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Selfish Girls
NOTHING HURTS LIKE FAMILY.
Ines is reluctantly moving home on the edge of a breakdown, her childhood sweetheart in tow. He's only ever wanted what was best for her.
Gwen is elated that her prodigal daughter has returned.
Dylan is still licking her wounds from a rejection she can't forget.
And Emma is quietly suffocating in the perfect marriage she wanted so badly.
They were inseparable once. But that was a long time ago. Now, they're back in the Welsh town where they grew up, peeling back the layers of a once forgotten, haunting past. What they find may be the end of them...
Uninhibited, claustrophobic and emotionally complex, Selfish Girls spans generations, buried resentments, and an unexpected love story. It is a clear-eyed portrait of a dysfunctional family and the pain we inflict on those we love most.
Ines is reluctantly moving home on the edge of a breakdown, her childhood sweetheart in tow. He's only ever wanted what was best for her.
Gwen is elated that her prodigal daughter has returned.
Dylan is still licking her wounds from a rejection she can't forget.
And Emma is quietly suffocating in the perfect marriage she wanted so badly.
They were inseparable once. But that was a long time ago. Now, they're back in the Welsh town where they grew up, peeling back the layers of a once forgotten, haunting past. What they find may be the end of them...
Uninhibited, claustrophobic and emotionally complex, Selfish Girls spans generations, buried resentments, and an unexpected love story. It is a clear-eyed portrait of a dysfunctional family and the pain we inflict on those we love most.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published July 10, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 166 reviews
Want to Read
June 1, 2026 me and my friends
January 23, 2026
Spent the first 70% of this confused and pissed off that I couldn’t figure out who tf Edi was
August 3, 2025
Apparently soapy, domestic Welsh litfic was exactly what I was in the mood for, because I loved this. Nuanced, often unlikable characters navigating the present under the burden of their co-dependent, complicated past, and fighting against the certain but tempting doom of repeating their mothers mistakes.
I'm not sure if it wass intentional, or if it's just the apparent universality of sister roles and the complications of cute boy neighbours, but this often felt like a modern exploration of Little Women free of the burden of American Christianity. Either way, I loved it. Messy, charming, emotive, and full of a sense of time and place.
4.5 rounded up.
I'm not sure if it wass intentional, or if it's just the apparent universality of sister roles and the complications of cute boy neighbours, but this often felt like a modern exploration of Little Women free of the burden of American Christianity. Either way, I loved it. Messy, charming, emotive, and full of a sense of time and place.
4.5 rounded up.
November 18, 2025
A novel about three annoying Welsh sisters… is this fucking play about us??
Slightly annoyed that the younger sister was the most annoying one though, not good for my brand
Slightly annoyed that the younger sister was the most annoying one though, not good for my brand
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December 2, 2025Spoilers: It was bad!
I actually don't even know where to start, and I'm fighting every cell in my body to try and not write a pithy single-sentence review. The only reason I finished was because I hate myself more than I hated reading this, and I needed something inanimate to fixate on instead of thinking about what it might be like to start a fist fight with the man I'm stood next to in the train vestibule who is on his phone and yet continuing to venture deeper and deeper into my personal space.
Let's start with the characters. Emma, Dylan and Ines are sisters who for one reason or another find themselves back around the family home in Wales with their mother, Gwendoline. Emma is unhappily married to her husband, Kit, alongside their two small children. Ines is a failing actor who has just suffered a severe trauma and moves back from London with her fiancé, Noah, who Dylan's best friend and secret long-time crush. Nothing I have told you just now matters because all of these people are interchangeable and apparently made of cardboard. If you put a gun to my head and asked me who Kit and Noah were throughout 90% of reading this I would've asked you to just pull the trigger instead. Their characterisation specifically is because, I guess?
There is also nothing redeemable about any of these people. They all fucking suck in a multitude of different ways, but the worst part is about it is that they're boring about it. I'm not even awarded the pleasure of being interested in why these people are terrible. The main crux of this book was obviously the impact of generational trauma, but only if you took this theme and photocopied it over and over again until it's illegible, faded, and looks like shit. It's like, a groundbreaking character portrait of generational trauma, I guess, you know, the heavy burden of grief, mothers with mothers, needing their mothers to be mothers, and so on and so forth, yadda yadda yadda.
