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Is It Too Early To Bitch?
In the first week of their drama undergrad degree, Grace Rouvray and Katie Lees become best friends, bonding
through a timeless bitching.
Over the next 13 years, this lightning in a bottle friendship becomes the most constant and important
relationship in both their lives. Carrying them through miserable second jobs, breakups and the creation of a
comedy duo, it survives long-distance years sustained by voice notes, and thrives when they live just one
minute (and eleven seconds) apart in Sydney's Inner West. They become each other's rock, each other's
person. Until the impossible happens, and Katie dies suddenly and tragically.
What follows is an unravelling. Does Grace deserve to grieve Katie as deeply as her family? What value do we
place on friendship? Can 'just a friend' be the most important person in your life? And how do you move
forward when you've lost someone who was ostensibly your whole world?
Hilarious, heartbreaking and deeply honest, Is It Too Early to Bitch? is a love letter/memoir of the magic of a
unique friendship, and a celebration of all friendship and its lifechanging power.
'Sharp and intimate . . . Equal parts devastating, funny and frank, Is It Too Early To Bitch? is a meditation on
love, guilt, self-acceptance and grief. I cried and I laughed and I gasped in recognition at Rouvray's ability to capture the messy, powerful essence of friendship, and how we can honour it once it's gone.' - CLARE
STEPHENS
through a timeless bitching.
Over the next 13 years, this lightning in a bottle friendship becomes the most constant and important
relationship in both their lives. Carrying them through miserable second jobs, breakups and the creation of a
comedy duo, it survives long-distance years sustained by voice notes, and thrives when they live just one
minute (and eleven seconds) apart in Sydney's Inner West. They become each other's rock, each other's
person. Until the impossible happens, and Katie dies suddenly and tragically.
What follows is an unravelling. Does Grace deserve to grieve Katie as deeply as her family? What value do we
place on friendship? Can 'just a friend' be the most important person in your life? And how do you move
forward when you've lost someone who was ostensibly your whole world?
Hilarious, heartbreaking and deeply honest, Is It Too Early to Bitch? is a love letter/memoir of the magic of a
unique friendship, and a celebration of all friendship and its lifechanging power.
'Sharp and intimate . . . Equal parts devastating, funny and frank, Is It Too Early To Bitch? is a meditation on
love, guilt, self-acceptance and grief. I cried and I laughed and I gasped in recognition at Rouvray's ability to capture the messy, powerful essence of friendship, and how we can honour it once it's gone.' - CLARE
STEPHENS
- GenresMemoir
329 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 26, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
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June 13, 2026An incredible audiobook.
June 16, 2026
A memoir about Grace’s friendship with Katie, who died suddenly at 34, and the best portrayal of female friendship I’ve read in ages. It captures how significant and life-defining that kind of love can be. A great reminder to tell your friends how much you love them ❤️🩹
June 25, 2026
What a book. I loved reading the relationship between Katie and Grace.. the friendship, the adventures.. it has me laughing out loud one moment and then bawling in the end. Thank you for sharing your friendship with the world and I’m sorry it looks different now without her. Those chapters really shook me up. What a shit thing to happen. I’m sure she’d be stoked with how many friends will be encouraged to do a nothing call, grab a meal together or meet up for a beer. May the joy of your friendship with Katie live on!!
June 15, 2026
Grace and Katie share the type of friendship that people aspire to have.
That one special person who knows all of you, who loves your crazy and quirks and moods.
And don’t be deterred by the title - there’s very little bitching in this book. These aren’t humans who survive on gossip and malice. These humans are consistently kind and inclusive with a healthy embracement of ones’ mental health.
This is the good stuff.
We know from the start that this is Graces’ open love letter to Kate following her sudden and particularly cruel death.
A detailed account of their shared history.
The writing is nostalgic and relatable in this coming of age story (oh the party DMs!) and I zoomed through it.
And many, many tears to be had 🥹
Oddly enough - it was the darker final 100 pages that had me most engaged. The chapters of Katie’s loss, the dark humour, the grief club and floor bed. Perfection.
This a great one to read and pass around the friendship group.
Grace has popped in words the things we feel and think but perhaps don’t say often enough.
As you’re sobbing at the end, you’ll most definitely want to call your person for a nothing call 🥰
That one special person who knows all of you, who loves your crazy and quirks and moods.
And don’t be deterred by the title - there’s very little bitching in this book. These aren’t humans who survive on gossip and malice. These humans are consistently kind and inclusive with a healthy embracement of ones’ mental health.
This is the good stuff.
We know from the start that this is Graces’ open love letter to Kate following her sudden and particularly cruel death.
A detailed account of their shared history.
The writing is nostalgic and relatable in this coming of age story (oh the party DMs!) and I zoomed through it.
And many, many tears to be had 🥹
Oddly enough - it was the darker final 100 pages that had me most engaged. The chapters of Katie’s loss, the dark humour, the grief club and floor bed. Perfection.
This a great one to read and pass around the friendship group.
Grace has popped in words the things we feel and think but perhaps don’t say often enough.
