Friends and Lovers

by Nolwenn Le Blevennec, Madeleine Rogers (Translator)

Three friends, all exhausted young mothers living in Paris, escape to Tunisia for a New Year's getaway. By the hotel pool, they savour a rare moment of freedom, reliving past mistakes (and making new ones) while dreaming of adventure. Three years later, they reunite for another holiday, this time at a remote, disused lighthouse off the coast of Brittany. But the easy camaraderie of their earlier trip has faded. Tensions simmer, and long-held dynamics begin to shift – especially when it's revealed that one of them is writing a film inspired by their friendship. Full of humour and insight, Nolwenn Le Blevennec's latest novel explores growing up, growing apart and the rich, if painful, bonds of female friendship.

Genres: Fiction, Friendship

206 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 20, 2025

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Armelle, Rim, and Anna are best friends – the first two since childhood. They formed a trio a decade or so ago when they worked on the same magazine. Now in their mid-thirties, partnered and with children, they’re all gripped by a sexual “great awakening” and long to escape Paris and their domestic commitments – “we went through it, this mutiny, like three sisters,” poised to blow up the “perfectly executed choreography of work, relationships, children”. The friends travel to Tunisia together in December 2014, then several years later take a completely different holiday: a disaster-prone stay in a lighthouse-keeper’s cottage on an island off the coast of Brittany. They used to tolerate each other’s foibles and infidelities, but now resentment has sprouted up, especially as Armelle (the narrator) is writing a screenplay about female friendship that’s clearly inspired by Rim and Anna. Armelle is relatably neurotic (a hilarious French blurb for the author’s previous novel is not wrong: “Woody Allen meets Annie Ernaux”) and this is wise about intimacy and duplicity, yet I never felt invested in any of the three women or sufficiently knowledgeable about their lives.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5 stars)
Possibly the most French book I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of French books… affairs, smoking, art, and a lot of philosophising.
A great and pretty thorough examination of female friendship- I found the central three characters compelling, if not very likeable. Lots of interesting discussion on how motherhood changes friendships as well.
I did find the constant cultural and philosophical references and quotes quite tiresome! Again rather French but they always took me out of the story.

[Elizabeth Aho · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this a lot! Got it in a book store in Paris. The 3 women reminded me of the trio on white lotus season 3. Well written

[Katrina Reads Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ehhhh oui, je suis Françoise, and j’aime cheating on mon ‘ushband.

[Patrycja Krotowska · Rating 2 out of 5]

Łeee tam. Miała być powieść o trójce przyjaciółek na wakacjach - taki "trio z White Lotus" vibe - a wyszło takie nie wiadomo co.

"Friends & Lovers" rzeczywiście opowiada o trójce dorosłych przyjaciółek (ale nie o tych ich wakacjach!) i jest to relacja przedstawiona z perspektywy jednej z nich. Jest zatem silnie subiektywna, a co za tym idzie silnie oceniająca. I silnie... dygresyjna. I choć te wtrącenia - początkowo w formie wstawek refleksyjnych, a później już jakichś meandrów eseistycznych - bywają błyskotliwe i obserwacyjnie ciekawe (fajne cytaty na dole!), to stopniowo zaczynają dominować nad narracją fabularną. Jak to Ola (@aleksandra.jot), z którą czytałam tę książkę równolegle, napisała (i mam nadzieję, że mogę ten komentarz tu przytoczyć): "autorka dopiero pod koniec przypomniała sobie, że chciała napisać powieść o zwichrowanej przyjaźni". I tak to też czuję. Coś złego zadziało się z samym konceptem powieści. Zgubił się ten zamysł gdzieś po drodze, a poboczne refleksje zaczęły tej powieści przeszkadzać, zamiast ją wzbogacać.