Bergstrom, who I understand is Welsh, also really wants you to know that they're all Welsh, particularly Gwendoline and her parents. This is done by the occasional use of Welsh, which I did actually enjoy the addition of because it's a sorely underrepresented language, but the main way we know this is because inexplicably throughout the book Gwendoline's accent is written out phonetically for only very specific words, sometimes at the most odd and inappropriate moments ('you-er' for 'you're', 'yer' for both 'here' and 'hear') which was cute for the first ten pages I guess but oh my god if I had to sit through J.K. Rowling doing this I have now had my fill for a lifetime. I don't know why people do this, because it's lazy, jarring, looks terrible, and starts to feel suspiciously like caricature. Becauze, you see, 'ow else will we know if zis weuhman iz French, par example, non? If this is somehow a Welsh thing, I'm happy to be corrected, but as of writing this review, I'm not convinced.
The writing, and subsequently the pacing, is a fucking mess. When I was younger my mum once saw me reading Catch-22 and said it was like somebody had taken the book's chapters, thrown them onto the floor, and picked them up in a random order and put them back into book format. This book is exactly like that, apart from it's terrible. We get chapters from the present. We get chapters from the past. Sometimes they're the kids, sometimes it's Gwendoline. Sometimes it's Gwendoline as a teenager. Sometimes it's Gwendoline as an adult. Sometimes it's in 1999, sometimes it's in the '80s. We get lists! We get a chapter right near the end with just Kit and the couples therapist, for some reason! Nothing is in order, nothing really makes sense, and you are constantly trying to re-orient yourself to understand what the fuck is going on. At some point we are introduced to but this is disclosed in the most cryptically bizarre way and it is so difficult to understand what is happening that it took me going back to re-read to actually get what happened because I thought I'd missed something, and completely ruined the reveal.
Bergstrom also seems to want to sacrifice clarity and legibility for idk, the vibes of ~writing~, I guess, because this book is overburdened with awkward abstract personifications, metaphors and similes. It is crammed so full of them that you can barely read for stumbling haphazardly over yet another incomprehensible metaphor, and by god will Bergstrom be damned to make sure she includes it even if that metaphor makes no fucking sense, to the point where they read as parody. Some very selected highlights:
Abigail, with the deepest of respect, you are a literary agent , what the fuck are you actually talking about?
There also seem to be issues throughout with the syntax. At many points it was incredibly difficult to know who was even speaking, because Bergstrom did not think it was necessary to signpost who was talking or performing the action by adding their names, which is truly a challenge when all the characters in the room have she/her pronouns. Sentences are sometimes constructed so awkwardly that it's hard to parse the correct meaning. Through this you get such gems as:
Which sounds like it's describing the arse, not the man, and frankly for a sex scene I can't think of anything less sexy than a rough and groaning arse?
A final point to make is the epilogue chapter. Everyone has settled down, the drama is over, Ines got her acting gig, and Emma the 2.5-kids-with-a-mortgage-and-white-picket-fence wife has finally divorced her garbage husband and turns up to the family cookout with a girlfriend. I jokingly thought to myself 'this book would be way better if it was gay', and somewhere out there a finger curled on the monkey's paw and brought me this. If I had a penny for every time I saw lesbians used as a prop for ostensibly straight women 'finding themselves' and showing 'growth' I could probably afford my own 2.5 kids and a mortgage. I don't know what the name is for this trope but I do know I hate it, thanks.
I'm not even rating this because it doesn't deserve a whole star. Awful.
I actually don't even know where to start, and I'm fighting every cell in my body to try and not write a pithy single-sentence review. The only reason I finished was because I hate myself more than I hated reading this, and I needed something inanimate to fixate on instead of thinking about what it might be like to start a fist fight with the man I'm stood next to in the train vestibule who is on his phone and yet continuing to venture deeper and deeper into my personal space.
Let's start with the characters. Emma, Dylan and Ines are sisters who for one reason or another find themselves back around the family home in Wales with their mother, Gwendoline. Emma is unhappily married to her husband, Kit, alongside their two small children. Ines is a failing actor who has just suffered a severe trauma and moves back from London with her fiancé, Noah, who Dylan's best friend and secret long-time crush. Nothing I have told you just now matters because all of these people are interchangeable and apparently made of cardboard. If you put a gun to my head and asked me who Kit and Noah were throughout 90% of reading this I would've asked you to just pull the trigger instead. Their characterisation specifically is because, I guess?
There is also nothing redeemable about any of these people. They all fucking suck in a multitude of different ways, but the worst part is about it is that they're boring about it. I'm not even awarded the pleasure of being interested in why these people are terrible. The main crux of this book was obviously the impact of generational trauma, but only if you took this theme and photocopied it over and over again until it's illegible, faded, and looks like shit. It's like, a groundbreaking character portrait of generational trauma, I guess, you know, the heavy burden of grief, mothers with mothers, needing their mothers to be mothers, and so on and so forth, yadda yadda yadda.
