember things differently. That what was a meaningful moment for some, may have been just as forgettable to another. To see Jacob try to make something bigger out of something that at heart, was a lot more painful and heartbreaking to think what we miss in those times when we hope that it can be like this always. 😔
“But learning how to live with the fact that everything matters, and yet there’s very little you can do to wrap your arms around the everything—that takes a lifetime.”
The aforementioned points concerning Jacob and the writing are reasons enough why it did not meet my expectations. 🙂↔️🙂↔️ And yet it is for those very reasons that were depicted in the final chapter alone, is what reduced me to see below
This puddle of tears that saved it from receiving a less favorable response. The writing came from the heart; the final words of all those affected - Jacob's reckoning - it was sincere. 🤧 It is that quiet feeling that creeps up on you, much like the journey Jacob undertook to the final realization that was painfully clear to the reader from the start as the pieces fell in together, yet our memories are so precious that we wish to cling onto them just a bit longer than face the harsh reality. It is that steady build leading to Jacob's understanding and acceptance of the heartbreaking facts that was captured with such simple, but expressive heartfelt emotions that... 😣❤️🩹
I was not bawling or sobbing, but silent tears unwittingly escaped me as those closing thoughts deeply resonated within my heart, softly reminding me of how precious friendships can be. 🫂💛🙂↕️
*Thank you to Edelweiss for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.
“It was difficult to think about one’s life that way, until you came to the end of a story and realized it might be yours to tell.”
Jeremy Gordon's debut novel See Friendship is an exploration of how our memories shape the impressions of what we remember of the times better gone by. For when thirty-one-year old journalist, Jacob Goldberg is in his own personal pursuit of life and has to focus on a writing project for an upcoming podcast that will help in saving his career, it leads him on a spiral of unresolved feelings and startling revelations related to his best friend's sudden death over a decade ago. 'You’re looking into it because we all deserve an answer, and nobody else has the time'. 💟 In the search to find the missing pieces that could have been the cause of his death, it takes him on a path down memory lane, revisiting old friends and flames, forgotten friendships and discovering buried secrets - weaving through the digital framework that froze the memories that we cling to, but somehow don't quite reveal the truth behind them. And whilst attempting to better understand what could have led to his death, there is that cautious but prevailing understanding that the truth was always right there, but somehow we simply don't allow ourselves to see it for what it is, in the hopes that perhaps somewhere in the recesses of our recollections, there is that yearning desperation to finally accept the undeniable truth no matter how our hearts ache to deny it. 😞
“There are some things you can’t come back from, but most of the time you can just move on. The years go by and the past barely matters, I’m telling you. You can do whatever you want, if you want.”
I have a passive-aggressive relationship with the protagonist, thirty-one year old Jason Goldberg. Passive, maybe because he's literally portraying the age I am - nostalgia hitting hard, bittersweet reminiscent of good times gone. 😢 And aggressive due to his ambivalent stages of pursuing his own self-centered reasons for an explanation for Seth's death. What started off as the basis of exemplifying on technology changes the trajectory of relationships, it slowly delved into detective work, determined to figure out the cracks in the past - some indication that he may have missed that could have prevented his death. '... all I’d found were the limitations of my ability to understand, and the depths of how unsatisfied I felt.' It was unsettling and saddening all in one; one that almost felt cathartic and therapeutic only for himself, rather than simply letting Seth rest in peace. 🤨 His loneliness felt like a shadow that followed him into the depths of Seth's past; whereas others seemed to have found their niche, while he was still struggling. And at the same time, I was annoyed with his often condescending if not self-righteous stance that made him feel like he was of significant bearing to other - of how it mattered little to what he did to find out the truth as long as he got it. 🙅🏻♀️
“... the righteousness of my approach and the certainty of my judgment would be not unlike the Grand Inquisitor’s from The Brothers Karamazov, if they’d ever read that.”
And I have read The Brothers Karamazov, thank you very much. 😤💪🏻💪🏻
Or maybe I'm just taking it a little too personally. 😅
The writing was a struggle; in the sense that the tone rang rather flat and distant at times. 😕 It also felt as if the author had on hand a thesaurus to convey a basic point. I mean, if you're going to be verbose and grandiose in stating an observation, and then follow it up by explaining it in simpler terms, does that not defeat the purpose if not effort it took into expounding it in that state. See example.
“Each of us comprised an ocean of psychic sediment and detritus, dissolved into formless slurry.”
immediately followed by *⁀➷
“You couldn’t holistically recall the past, only try to approach it from the present and account for all the factors that explained why the past wasn’t even the past, not as you’d remembered it.”
I mean why put in all that effort of being so much more figurative than literal? It was a chore then to truly connect and appreciate Jacob's trials and thoughts - a challenge to truly empathize with him when the wording made it so much more - not stilted, but closed-off. 🙎🏻♀️ The foresight and insight he gained from his interactions felt remote and distant rather than feeling this sense of closure and familiarity. 😮💨
“And the denial of that—the idea that you could run out of time before you got to where you needed to be—just seemed so overwhelming, something I needed to avoid for myself.”
I did appreciate the nonlinear narrative that allowed Jacob to relive selective moments that stood out for him through his recent meet-ups. It was interesting, but not exactly a novel approach to see how the stages of the Internet have allowed us to capture only the times that we wish to cherish and make public - hiding behind a lense, or perhaps capturing the stolen and forsaken dynamics that remain frozen in time forever. 🥺 'It was chilling now, too, a reminder that our lives were overseen... hidden forces cataloging and shaping our perception of reality.' It captured the lost intimacy of those friendships that felt like a promise for forever, only to find the little indications that perhaps we all remember things differently. That what was a meaningful moment for some, may have been just as forgettable to another. To see Jacob try to make something bigger out of something that at heart, was a lot more painful and heartbreaking to think what we miss in those times when we hope that it can be like this always. 😔
“But learning how to live with the fact that everything matters, and yet there’s very little you can do to wrap your arms around the everything—that takes a lifetime.”
The aforementioned points concerning Jacob and the writing are reasons enough why it did not meet my expectations. 🙂↔️🙂↔️ And yet it is for those very reasons that were depicted in the final chapter alone, is what reduced me to see below
This puddle of tears that saved it from receiving a less favorable response. The writing came from the heart; the final words of all those affected - Jacob's reckoning - it was sincere. 🤧 It is that quiet feeling that creeps up on you, much like the journey Jacob undertook to the final realization that was painfully clear to the reader from the start as the pieces fell in together, yet our memories are so precious that we wish to cling onto them just a bit longer than face the harsh reality. It is that steady build leading to Jacob's understanding and acceptance of the heartbreaking facts that was captured with such simple, but expressive heartfelt emotions that... 😣❤️🩹
I was not bawling or sobbing, but silent tears unwittingly escaped me as those closing thoughts deeply resonated within my heart, softly reminding me of how precious friendships can be. 🫂💛🙂↕️
*Thank you to Edelweiss for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.
January 22, 2025
Major thanks to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:
*3.5 rounded up
"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘫𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯. 𝘞𝘦’𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘴𝘰 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘭𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭."
When my friend passed away two years ago, no one knew how to talk to me. They didn’t know what to say. One friend even consoled me with a “that sux” by text.