Mogłabym autorce trochę tej chaos konstrukcyjny wybaczyć, gdyby był to debiut - widać potencjał w kontekście zasobów poznawczych i zwinności umysłowej, trochę bardziej mogłabym zrozumieć ten popis intelektualnych kompetencji, ale z tego, co wygooglowałam jest to druga książka autorki i trochę mi się to gryzie. No takie 2/5.

[Georgia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brilliant writing, I was highlighting everywhere (and big credit to Rogers for translating it so well), just didn't make a huuge impact on me overall as a novel - would definitely read more by this author though

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mitigée. Ma lecture oscillait entre “oui, je comprends” et “mais ça va pas la tête ?!”. Une histoire d’amitié qui ne laisse pas indifférent et qui fait réfléchir à ses propres relations amicales, malgré des péripéties assez curieuses.

[Marion Castillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un joli roman poésie sur l'amitié, le temps qui passe et qui nous change, la culpabilité et la Vie avec un grand V.

[Gemma W · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I thought this was fun. The writing is witty and sharp.

It's a sort of Sex and the City of women who read Thomas Mann to relax on holiday, listen to La Traviata when anxious and quote Chekhov when drunk.
I quite enjoyed the meta way the author acknowledges the 'fictionalisation' of real characters writing about the struggle of a writer writing characters that are her friends, but not really her friends.
I felt like the story could have ended with more of a bang.

On a personal note, one of the things that often irks me about fiction is how children are written in as plot points, but then they only exist when the plot requires it, like they are lodged in a locker somewhere until they are needed. No one discusses that actually you need to organise childcare and a whole load of logistics before you manage to get anything done, and this is the case always, not just when the characters have a free moment. I guess it would make the action less interesting.
This is more often the case in books about men. Whilst it's refreshing that these women's lives were written without much attention paid to these logistics, and I think at the beginning husbands who pull their weight are mentioned, I did feel that once we'd moved on from the early years of motherhood before the holiday to Tunisia, this aspect of their lives was sort of forgotten, as everyone knows children past toddlerhood are no work at all.

[Rodolphe Gintz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nolwenn le Blevennec nous offre, dans ce roman, une histoire d’amitié de trois femmes. De l’enfance à la maternité, de Djerba à la Bretagne, nous vivons l’évolution de cette « histoire d’amour amicale » vers sa fin, prévisible, mais dont l’intensité dramatique constitue une petite et belle surprise. Le style est moderne, incisive, imagé, parfois vachard («Karine était physicienne, narcoleptique et esthétiquement proche de Roselyne Bachelot »). Un très beau livre à lire, recommander ou offrir !

[Fox Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course it’s heartbreaking—it’s French. In Les Amies, Nolwenn Le Blevennec poignantly showcases female friendship the way the French do best: tender and just a bit devastating. Basically, if you like your books like your French cinema—existential and slightly soul-crushing—you’ll be right at home.

[Manon Rouan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un roman d’amitié féminine ça fait toujours du bien : version fin de la trentaine option maternité, c’est beaucoup moins rigolo que Bridget Jones et truffé de références pointues comme si l’autrice assumait pas d’écrire sur ce sujet, mais ma foi ça fait le taff pour lire dans un hamac.

[Elisabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Je me suis profondément ennuyée, je n'ai pas terminé.

[manonnova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolument génial, j’ai adoré !

[Marine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un thème - l’amitié - et une trame intéressante - décousu revenant sur des souvenirs- mais une voix parfois irritante et un final un peu abrupt (c’est le cas de le dire)

[Sonia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sans intérêt, mal écrit. La vie de 3 amies pas si copines que ça et une crise de la quarantaine pas maîtrisée.

[ADELISE Anne-Laure · Rating 1 out of 5]

Je n’ai pas pu finir.
Des descriptions longues et intéressantes à n’en plus finir. Abandon à la page 146, je n’en pouvais plus.

[Laure Tuchscherer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Déprimant cet égoïsme amical. L’histoire me dérange et donc je n’arrive pas à apprécier le style.