Bergstrom, who I understand is Welsh, also really wants you to know that they're all Welsh, particularly Gwendoline and her parents. This is done by the occasional use of Welsh, which I did actually enjoy the addition of because it's a sorely underrepresented language, but the main way we know this is because inexplicably throughout the book Gwendoline's accent is written out phonetically for only very specific words, sometimes at the most odd and inappropriate moments ('you-er' for 'you're', 'yer' for both 'here' and 'hear') which was cute for the first ten pages I guess but oh my god if I had to sit through J.K. Rowling doing this I have now had my fill for a lifetime. I don't know why people do this, because it's lazy, jarring, looks terrible, and starts to feel suspiciously like caricature. Becauze, you see, 'ow else will we know if zis weuhman iz French, par example, non? If this is somehow a Welsh thing, I'm happy to be corrected, but as of writing this review, I'm not convinced.
The writing, and subsequently the pacing, is a fucking mess. When I was younger my mum once saw me reading Catch-22 and said it was like somebody had taken the book's chapters, thrown them onto the floor, and picked them up in a random order and put them back into book format. This book is exactly like that, apart from it's terrible. We get chapters from the present. We get chapters from the past. Sometimes they're the kids, sometimes it's Gwendoline. Sometimes it's Gwendoline as a teenager. Sometimes it's Gwendoline as an adult. Sometimes it's in 1999, sometimes it's in the '80s. We get lists! We get a chapter right near the end with just Kit and the couples therapist, for some reason! Nothing is in order, nothing really makes sense, and you are constantly trying to re-orient yourself to understand what the fuck is going on. At some point we are introduced to but this is disclosed in the most cryptically bizarre way and it is so difficult to understand what is happening that it took me going back to re-read to actually get what happened because I thought I'd missed something, and completely ruined the reveal.
Bergstrom also seems to want to sacrifice clarity and legibility for idk, the vibes of ~writing~, I guess, because this book is overburdened with awkward abstract personifications, metaphors and similes. It is crammed so full of them that you can barely read for stumbling haphazardly over yet another incomprehensible metaphor, and by god will Bergstrom be damned to make sure she includes it even if that metaphor makes no fucking sense, to the point where they read as parody. Some very selected highlights:
His smell is like knowledge in her body.
Satisfaction undoes itself on her face.
They still expelled themselves through her as if the constellations of her daughter’s births were glowing through her skin.
He had reinserted himself into the pocket of their marriage one last time to make sure there was nothing left to find in it.
Abigail, with the deepest of respect, you are a literary agent , what the fuck are you actually talking about?
There also seem to be issues throughout with the syntax. At many points it was incredibly difficult to know who was even speaking, because Bergstrom did not think it was necessary to signpost who was talking or performing the action by adding their names, which is truly a challenge when all the characters in the room have she/her pronouns. Sentences are sometimes constructed so awkwardly that it's hard to parse the correct meaning. Through this you get such gems as:
He’s grabbing her arse, rough and groaning.
Which sounds like it's describing the arse, not the man, and frankly for a sex scene I can't think of anything less sexy than a rough and groaning arse?
A final point to make is the epilogue chapter. Everyone has settled down, the drama is over, Ines got her acting gig, and Emma the 2.5-kids-with-a-mortgage-and-white-picket-fence wife has finally divorced her garbage husband and turns up to the family cookout with a girlfriend. I jokingly thought to myself 'this book would be way better if it was gay', and somewhere out there a finger curled on the monkey's paw and brought me this. If I had a penny for every time I saw lesbians used as a prop for ostensibly straight women 'finding themselves' and showing 'growth' I could probably afford my own 2.5 kids and a mortgage. I don't know what the name is for this trope but I do know I hate it, thanks.
I'm not even rating this because it doesn't deserve a whole star. Awful.
January 5, 2026
0 stars in reality. This book has no redeeming qualities. No clear direction, messy narration, unnecessary and droning descriptions that add nothing to the story. Every “twist” was predicable and honestly quite boring. Some of the writing was so awful that it turned my stomach forcing me to put it down each time, hence the 6 days it took me to read 300 pages.
January 14, 2026
Felt like I was reading a worse version of little women here. Shittle women?
September 13, 2025
4.5 ⭐️ The Wyn sisters would have loved Apple by Charli XCX
October 7, 2025
sisterhood is complicated 💔
November 11, 2025
Loved loved LOVED this one. Soared through it like a holiday read but it had a lot of bite too. Sisterhood and motherhood! Messy ramifications. I wish I was still reading it!!