For me, I’ve always known death. It was always nearby. Incense. Ammonia. Salt. Cold air. Old wool. As someone who has been to more funerals than weddings, I can conjure up these smells just by thinking about all of my relatives who have been put 6 feet under, easily.
But I’ve always come prepared when my friends had people who had passed away. Flowers. Tissues. Ben and Jerry’s. The “let’s do all your favorite things and tell me about your favorite memories of this loved one.” The Didion. The other Didion too, for good measure.
It is never easy. To know what to say. To know what to do. Generation after generation, we get dumber and dumber about these things. Much like finances or sense of personal style.
Gordon’s debut is poignant, quiet and funny in that A24 kind of way. At once I was going to write this book off as something that one chill guy with the fourth wave oat latte that comes from money but never says he comes from money by buying this full-priced from an indie bookstore in hardback to bring to films screenings and artisanal breweries just to show he’s 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 and knows a thing or two about 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦.
But by its beautiful come-around do we get rich characters, confessionals that hit close to home, and a beautiful resolution to the ways we grieve and move on from death that my opinion and mood changed around this somebody trying to make sense of the things that happened in his past. And isn’t that what we’re always trying to do, making sense of the things too far back in our old worlds.
I’m always for books that have us 𝘥𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳. And to 𝘣𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 around things like death are always important, especially now in a time where we lack community but are in so much need of it. Why is it that a life lost brings people together? Why can’t we come together before the people are gone? Have we not prepared better as people?
I want to prepare as a person for other people. That’s community.
*3.5 rounded up
"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘫𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯. 𝘞𝘦’𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘴𝘰 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘭𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭."
When my friend passed away two years ago, no one knew how to talk to me. They didn’t know what to say. One friend even consoled me with a “that sux” by text.
For me, I’ve always known death. It was always nearby. Incense. Ammonia. Salt. Cold air. Old wool. As someone who has been to more funerals than weddings, I can conjure up these smells just by thinking about all of my relatives who have been put 6 feet under, easily.
But I’ve always come prepared when my friends had people who had passed away. Flowers. Tissues. Ben and Jerry’s. The “let’s do all your favorite things and tell me about your favorite memories of this loved one.” The Didion. The other Didion too, for good measure.
It is never easy. To know what to say. To know what to do. Generation after generation, we get dumber and dumber about these things. Much like finances or sense of personal style.
Gordon’s debut is poignant, quiet and funny in that A24 kind of way. At once I was going to write this book off as something that one chill guy with the fourth wave oat latte that comes from money but never says he comes from money by buying this full-priced from an indie bookstore in hardback to bring to films screenings and artisanal breweries just to show he’s 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 and knows a thing or two about 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦.
But by its beautiful come-around do we get rich characters, confessionals that hit close to home, and a beautiful resolution to the ways we grieve and move on from death that my opinion and mood changed around this somebody trying to make sense of the things that happened in his past. And isn’t that what we’re always trying to do, making sense of the things too far back in our old worlds.
I’m always for books that have us 𝘥𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳. And to 𝘣𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 around things like death are always important, especially now in a time where we lack community but are in so much need of it. Why is it that a life lost brings people together? Why can’t we come together before the people are gone? Have we not prepared better as people?
I want to prepare as a person for other people. That’s community.
December 5, 2024
(3.5/5 ⭐, rounded up)
Immediately after finishing I knew this would be one I'd want to sit with before reviewing fully...
But in the meantime, some misc thoughts
- definitely a specific audience, and outside of that idk if you'd enjoy
- if you/your school didn't experience a student's tragic death, this won't be as poignant. truthfully you likely won't get out this everything that you could from this, had you lost someone in HS. what weird concept, having a "leg up" so to speak, because you have an understanding that will actually help you identify more w this novel.
- the middle really lost me, a major lull that i'm not sure I would have worked past had this not been for NG - which is unfortunate because in the end I did get a lot from this. I started typing out that I hope others don't do that... But if this isn't for you, it just isn't for you. You'll know if this is something relatable or not fairly quickly.
Again, I'm definitely coming back to organize and add to this, but for now...
{Thank you bunches to NetGalley, Jeremy Gordon and Harper Perennial for the DRC in exchange for my honest review!}
Immediately after finishing I knew this would be one I'd want to sit with before reviewing fully...
But in the meantime, some misc thoughts
- definitely a specific audience, and outside of that idk if you'd enjoy
- if you/your school didn't experience a student's tragic death, this won't be as poignant. truthfully you likely won't get out this everything that you could from this, had you lost someone in HS. what weird concept, having a "leg up" so to speak, because you have an understanding that will actually help you identify more w this novel.
- the middle really lost me, a major lull that i'm not sure I would have worked past had this not been for NG - which is unfortunate because in the end I did get a lot from this. I started typing out that I hope others don't do that... But if this isn't for you, it just isn't for you. You'll know if this is something relatable or not fairly quickly.
Again, I'm definitely coming back to organize and add to this, but for now...
{Thank you bunches to NetGalley, Jeremy Gordon and Harper Perennial for the DRC in exchange for my honest review!}
March 4, 2025
This is the most undecided I’ve been about a book in a long time.
This book is pure vibes: it discusses grief and how it’s processed. It’s about how a single moment, a simple conversation, can bring you back to your grief over a loved one no matter how long it’s been. Our main character lost one of his closest friends at nineteen and still thinks of him regularly. He’s never fully on board with “exploiting” the story of his dead friend for a podcast but instead uses his interviews as grief counseling, reconnected with his past to process his emotions then and now.
But nothing happens. NOTHING HAPPENS. This book is mostly a series of one-sided conversations in Jacob’s head. And when he does have his interviews and external conversations, they don’t make anything happen. The book drives toward a potential mystery whodunnit, but then just stops. It was infuriating at points because literally nothing happens other than a guy makes his own therapy.
This book has to be considered as the sum of its parts. It can’t be critiqued on individual concepts and characters. The book evokes grief, evokes emotions, and ultimately forces you to reckon with them alongside the main character. No healing is truly done - because no grief is truly ever gone.
Thank you to NetGalley, Jeremy Gordon, and Harper Perennial for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book is pure vibes: it discusses grief and how it’s processed. It’s about how a single moment, a simple conversation, can bring you back to your grief over a loved one no matter how long it’s been. Our main character lost one of his closest friends at nineteen and still thinks of him regularly. He’s never fully on board with “exploiting” the story of his dead friend for a podcast but instead uses his interviews as grief counseling, reconnected with his past to process his emotions then and now.
But nothing happens. NOTHING HAPPENS. This book is mostly a series of one-sided conversations in Jacob’s head. And when he does have his interviews and external conversations, they don’t make anything happen. The book drives toward a potential mystery whodunnit, but then just stops. It was infuriating at points because literally nothing happens other than a guy makes his own therapy.
This book has to be considered as the sum of its parts. It can’t be critiqued on individual concepts and characters. The book evokes grief, evokes emotions, and ultimately forces you to reckon with them alongside the main character. No healing is truly done - because no grief is truly ever gone.
Thank you to NetGalley, Jeremy Gordon, and Harper Perennial for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
March 1, 2025
Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication date: March 4, 2025
Jeremy Gordon’s debut novel, “See Friendship” is a nostalgic look at the relationships that change our lives and the memories we share.
Jacob Goldberg is a journalist in New York City and although he knows that the way society views information is changing, he is still surprised when his management team tells him that they are leaning toward going the route of the podcast. Knowing that an original podcast will make or break his career, Jacob knows that he needs to come up with something that will be, quite literally, life-altering. Through his research he discovers that the death of a close friend from high school was surrounded by a cloud of mysterious circumstances. Desperate to not only get to the bottom of the incident but, hopefully, create a podcast that will attract viewers, Jacob takes the chance of his lifetime, bringing up memories that encourage him to see his friend in a very different light.
“See Friendship” is a unique novel with heavy topics, such as grief, loss, addiction and the power of memory. Gordon is a published writer (“Friendship” is his first novel however) so it is no surprise that his writing is polished and digestible. The plot flows well and, although there are many characters, Jacob is the protagonist and narrator.
“Friendship” reads like a play-by-play of someone attending their high school reunion. Jacob returns to his hometown to investigate the death of his friend, reconnecting with old acquaintances along the way. The details of his friend, Seth’s, death are not at all mysterious and don’t lead us to a who-dunnit solution, so there’s no guessing game within the pages. The novel itself is more of a nostalgic journey for Jacob, although the story itself remains in the present throughout.
Jacob is an average mid-thirties mixed-race man but does not really have anything of interest that makes him stand out. He’s a middling journalist who can’t decide on a podcast topic, so he decides to relive his high school years, re-traumatizing everyone else who has long since put the incident behind them. I honestly didn’t care whether Jacob got the podcast done in the end or not, but I did care enough about the characters to read through to the end.
“Friendship” is a character-driven examination of one man’s memories, that differed drastically from his classmate’s and friends, and how the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Well-written and cohesive, “See Friendship” had me busting out the high school yearbook for some early-oughts nostalgia. Gordon’s debut novel will stand out for its slick writing and strong character development, if nothing else.
Expected publication date: March 4, 2025
Jeremy Gordon’s debut novel, “See Friendship” is a nostalgic look at the relationships that change our lives and the memories we share.
Jacob Goldberg is a journalist in New York City and although he knows that the way society views information is changing, he is still surprised when his management team tells him that they are leaning toward going the route of the podcast. Knowing that an original podcast will make or break his career, Jacob knows that he needs to come up with something that will be, quite literally, life-altering. Through his research he discovers that the death of a close friend from high school was surrounded by a cloud of mysterious circumstances. Desperate to not only get to the bottom of the incident but, hopefully, create a podcast that will attract viewers, Jacob takes the chance of his lifetime, bringing up memories that encourage him to see his friend in a very different light.
“See Friendship” is a unique novel with heavy topics, such as grief, loss, addiction and the power of memory. Gordon is a published writer (“Friendship” is his first novel however) so it is no surprise that his writing is polished and digestible. The plot flows well and, although there are many characters, Jacob is the protagonist and narrator.
“Friendship” reads like a play-by-play of someone attending their high school reunion. Jacob returns to his hometown to investigate the death of his friend, reconnecting with old acquaintances along the way. The details of his friend, Seth’s, death are not at all mysterious and don’t lead us to a who-dunnit solution, so there’s no guessing game within the pages. The novel itself is more of a nostalgic journey for Jacob, although the story itself remains in the present throughout.
Jacob is an average mid-thirties mixed-race man but does not really have anything of interest that makes him stand out. He’s a middling journalist who can’t decide on a podcast topic, so he decides to relive his high school years, re-traumatizing everyone else who has long since put the incident behind them. I honestly didn’t care whether Jacob got the podcast done in the end or not, but I did care enough about the characters to read through to the end.
“Friendship” is a character-driven examination of one man’s memories, that differed drastically from his classmate’s and friends, and how the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Well-written and cohesive, “See Friendship” had me busting out the high school yearbook for some early-oughts nostalgia. Gordon’s debut novel will stand out for its slick writing and strong character development, if nothing else.
May 16, 2025
Jacob Goldberg is a culture critic for a second-tier literary magazine and has been told he should start making podcasts if he wants to avoid the next round of layoffs. It goes against all his basic instincts as a writer: the writer labors over ideas, crafting sentences and carving them down into their most lapidary form; the podcaster, however, sounds like a bloviator, speaking casually off the cuff into a microphone, filling airtime with confident ramblings rather than whittling the page into a smartly argued authoritative text. Podcasting is an industry dominated by loudmouthed men who prefer the sound of their voice, who like ad-libbing their unfiltered opinions and enjoy the easy consensus of their homosocial echo chamber. But Jacob puts aside his reservations and throws himself into his new assignment. He starts off by thinking about his high-school years, 9/11, the Bush presidency, the rise of social media, the culture wars over same-sex marriage—and what it meant to be a teenager in a school in Chicago in the 2000s, cognizant of the greater macro dramas of world politics while also experiencing personal losses whose dimensions, in the adolescent mind, seemed larger than any global tragedy. Jacob starts to think less about 9/11 and more about his friend, Seth, who died shortly after graduation, and Jacob resolves to figure out the true story behind his death. Seth was gay, uninhibited, charismatic—an enigma—but his parents didn't accept his sexuality and he was forced to go to community college. Was his death a tragic medical accident? Was it a heroine overdose? Was it suicide?
The novel is not simply about figuring out the past, digging into the scandals and secret cliques of a generic high school community, identifying the blindspots in teenage perspectives. It is about the process of making a story and Jacob's own personal motives in trying to reconstruct the past. The podcast takes Jacob back into the world of Facebook and LiveJournal, teenage rebellion and narrow-mindedness. It is a nostalgic project and, like with many millennial workaholics, personal life and professional work are blurred. As Jacob investigates further, he has to second-guess himself. Is he on some subconscious level just prying back into his past to reconnect with all flames and find his ex-girlfriends, to redeem his awkward adolescent self as a more successful adult suitor? Or is he pursuing the more noble vocation of problematizing and critiquing culture, unveiling the hidden crux of millennial angst? Or is this all an exercise in the now hallowed art of introspection? (as he says to himself, "My world carried a moral mandate for self-examination, and pursuing a rigorous accounting of how your life had unfolded"). Seth's story becomes unimportant, and is left unsolved. The deeper question is about the commodification of the past, why we need to turn past tragedies into edgy podcasts with tidy narratives. The very act of creating a podcast says more about the spiritual ills of millennials than a high-school exposé could. Joan Didion said that "We tell stories in order to live" but, for Jacob, it's more true to say that we tell stories to get paid a living, turning our interior life into another gig.
Not sure how successful it was as a novel. It started to lag in places. The mystery of Seth, the hitches in making the podcast, didn't always sustain my attention.
The novel is not simply about figuring out the past, digging into the scandals and secret cliques of a generic high school community, identifying the blindspots in teenage perspectives. It is about the process of making a story and Jacob's own personal motives in trying to reconstruct the past. The podcast takes Jacob back into the world of Facebook and LiveJournal, teenage rebellion and narrow-mindedness. It is a nostalgic project and, like with many millennial workaholics, personal life and professional work are blurred. As Jacob investigates further, he has to second-guess himself. Is he on some subconscious level just prying back into his past to reconnect with all flames and find his ex-girlfriends, to redeem his awkward adolescent self as a more successful adult suitor? Or is he pursuing the more noble vocation of problematizing and critiquing culture, unveiling the hidden crux of millennial angst? Or is this all an exercise in the now hallowed art of introspection? (as he says to himself, "My world carried a moral mandate for self-examination, and pursuing a rigorous accounting of how your life had unfolded"). Seth's story becomes unimportant, and is left unsolved. The deeper question is about the commodification of the past, why we need to turn past tragedies into edgy podcasts with tidy narratives. The very act of creating a podcast says more about the spiritual ills of millennials than a high-school exposé could. Joan Didion said that "We tell stories in order to live" but, for Jacob, it's more true to say that we tell stories to get paid a living, turning our interior life into another gig.