July 31, 2026
Felt a little like a modern day Little Women.
But I will say if you are a sister and you love ferociously but the sibling dynamics are complicated this book is for you.
But I will say if you are a sister and you love ferociously but the sibling dynamics are complicated this book is for you.
October 11, 2025
i enjoyed this more than the authors previous book but it still felt like it was lacking something for me
August 10, 2025
2.5 ⭐️
I really wanted to like this book :(
I didn’t find it easy to get into based on how jumpy the chapters were, going from past to present to focusing on different characters. I felt like it took me a long time to identify what sister the chapters were focusing on and it felt a bit jumbled together!
I wish more time was spent on each sister to establish their personalities and trauma further, I don’t know if it’s just me but it felt a bit surface level and I wish the author explored it a bit more before jumping to the next chapter.
It did pick up by the end for me, but as soon as I felt like I was starting to enjoy it, the book ended.
I’m so glad to see how many positive reviews there are! Just don’t think this one was for me 😭
I really wanted to like this book :(
I didn’t find it easy to get into based on how jumpy the chapters were, going from past to present to focusing on different characters. I felt like it took me a long time to identify what sister the chapters were focusing on and it felt a bit jumbled together!
I wish more time was spent on each sister to establish their personalities and trauma further, I don’t know if it’s just me but it felt a bit surface level and I wish the author explored it a bit more before jumping to the next chapter.
It did pick up by the end for me, but as soon as I felt like I was starting to enjoy it, the book ended.
I’m so glad to see how many positive reviews there are! Just don’t think this one was for me 😭
July 11, 2026
INCREDIBLE.
this was my first abigail bergstrom (@abigailbergstrom ) and definitely not my last. i also have to say that reading a smaller font book was genuinely the best decision because i flew through this without even realising it. but i also think the writing had something to do with that. it has this quiet confidence where it never feels like it’s trying to impress you. it just… exists. and before you know it you’ve somehow read another fifty pages.
at its heart, selfish girls follows three estranged sisters who are forced back into each other’s lives, confronting the quiet fractures of their childhood as old wounds, buried memories and family expectations resurface. but this isn’t a book driven by what happens next. it’s driven by what these women carry with them, and what they choose to leave behind.
what fascinated me wasn’t even the plot itself because, if i’m being honest, the plot is almost secondary. i kept becoming obsessed with why these women behaved the way they did. i found myself stopping after conversations more than after major events. i kept thinking about how much of ourselves actually belongs to us and how much has simply been inherited. not genetics necessarily, but emotional habits.i loved how bergstrom trusted silence just as much as dialogue. there are so many moments where nothing extraordinary happens and yet i felt like i was witnessing years of accumulated grief, resentment, tenderness and love existing in the same room. i don’t think this book is asking whether families can heal. i think it’s asking whether healing simply means learning to live alongside the people who unknowingly built you.
thank you hodder publishers and novel tours for the gifted copy!
this was my first abigail bergstrom (@abigailbergstrom ) and definitely not my last. i also have to say that reading a smaller font book was genuinely the best decision because i flew through this without even realising it. but i also think the writing had something to do with that. it has this quiet confidence where it never feels like it’s trying to impress you. it just… exists. and before you know it you’ve somehow read another fifty pages.
at its heart, selfish girls follows three estranged sisters who are forced back into each other’s lives, confronting the quiet fractures of their childhood as old wounds, buried memories and family expectations resurface. but this isn’t a book driven by what happens next. it’s driven by what these women carry with them, and what they choose to leave behind.
what fascinated me wasn’t even the plot itself because, if i’m being honest, the plot is almost secondary. i kept becoming obsessed with why these women behaved the way they did. i found myself stopping after conversations more than after major events. i kept thinking about how much of ourselves actually belongs to us and how much has simply been inherited. not genetics necessarily, but emotional habits.i loved how bergstrom trusted silence just as much as dialogue. there are so many moments where nothing extraordinary happens and yet i felt like i was witnessing years of accumulated grief, resentment, tenderness and love existing in the same room. i don’t think this book is asking whether families can heal. i think it’s asking whether healing simply means learning to live alongside the people who unknowingly built you.
thank you hodder publishers and novel tours for the gifted copy!
July 21, 2026
Actually quite blown away by this. Devoured it. At no point did it feel like fiction, even with the beautifully written prose and horrifically toxic relationships between each of the characters.
April 28, 2025
Thank you to Netgalley and Hooder & Stoughton for the ARC!