Not sure how successful it was as a novel. It started to lag in places. The mystery of Seth, the hitches in making the podcast, didn't always sustain my attention.
March 28, 2025
I haven’t been genuinely so excited about a book from the first page and carried that excitement through (and I think I will carry a lot of SEE FRIENDSHIP with me for a long time.) The writing is gorgeous and buoyant and smart and the humanity in each character is richly built. Read it start to end all in one go and was so sad to finish as I’ll miss Jacob Goldberg and his world, a real mark of something wonderful.
Read
March 17, 2025Unfortunate DNF for me at 62% but I think I need an extended break from the nostalgic millennial navelgazing genre
June 18, 2025
annoying guy fails to make podcast
February 3, 2025
See Friendship is a story about grief, friendship, and growing older in a digital age. Jeremy is a journalist who mostly writes music reviews. He's on a leave of absence from his work in New York, spending time in LA where he ends up reconnecting with some of his friends from high school. He reflects on the students from his class who died too young with a particular focus on his old friend Seth who died just a few years after graduating. After discussing it with some of his friends, Jeremy learns something about Seth's death the puts everything in a new light and inspires him to turn it into a podcast for his work. As Jeremy delves in deeper, he learns more about Seth, his old high school classmates, and the imperfection of memory.
This book was not really one for me. I was intrigued by the synopsis. It sounded like it would be mysterious and emotional and a critique on internet culture and the commodification of other people's tragedies, but it did not hit any of those notes for me. The book talked a lot of the way that the internet can connect people and preserve things or how things can be lost online, but I never felt like it made a point. The middle was especially slow, with Jeremy talking to his friends, worrying about how to tell them about the podcast, and then being introduced to another friend to repeat the process again. I think the last 15% of the book was interesting, but the outcome of the investigation didn't surprise me in the slightest. The excerpt from the podcast also made me realize that all of the characters had voices that sounded pretty much the same, so it was difficult to tell if everything was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek-look-at-this-idiot type of tone or if it was all in earnest, in which case I really didn't like any of the characters. This one could be good for those who are big into podcasts or fond of reflecting on their high school years.
Thanks to Harper Perennial and NetGalley for the gifted copy.
This book was not really one for me. I was intrigued by the synopsis. It sounded like it would be mysterious and emotional and a critique on internet culture and the commodification of other people's tragedies, but it did not hit any of those notes for me. The book talked a lot of the way that the internet can connect people and preserve things or how things can be lost online, but I never felt like it made a point. The middle was especially slow, with Jeremy talking to his friends, worrying about how to tell them about the podcast, and then being introduced to another friend to repeat the process again. I think the last 15% of the book was interesting, but the outcome of the investigation didn't surprise me in the slightest. The excerpt from the podcast also made me realize that all of the characters had voices that sounded pretty much the same, so it was difficult to tell if everything was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek-look-at-this-idiot type of tone or if it was all in earnest, in which case I really didn't like any of the characters. This one could be good for those who are big into podcasts or fond of reflecting on their high school years.
Thanks to Harper Perennial and NetGalley for the gifted copy.
July 7, 2025
the trouble here is this is exactly what I want in a plot but I don’t think the execution worked for me. too much sitting in a room and talking and then moving to a different room and talking in a way I also need to figure out how to move away from (but in other books it can totally work????). But also the Real trouble is that I didn’t fully feel the friendship, which sucks because I imagine the author put a lot of himself into this (based on the main character’s career trajectory and hometown, I’m making assumptions because i know nothing about him beyond his author bio and I don’t know exactly how else you arrive at a plot like this if you don’t feel a personal connection). I felt it on the last pages, when we get that transcribed story, but I didn’t feel that motivation and love as much before, which is the thing that can make it all work. and that ending seemed very abrupt. I don’t know. it was a quick read and there were moments that I thought were working but it all felt kind of murky. reminds me that I really need a clear voice and purpose in a first person narrator beyond just retelling factually (I think of Donna Tartt and Theo and Richard and how their narration is so motivated by fear and the need to confess and unburden themselves—I was not getting a strong motivation like that here, even when there could’ve been one). Another lesson in how easily a blurb will pull me in. Brandon Taylor AND Bryan Washington AND Hua Hsu???? like man I was guaranteed to read it by that point. so. not exactly what I wanted but a good exercise for me anyway.
December 21, 2025
Mixed opinions on this one— I did not like the writing style (felt like everything was over-explained; give the reader some credit) and did not like any of the characters much lol. Jacob is an asshole. I do think the themes are very relevant and interesting to think about (exploitation of tragedy, grief and nostalgia through social media, boundaries of personal/professional life, etc.) especially if you can relate to losing classmates/friends as a kid. I enjoyed the different perspectives of all Jacob’s high school friends, both on Seth’s life+death and on Jacob’s endeavor to turn it into a podcast. I think I would have loved this book if the writing had been a bit more subtle and if I felt more connected to the characters. I don’t mind an asshole main character if I feel like I can understand where they’re coming from, but I just did not understand why Jacob was the way he was. Like whyyyy are you so dead set on this freak mission you weirdo.
April 16, 2025
I liked See Friendship and it reminded me of slice of life films I love like Ingrid Goes West.
There is something quietly powerful about piecing together a life from digital fragments like Facebook messages and SMS threads.
It captures the intimacy and mystery of online friendship in a way that feels both nostalgic and true. Gordon’s writing is restrained but emotionally sharp.
Ashes to ashes, pixels to pixels
There is something quietly powerful about piecing together a life from digital fragments like Facebook messages and SMS threads.
It captures the intimacy and mystery of online friendship in a way that feels both nostalgic and true. Gordon’s writing is restrained but emotionally sharp.
Ashes to ashes, pixels to pixels
June 24, 2025
Loved this book!! Picked it out from the New Books shelf at the library because I was drawn to the cover, and I totally connected with it.
The themes of death are handled in such a relatable, natural way. The same is true with sexuality and race. There were subtle but important questions about media creation in society today, alongside questions of cancel-culture and accountability. Through all this the book manages to not be a total downer the whole time, and at the times it was emotional it felt natural and relatable.
I think Jeremy Gordon is a guy who Gets It, and I will happily pick up his next novel
The themes of death are handled in such a relatable, natural way. The same is true with sexuality and race. There were subtle but important questions about media creation in society today, alongside questions of cancel-culture and accountability. Through all this the book manages to not be a total downer the whole time, and at the times it was emotional it felt natural and relatable.
I think Jeremy Gordon is a guy who Gets It, and I will happily pick up his next novel
September 18, 2025
An awkward and boring book that reflects our awkward and boring existence. The whole premise—guy decides to make a podcast about his high school friend who died young—is so obviously a bad idea from the jump and you have to wait the whole book for the protagonist to catch up. Also it’s about 2010s New York digital media (eye roll).
It’s hard to tell how annoying we’re supposed to find the narrator and his facile musings on life and the internet, especially since he shares a tremendous amount of biographical information with the author; Gordon writes in such a frustrating middle ground that barely moves the needle one way or the other. His avatar may be misguided but he doesn’t do anything even remotely controversial. He’s horny but only talks about making out. The dialogue is plain, which is realistic, but once again boring. There’s a difference between understanding humor and actually being funny. One funny Bill Simmons joke, though.
Picks up some juice in the last third before petering out with the last chapter. Sorry. Read Hua Hsu’s Stay True instead for something that covers similar ground.
It’s hard to tell how annoying we’re supposed to find the narrator and his facile musings on life and the internet, especially since he shares a tremendous amount of biographical information with the author; Gordon writes in such a frustrating middle ground that barely moves the needle one way or the other. His avatar may be misguided but he doesn’t do anything even remotely controversial. He’s horny but only talks about making out. The dialogue is plain, which is realistic, but once again boring. There’s a difference between understanding humor and actually being funny. One funny Bill Simmons joke, though.
Picks up some juice in the last third before petering out with the last chapter. Sorry. Read Hua Hsu’s Stay True instead for something that covers similar ground.
March 30, 2025
This novel was terrible. But then I am not one to reminisce on pre-formed frontal lobe life. Sometimes the narrative flowed for a few pages and other times it was slow motion and tangled. For me it was a pathetic cross between nostalgia and returning to one’s high school persona. All this with the caveat of imperfect memories. The author tried to be philosophical in the end but the attempt was immature and shallow.
June 20, 2025
genuinely loved this book. i picked it up in a bookstore based off the seller’s recommendation and was pleasantly surprised by how much i ended up enjoying it.
i agree with some of the other reviews that gordon’s voice might not be for everyone, but i was hooked from the beginning. his ruminations on grief — and being a journalist in an era where even your employer hates journalists — particularly hit home.
just really smart and thoughtful and made me think a lot about the value of nostalgia.
i agree with some of the other reviews that gordon’s voice might not be for everyone, but i was hooked from the beginning. his ruminations on grief — and being a journalist in an era where even your employer hates journalists — particularly hit home.
just really smart and thoughtful and made me think a lot about the value of nostalgia.
April 17, 2025
Shockingly good in the beginning.
Very Ben Lerner-ish, but I love that!
It got dull as it went on though, too focused on the main story and kinda putting all other ideas aside for that.
A bit over-polished too.
Very Ben Lerner-ish, but I love that!
It got dull as it went on though, too focused on the main story and kinda putting all other ideas aside for that.
A bit over-polished too.
July 4, 2025
Unique book I wouldn't have known about if not for George!
February 10, 2025
3.5 stars.
Got sucked into this one very quickly thanks to the strong narratorial voice and prose, which remains the biggest asset throughout. I related a lot to Jacob Goldberg for obvious reasons; I’m squarely in the target demographic, as a fellow culture writer living in Brooklyn who writes for “the last place I wanted to work before The New Yorker,” so I mostly really enjoyed all the inside-baseball insights about media and culture. I get why it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste, but I was pretty much always on the same page as him, and that extends to his general feelings about art, romance, friendships, partying, and life. There are lots of casually witty or self-aware details throughout this, and in the first 50 pages or so, I was especially loving it.
My feelings got a little murkier as the podcast project started in full swing, maybe just because … I can only find a podcast storyline so interesting? I knew from the beginning that this wasn’t a mystery novel or anything—you’re never really expecting definitive answers about Seth, and for most of the book Jacob thinks he does know the full truth anyway. The stakes are more personal and psychological, and I’m always okay with that. But at certain points it almost feels like the book is ignoring its mystery instincts, and part of me wonders if it would’ve been more fun to see Jacob as an actual ethically fraught true-crime reporter looking into the death of his friend instead of a culture writer looking for a sensitive and meditative podcast take on the format.
There’s still plenty of interpersonal drama baked in: the reporting requires Jacob to walk a delicate line and have some difficult conversations, often with people he hasn’t spoken to in years. I was pretty interested by Rachel’s increasing uneasiness about the project, and by the refusal of Seth’s parents to contribute. But the book doesn’t always lean into the potential there; there’s only one in-person conversation with Rachel and one aborted phone call with the Terrys, and Jacob is never forced to truly make a tough decision or stretch his abilities as a journalist.
As I said, I relate a lot to Jacob, and part of that comes down to his relationship with high school; I also think often about that time in my life, usually with warmth and nostalgia, and about the friends I still manage to keep in touch with, and how their roles in my life both have and haven’t changed. Thematically, I found some of Jacob’s questions and reminiscences kind of fascinating, and I’ve reacted to reunions with old high school friends similarly to him. But I do think some of his interrogations are more engaging in theory than in practice; it can be hard to translate some of the more abstract themes into real conflict and convey the depth of his long-faded-yet-unprocessed high-school feelings in this format, especially because most of Jacob’s remembrances of these people are realistically vague and not charged with any one emotion in particular. I always knew and understood how Jacob was feeling, but there’s a sort of distance that kept me from fully emotionally engaging and grieving Seth’s loss.
Part of it is that the ensemble is a tad too sprawling for the novel’s short length, and in the end I wished there was more substance or follow-up to certain promising dynamics like Jacob’s tension with Rachel, or his long-distance friendship with Ruth, or his close but high-stakes relationship with his boss Sadie, or his simultaneously affectionate and judgmental feelings about his old friend Audrey who works at Raytheon. As is, some of the characters start to blend together a little bit, especially because there are so many ex-punks.
I generally enjoyed the ending, with Jacob putting earnest reflection over appropriating tragedy for content. But it also wraps up kind of abruptly preceding the unpublished transcripts, and I didn’t totally feel satisfied with where Jacob’s internal journey ended. It seems like a core idea is that you can never really know a person completely—Jacob now knows that there’s a strong likelihood Seth’s death was a suicide, but he’ll never know if or how he could have prevented it. But it feels like that conclusion is already baked into the premise of the podcast, and I needed Gordon to go somewhere a bit deeper with it.
This is another case where I probably sound more negative than I really feel; I did really enjoy the experience of reading this book, and Gordon’s general intelligence always shines through. There’s plenty of good food for thought, and the main story can be touching. But the frustrations I’d started to develop by the 100-page mark never really went away, even as I flew through to the end.
Got sucked into this one very quickly thanks to the strong narratorial voice and prose, which remains the biggest asset throughout. I related a lot to Jacob Goldberg for obvious reasons; I’m squarely in the target demographic, as a fellow culture writer living in Brooklyn who writes for “the last place I wanted to work before The New Yorker,” so I mostly really enjoyed all the inside-baseball insights about media and culture. I get why it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste, but I was pretty much always on the same page as him, and that extends to his general feelings about art, romance, friendships, partying, and life. There are lots of casually witty or self-aware details throughout this, and in the first 50 pages or so, I was especially loving it.