2.5 stars!
I really liked how this started and the premise. I was so ready for this and really wanted to get deep into the sisters relationships, the relationship with their mum, and their own lives.
The writing is great! But the way it jumps from different past, present, and even Gwen's past, just seem to stop me from really getting deep within the story and connecting with any of the characters sadly.
Definitely worth checking out if you love family dynamics and relationships and realistic fiction, but sadly the execution wasn't a fit for me but maybe for someone else!
2.5 stars!
I really liked how this started and the premise. I was so ready for this and really wanted to get deep into the sisters relationships, the relationship with their mum, and their own lives.
The writing is great! But the way it jumps from different past, present, and even Gwen's past, just seem to stop me from really getting deep within the story and connecting with any of the characters sadly.
Definitely worth checking out if you love family dynamics and relationships and realistic fiction, but sadly the execution wasn't a fit for me but maybe for someone else!
Read
June 1, 2026That man is an absolutely evil villainous creature and he gets a happy ending!!! disgusted
July 22, 2025
4.5/5 stars ⭐️
I loved this. It's sharp, emotional, and totally unafraid to ask what it really means to be a selfish girl and whether that's such a bad thing after all. It digs into friendship, family dynamics, shame, desire and choosing yourself, even when it's messy.
Abigail's writing is so smart and honest, and I felt really seen in so many parts, even though i didn't grow up with any sisters!
I was lucky enough to meet her last week and she was just as cool, kind and thoughtful as you'd expect.
I loved this. It's sharp, emotional, and totally unafraid to ask what it really means to be a selfish girl and whether that's such a bad thing after all. It digs into friendship, family dynamics, shame, desire and choosing yourself, even when it's messy.
Abigail's writing is so smart and honest, and I felt really seen in so many parts, even though i didn't grow up with any sisters!
I was lucky enough to meet her last week and she was just as cool, kind and thoughtful as you'd expect.
December 22, 2025
DNF at 75% which i NEVER do !!! i read bad books sometimes and just suffer through but i wasted nearly a month of good cosy winter reading with one of the worst books ive picked up in a very long time
i actually read lines of this out loud to my boyfriend because it was that bad
i actually read lines of this out loud to my boyfriend because it was that bad
August 4, 2025
This book was so beautifully written. It’s a character driven novel which highlights the relationship complexities between the three sisters and their mum. Will be reading the author’s debut now!
January 28, 2026
svag trea
July 8, 2026
i don't claim this "Ines" representation!!!!
Everyone in this book is unlikable which would be fine if they were, at least, entertaining. It was just not very well done... and boring.
Everyone in this book is unlikable which would be fine if they were, at least, entertaining. It was just not very well done... and boring.
June 14, 2026
3.3 stars. Decent book, took a long time to get into and the stop started was a bit confusing but I enjoyed the middle and end
December 14, 2025
You know what, I really loved this book. I didn’t feel like I needed to rush through to the end to make it be done (which often happens) and I enjoy stories about the complexities of sisterhood. I will caveat that my own sisterhood doesn’t resemble those in this story. But J’adore sisters and unpicking the relationship generally (a sister is a true gift from the universe, love you Flick and thanks for never shagging my boyfriend).
June 28, 2026
Read for book club. I didn’t really rate this but felt like 2 stars was a bit stinge. The themes felt a bit obvious and forced. Also didn’t connect with any of the characters at all
July 29, 2026
Not one single character in this book was angry enough and I hated every single one of them and I loved this book.
May 8, 2025
4.5/5
Abigail Bergstrom has done it again!! Wow I loved this one. It’s so different to What A Shame but just brilliant. The way she managed to write this blows my mind. I’ve seen some people on here say that it didn’t flow well but couldn’t disagree more. Out in July, preorder!!
Abigail Bergstrom has done it again!! Wow I loved this one. It’s so different to What A Shame but just brilliant. The way she managed to write this blows my mind. I’ve seen some people on here say that it didn’t flow well but couldn’t disagree more. Out in July, preorder!!
September 16, 2025
I enjoyed this . The bonds of sisters and of family that are strong but not always unbreakable.
Sometimes I didn’t like the sisters very much sometimes I did but in the end I was rooting for Dylan and Noah.
Sometimes I didn’t like the sisters very much sometimes I did but in the end I was rooting for Dylan and Noah.
November 22, 2025
modern day little women except the first half is boring and the girls are all unlikeable
February 21, 2026
3.5/5
Was confused about a few of the characters but enjoyed bits of it
Was confused about a few of the characters but enjoyed bits of it
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