My feelings got a little murkier as the podcast project started in full swing, maybe just because … I can only find a podcast storyline so interesting? I knew from the beginning that this wasn’t a mystery novel or anything—you’re never really expecting definitive answers about Seth, and for most of the book Jacob thinks he does know the full truth anyway. The stakes are more personal and psychological, and I’m always okay with that. But at certain points it almost feels like the book is ignoring its mystery instincts, and part of me wonders if it would’ve been more fun to see Jacob as an actual ethically fraught true-crime reporter looking into the death of his friend instead of a culture writer looking for a sensitive and meditative podcast take on the format.
There’s still plenty of interpersonal drama baked in: the reporting requires Jacob to walk a delicate line and have some difficult conversations, often with people he hasn’t spoken to in years. I was pretty interested by Rachel’s increasing uneasiness about the project, and by the refusal of Seth’s parents to contribute. But the book doesn’t always lean into the potential there; there’s only one in-person conversation with Rachel and one aborted phone call with the Terrys, and Jacob is never forced to truly make a tough decision or stretch his abilities as a journalist.
As I said, I relate a lot to Jacob, and part of that comes down to his relationship with high school; I also think often about that time in my life, usually with warmth and nostalgia, and about the friends I still manage to keep in touch with, and how their roles in my life both have and haven’t changed. Thematically, I found some of Jacob’s questions and reminiscences kind of fascinating, and I’ve reacted to reunions with old high school friends similarly to him. But I do think some of his interrogations are more engaging in theory than in practice; it can be hard to translate some of the more abstract themes into real conflict and convey the depth of his long-faded-yet-unprocessed high-school feelings in this format, especially because most of Jacob’s remembrances of these people are realistically vague and not charged with any one emotion in particular. I always knew and understood how Jacob was feeling, but there’s a sort of distance that kept me from fully emotionally engaging and grieving Seth’s loss.
Part of it is that the ensemble is a tad too sprawling for the novel’s short length, and in the end I wished there was more substance or follow-up to certain promising dynamics like Jacob’s tension with Rachel, or his long-distance friendship with Ruth, or his close but high-stakes relationship with his boss Sadie, or his simultaneously affectionate and judgmental feelings about his old friend Audrey who works at Raytheon. As is, some of the characters start to blend together a little bit, especially because there are so many ex-punks.
I generally enjoyed the ending, with Jacob putting earnest reflection over appropriating tragedy for content. But it also wraps up kind of abruptly preceding the unpublished transcripts, and I didn’t totally feel satisfied with where Jacob’s internal journey ended. It seems like a core idea is that you can never really know a person completely—Jacob now knows that there’s a strong likelihood Seth’s death was a suicide, but he’ll never know if or how he could have prevented it. But it feels like that conclusion is already baked into the premise of the podcast, and I needed Gordon to go somewhere a bit deeper with it.
This is another case where I probably sound more negative than I really feel; I did really enjoy the experience of reading this book, and Gordon’s general intelligence always shines through. There’s plenty of good food for thought, and the main story can be touching. But the frustrations I’d started to develop by the 100-page mark never really went away, even as I flew through to the end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 4, 2025
Absolutely loved this book. Such a refreshing and relatable story. For more, check out my review here:
https://bound2books.co/2025/05/04/see...
https://bound2books.co/2025/05/04/see...
May 6, 2025
Cisneros, another Chicago writer, has a famous vignette about how when you’re 11, you’re also 7 and 5, that we carry all of the ages we’ve ever been nestled inside of us. So it is that Jacob, the protagonist of our story, is a thirty-something man doing his job, meeting his friends for drinks, but he’s also 20, and hearing about his dad’s death for the first time or 16, and making jokes with his best friend that would get his adult, media-savvy self canceled. See Friendship is an expose on grief and growing up in the digital age, a time-capsule of the post-millennia, and a treatise on what we leave behind and what we’re forced to bring with us, not just memories and detritus from our youth, not just the people we loved and cared about, but the people we’ve been.
March 14, 2025
One of my favorite books I've ever read! I know I will come back to this one, probably more than once. I am the same age as the author & the main characters so I could very much relate to all of the major themes in this book, despite being from a small town in the South, not Chicago. Yes, there is a fairly large focus on social media here, but not in such a way as to feel absurd. Instead the author focuses on how it affects our friendships. I also had a classmate who died of a heroin OD who coincidentally shared the same name as the character who suffered the same fate in this story. Like the main character, I didn't know my classmate was using, so his death came as quite a shock, as it did to the main character here. The themes of how our friendships change over time, how little we actually know about our friends/peers, addiction, love, loss, & so much more are beautifully rendered by Gordon. Highly, highly recommend, especially if you're a fellow millennial!
March 14, 2025
I started off not enjoying this book but by then end it redeemed itself.
January 28, 2025
My review for this book was published in January 2025 by Library Journal:
Jacob is a culture writer for an online publication a couple of notches below the New Yorker in reputation and readership. He believes a podcast will justify his worth in a precarious media landscape, so he searches for a buzzy subject that could sustain a multi-episode series. He lands on his high school class, which suffered an unusual number of deaths, including his friend Seth's. When he learns from a one-time crush that Seth did not die from a sudden illness as Jacob thought but from a heroin overdose, Jacob decides to make his podcast a true crime story with a mission to uncover more about Seth’s case. He also envisions the show as a large-scale, nebulous rumination on the lingering effects of grief, the unreliability of memory, and the evanescence of friendship. Gordon, a nationally published critic himself, employs his best writing when he uses Jacob to riff on 21st-century cultural matters and during the book’s moving final sequence. VERDICT A smart and rueful debut that offers a sly critique of the podcast industry, which sometimes treats real humans as characters and their pain and insight as mere content. Recommended for readers of Patricia Lockwood and Lauren Oyler.
Copyright ©2025 Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
Jacob is a culture writer for an online publication a couple of notches below the New Yorker in reputation and readership. He believes a podcast will justify his worth in a precarious media landscape, so he searches for a buzzy subject that could sustain a multi-episode series. He lands on his high school class, which suffered an unusual number of deaths, including his friend Seth's. When he learns from a one-time crush that Seth did not die from a sudden illness as Jacob thought but from a heroin overdose, Jacob decides to make his podcast a true crime story with a mission to uncover more about Seth’s case. He also envisions the show as a large-scale, nebulous rumination on the lingering effects of grief, the unreliability of memory, and the evanescence of friendship. Gordon, a nationally published critic himself, employs his best writing when he uses Jacob to riff on 21st-century cultural matters and during the book’s moving final sequence. VERDICT A smart and rueful debut that offers a sly critique of the podcast industry, which sometimes treats real humans as characters and their pain and insight as mere content. Recommended for readers of Patricia Lockwood and Lauren Oyler.
Copyright ©2025 Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
March 4, 2025
This is such a smart, relevant, and beautiful story. As a millennial, I found it to be very relatable. Not in the way of losing a close friend or being close to anyone from high school…but in the way of being a teen in the early 2000’s.
This is more a story about memories over time, social media, internet, grief, addiction, and friendship. There’s also commentary on being gay and bi-racial in the early 2000’s.
While this is sort of a character study, you don’t get close enough to Seth to grieve him the way his friends do because you’re exploring his death after the fact. It was still cool to get to know him through his friends’ eyes. It’s also interesting to see how each of his friends remember things.
This isn’t my typical plot-twisty read, but I really enjoyed it! It’s thought-provoking and well-written. I think you’ll especially enjoy it if you’re a millennial.
This is more a story about memories over time, social media, internet, grief, addiction, and friendship. There’s also commentary on being gay and bi-racial in the early 2000’s.
While this is sort of a character study, you don’t get close enough to Seth to grieve him the way his friends do because you’re exploring his death after the fact. It was still cool to get to know him through his friends’ eyes. It’s also interesting to see how each of his friends remember things.
This isn’t my typical plot-twisty read, but I really enjoyed it! It’s thought-provoking and well-written. I think you’ll especially enjoy it if you’re a millennial.
April 25, 2025
WOW the only thing more boring than a podcast is a book about a fake podcast that never gets made. Impressed by how little actually transpires here despite how much L.A. to Chicago via N.Y.C. there is.
I've been following Jeremy Gordon since his Pitchfork days and I like his culture features nowadays. The writing reflects someone who knows the beats and how to hit them, but too well. It's overwritten. My head was in the dictionary a bit too much for my taste. This book is desperately trying to be an Internet Nostalgia Novel and I'm not just saying that because the narrator is constantly saying that. Even the title reveal is Internet Coded but literally goes nowhere and Gordon does not put to use the "See Friendship" function on FB on the page! Missed opp!! I have a thing with word choices and I'm sorry, people aren't "ensconced" in conversation and no one "wends their way" on a bike. Give me a break. I originally connected with this as someone (I assume) who grew up in the same Internet age as Gordon, perhaps he's a bit older than me(?). But we experienced it the same, and specifically we are in the sweet spot age group of who remembers what it was like ***before*** AIM, let alone texting and social media. Then nothing kept happening. About halfway through his conversation/interview with Rachel finally piqued my interest and then not again till we're with Natalia, and then maybe not even then? did I find myself caring about any of the characters, let alone the main character, who I read to be almost entirely based on Gordon? And to be completely unaware of himself as an adult who comments on how unaware he was as a teenager. Every other character, and there are many, have names but no faces and I found them all interchangeable except Reggie and Sadie. I was hoping Lee's interview would be the turn but instead he turns off!! the recorder. That's when I knew.
I will forever be baffled by this line of dialog: "it would shock you how much nothing I have to say about that." And why there was a smirking parenthetical aside "(I smiled, I couldn't help it, everything came back to George W. Bush in the end.)" What?? Shut up. Pay attention.
It's obvious this book helped Gordon process whatever went on at his AHEM private Chicago prep school. The idea about investigating memory and what it's like to have a mutual acquaintance from high school die and leave behind a digital footprint (same!) is interesting. I read this because that's what I thought I was sold. Ending with interview transcripts from the podcast that's never even made was... exhausting and annoying and... I almost put it down with ten pages left. The only thing more boring than a podcast is....
To make it all worse it started off wrong. My husband was leafing through the book before I even started it and noticed TWO typos on the uhhh first page. As in "We're getting our just deserts." Somehow, it happened again down the short first page when the same phrase is repeated: "just deserts." Having actually read the whole book, I can unfortunately say it's not a bit, he's not doing a voice. It's just two big fat typos on the first page. My husband started referring to this book as "just deserts" and lol now I kinda am too. I would be so fucking miffed about this. I can only imagine how many times you read the first page of your novel and how it slipped through. Honestly though, good for Gordon for tricking Harper Perennial into letting him write this novel. It's like personal fan fiction specific life to his life. I should've known from the Lauren Oyler blurb: never trust anything that woman says.
I've been following Jeremy Gordon since his Pitchfork days and I like his culture features nowadays. The writing reflects someone who knows the beats and how to hit them, but too well. It's overwritten. My head was in the dictionary a bit too much for my taste. This book is desperately trying to be an Internet Nostalgia Novel and I'm not just saying that because the narrator is constantly saying that. Even the title reveal is Internet Coded but literally goes nowhere and Gordon does not put to use the "See Friendship" function on FB on the page! Missed opp!! I have a thing with word choices and I'm sorry, people aren't "ensconced" in conversation and no one "wends their way" on a bike. Give me a break. I originally connected with this as someone (I assume) who grew up in the same Internet age as Gordon, perhaps he's a bit older than me(?). But we experienced it the same, and specifically we are in the sweet spot age group of who remembers what it was like ***before*** AIM, let alone texting and social media. Then nothing kept happening. About halfway through his conversation/interview with Rachel finally piqued my interest and then not again till we're with Natalia, and then maybe not even then? did I find myself caring about any of the characters, let alone the main character, who I read to be almost entirely based on Gordon? And to be completely unaware of himself as an adult who comments on how unaware he was as a teenager. Every other character, and there are many, have names but no faces and I found them all interchangeable except Reggie and Sadie. I was hoping Lee's interview would be the turn but instead he turns off!! the recorder. That's when I knew.
I will forever be baffled by this line of dialog: "it would shock you how much nothing I have to say about that." And why there was a smirking parenthetical aside "(I smiled, I couldn't help it, everything came back to George W. Bush in the end.)" What?? Shut up. Pay attention.
It's obvious this book helped Gordon process whatever went on at his AHEM private Chicago prep school. The idea about investigating memory and what it's like to have a mutual acquaintance from high school die and leave behind a digital footprint (same!) is interesting. I read this because that's what I thought I was sold. Ending with interview transcripts from the podcast that's never even made was... exhausting and annoying and... I almost put it down with ten pages left. The only thing more boring than a podcast is....
To make it all worse it started off wrong. My husband was leafing through the book before I even started it and noticed TWO typos on the uhhh first page. As in "We're getting our just deserts." Somehow, it happened again down the short first page when the same phrase is repeated: "just deserts." Having actually read the whole book, I can unfortunately say it's not a bit, he's not doing a voice. It's just two big fat typos on the first page. My husband started referring to this book as "just deserts" and lol now I kinda am too. I would be so fucking miffed about this. I can only imagine how many times you read the first page of your novel and how it slipped through. Honestly though, good for Gordon for tricking Harper Perennial into letting him write this novel. It's like personal fan fiction specific life to his life. I should've known from the Lauren Oyler blurb: never trust anything that woman says.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 24, 2025
NYC journalist Jacob Goldberg comes to the conclusion that if he wants to keep his job at a mid-tier magazine, he must start a podcast, or risk being deemed irrelevant and laid off. His premise: explore the circumstances around the death of his high school friend, Seth, and how one navigates grief in the digital age. What Jacob learns forces him to see his friend in a new light, and to recognize the limits of memory.
Put plainly: I enjoyed my time with See Friendship, but it is not a book I will be thinking about even two months from now. Gordon's voice, written from Jacob's perspective, is fresh and personable; I was immediately drawn in to the plot and intrigued by the setup. Seth's death is not quite a "whodunnit," but the air of secrecy surrounding it made me speed through the book in just under a week. Gordon infuses a tenderness into all of Jacob's relationships and the narrative in general; even the character poised to be the villain ends up somewhat likeable, turning a potentially dark grief narrative into a sweet story.
That said, throughout the book I felt something was missing, as if the narrative lacked a core, and I couldn't put my finger on what it was until I was about 80% finished. The podcast framing is doing too much work--every time Jacob describes what kind of narrative he's trying to create with his podcast (which happens often), that's really Gordon explaining what he's trying to create with his novel. So, from the very beginning, the book's point was explained to me, a particularly blatant case of telling instead of showing; as such, there was nothing left for me to chew on or figure out for myself. This fact, combined with an abrupt ending and a cast of characters whose appearances are too brief to be developed, made See Friendship fall flat. Many of the meditations of friendship, grief, and memory are nice and thoughtful, but the book as a whole didn't leave me reeling.
I don't think See Friendship is a bad book; rather, it struck me as a good second or third draft of a novel that could have been great at draft five. I do hope Gordon continues his foray into fiction--and if nothing else, I'm now curious to read his journalism.
Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for the eARC!
Put plainly: I enjoyed my time with See Friendship, but it is not a book I will be thinking about even two months from now. Gordon's voice, written from Jacob's perspective, is fresh and personable; I was immediately drawn in to the plot and intrigued by the setup. Seth's death is not quite a "whodunnit," but the air of secrecy surrounding it made me speed through the book in just under a week. Gordon infuses a tenderness into all of Jacob's relationships and the narrative in general; even the character poised to be the villain ends up somewhat likeable, turning a potentially dark grief narrative into a sweet story.
That said, throughout the book I felt something was missing, as if the narrative lacked a core, and I couldn't put my finger on what it was until I was about 80% finished. The podcast framing is doing too much work--every time Jacob describes what kind of narrative he's trying to create with his podcast (which happens often), that's really Gordon explaining what he's trying to create with his novel. So, from the very beginning, the book's point was explained to me, a particularly blatant case of telling instead of showing; as such, there was nothing left for me to chew on or figure out for myself. This fact, combined with an abrupt ending and a cast of characters whose appearances are too brief to be developed, made See Friendship fall flat. Many of the meditations of friendship, grief, and memory are nice and thoughtful, but the book as a whole didn't leave me reeling.
I don't think See Friendship is a bad book; rather, it struck me as a good second or third draft of a novel that could have been great at draft five. I do hope Gordon continues his foray into fiction--and if nothing else, I'm now curious to read his journalism.
Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for the eARC!
December 13, 2024
I wasn't quite sure how to rate this, but since ultimately this is meant to represent my subjective level of enjoyment more than the objective quality of the book, its lamentably low.
More to the point, it's difficult to discern the purpose of this book. The writing is quite good; the plotting though ...
The entire book is about a person making a podcast about his dead high school friend. Books about podcasts are all the rage, so it checks that box. But as a plot, its woefully thin for nearly 300 pages that conclude with a trite revelation along the lines of how we never really know anyone.
Which is a bit frustration, considering that this was obviously meant to be a character study.
I don't know how much the writer Jeremy Gordon has based a writer named Jacob Goldberg on himself, or whether this is the case of write what you know. But what he and/or his protagonist know here boils down to a sort of tepid navelgazing quite on brand for people just entering their thirties and looking to "interrogate" their life and experiences, so much so that at some point the protagonist actually tells himself to stop using the word interrogate.
This is much along the same lines of young people penning memoirs these days, despite the fact that there just aren't enough tree rings on them to be all that interesting.
Nor is it that interesting to read about someone's high school experience.
The writing is good enough to keep the pages turning, but there's no reward for your time. Just more talking about the same thing or nothing at all, all muted revelations, and uninteresting characters that leave you wildly indifferent.
Even the cover is peculiarly cheap looking and underwhelming for a Top Five press.
Didn't work for me. User mileage may vary. Thanks Netgalley.
More to the point, it's difficult to discern the purpose of this book. The writing is quite good; the plotting though ...
The entire book is about a person making a podcast about his dead high school friend. Books about podcasts are all the rage, so it checks that box. But as a plot, its woefully thin for nearly 300 pages that conclude with a trite revelation along the lines of how we never really know anyone.
Which is a bit frustration, considering that this was obviously meant to be a character study.
I don't know how much the writer Jeremy Gordon has based a writer named Jacob Goldberg on himself, or whether this is the case of write what you know. But what he and/or his protagonist know here boils down to a sort of tepid navelgazing quite on brand for people just entering their thirties and looking to "interrogate" their life and experiences, so much so that at some point the protagonist actually tells himself to stop using the word interrogate.
This is much along the same lines of young people penning memoirs these days, despite the fact that there just aren't enough tree rings on them to be all that interesting.
Nor is it that interesting to read about someone's high school experience.
The writing is good enough to keep the pages turning, but there's no reward for your time. Just more talking about the same thing or nothing at all, all muted revelations, and uninteresting characters that leave you wildly indifferent.
Even the cover is peculiarly cheap looking and underwhelming for a Top Five press.
Didn't work for me. User mileage may vary. Thanks Netgalley.
March 29, 2025
This is a quiet, existential book. There are some devastatingly accurate gems, like “Life could slowly condition you for disappointment, and melancholy, and a general abdication of everything that had once defined you, and you could only swallow it.” And that’s honestly exactly what I feel this book does as it marches toward its futile ending.
I’d describe the mood of this book as “numb.” Which kind of fits well thematically with the whole drug theme. I didn’t really feel like there was a lot at stake; of course Jacob wants his podcast to succeed for his career, but I didn’t get the sense that he’d lose anything if it didn’t. (I mean I know he'll lose his job, but he doesn't seem concerned about what would happen if he lost his job.) Nor does it feel like he is motivated by any sense of justice for his friend Seth, like someone needs to pay for this. The topic of grief is brought up a lot as an anchor for the podcast, but I actually didn’t really feel like that emotion came through strongly from Jacob. No crying, no emotional, heartbreaking scene to show just how shattered he is. He’s just…numb. If anything, it just seems like Jacob is motivated by curiosity, which is too broad a motive to make me invested as a reader.
At times, it was challenging to follow a character who is only just now discovering that not all his high school classmates seemed to have the sheltered, straight-edged experience he had. He seems genuinely flummoxed to learn there were drugs at his high school.
Is this book “a literal triumph” as the cover blurb calls it? Maybe in the sense that it is thought-provoking as it explores some interesting topics of memory, nostalgia, and early social media. So yes, it made me think; no, I didn't love it.
I’d describe the mood of this book as “numb.” Which kind of fits well thematically with the whole drug theme. I didn’t really feel like there was a lot at stake; of course Jacob wants his podcast to succeed for his career, but I didn’t get the sense that he’d lose anything if it didn’t. (I mean I know he'll lose his job, but he doesn't seem concerned about what would happen if he lost his job.) Nor does it feel like he is motivated by any sense of justice for his friend Seth, like someone needs to pay for this. The topic of grief is brought up a lot as an anchor for the podcast, but I actually didn’t really feel like that emotion came through strongly from Jacob. No crying, no emotional, heartbreaking scene to show just how shattered he is. He’s just…numb. If anything, it just seems like Jacob is motivated by curiosity, which is too broad a motive to make me invested as a reader.
At times, it was challenging to follow a character who is only just now discovering that not all his high school classmates seemed to have the sheltered, straight-edged experience he had. He seems genuinely flummoxed to learn there were drugs at his high school.
Is this book “a literal triumph” as the cover blurb calls it? Maybe in the sense that it is thought-provoking as it explores some interesting topics of memory, nostalgia, and early social media. So yes, it made me think; no, I didn't love it.
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