As you’re sobbing at the end, you’ll most definitely want to call your person for a nothing call 🥰
June 23, 2026
LOVED! A deeply honest, heartbreakingly raw and then somehow hilarious memoir that, at its core, is a love story… but not as you know it.
Just make sure you have the tissues handy, and then get ready to text your best friend once you finish and organise that long overdue catch up!
Just make sure you have the tissues handy, and then get ready to text your best friend once you finish and organise that long overdue catch up!
Read
June 20, 2026A very sad but beautifully written story about female friendship that left me feeling very grateful for my friendships that have lasted over many years.
June 5, 2026
Well…
Shit.
🥲
I started this book at 5.30pm tonight and finished it less than 5 hours later. I couldn’t put it down. I told myself if I just sat and kept going that it would hurt less. Like ripping off a Band-Aid really quickly. I was incorrect.
I spent the first half of the book falling absolutely in love with Grace and her ‘wife’, Katie. I was there. Caught up inside the beautiful, messy, relatable friendship that didn’t have anything particularly special or remarkable about it, yet that’s exactly what it was. Two women bonding over a shared moment of bitching that sparked the flame to a glorious fire and that was it - they had found their people in each other.
I adored Katie’s family - Ian and Penny were just beautiful. I loved how they embraced the importance and relevance of Grace and Katie’s connection and really seemed to respect that - even when things got really, really awful. Grace was more than their daughter’s friend, she was her soulmate.
Ugh. I just loved it. It was easy to ready, pulled me in and kept me turning those pages until I reached the end.
Thank you to Grace Rouvray and Pan Macmillan for the physical copy I received as a gift. My opinion is honest and of my own!
Shit.
🥲
I started this book at 5.30pm tonight and finished it less than 5 hours later. I couldn’t put it down. I told myself if I just sat and kept going that it would hurt less. Like ripping off a Band-Aid really quickly. I was incorrect.
I spent the first half of the book falling absolutely in love with Grace and her ‘wife’, Katie. I was there. Caught up inside the beautiful, messy, relatable friendship that didn’t have anything particularly special or remarkable about it, yet that’s exactly what it was. Two women bonding over a shared moment of bitching that sparked the flame to a glorious fire and that was it - they had found their people in each other.
I adored Katie’s family - Ian and Penny were just beautiful. I loved how they embraced the importance and relevance of Grace and Katie’s connection and really seemed to respect that - even when things got really, really awful. Grace was more than their daughter’s friend, she was her soulmate.
Ugh. I just loved it. It was easy to ready, pulled me in and kept me turning those pages until I reached the end.
Thank you to Grace Rouvray and Pan Macmillan for the physical copy I received as a gift. My opinion is honest and of my own!
June 12, 2026
Thank you for sharing this book with the world. I adored it, I couldn’t put it down, I got nothing done this week while reading it! Compelling & beautiful, every woman should read this.
June 29, 2026
A Heartbreaking, Hilarious Masterpiece for Anyone Who Loves:
Is It Too Early to Bitch is marketed toward women, but it is a book for anyone who has ever had a best friend or experienced grief. It manages to be both brutal and incredibly funny, creating an emotional rollercoaster that needs to be read in private. Do not make my mistake and read any of this on the train; you will want a place where you can let go.
It is a great love story, but one that will make you scream at the bloody unfairness of it all. The dramatic tension built around a falling-out between friends, right before THE tragic event is harrowing and effective. I paused at that moment, knowing I'd need space for what was about to happen. The second half of the book, though upsetting, is unputdownable. Crying for Grace and her journey through the aftermath was something I found myself unable to stop.
The book tackles the crushing weight of grief, guilt, and shame with raw honesty and some humour. The takeaway is this: tell your friends that you love them, right now.
A must-read.
Is It Too Early to Bitch is marketed toward women, but it is a book for anyone who has ever had a best friend or experienced grief. It manages to be both brutal and incredibly funny, creating an emotional rollercoaster that needs to be read in private. Do not make my mistake and read any of this on the train; you will want a place where you can let go.
It is a great love story, but one that will make you scream at the bloody unfairness of it all. The dramatic tension built around a falling-out between friends, right before THE tragic event is harrowing and effective. I paused at that moment, knowing I'd need space for what was about to happen. The second half of the book, though upsetting, is unputdownable. Crying for Grace and her journey through the aftermath was something I found myself unable to stop.
The book tackles the crushing weight of grief, guilt, and shame with raw honesty and some humour. The takeaway is this: tell your friends that you love them, right now.
A must-read.
July 6, 2026
Wow I cried so many times
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Thank you to booksbymallie on Instagram and Pan Macmillan for the ARC!
Grace, what an amazing thing you’ve done writing this book about your best friend Katie. You perfectly described what it’s like to find a soulmate in a friend - the kind of friendship that becomes woven into every part of your life. The book highlights all the highs and lows of friendship, the inside jokes, the fierce love and loyalty, and the feeling of finding someone who understands you in a way nobody else can.
Being a similar age to Grace myself, I really resonated with a lot of this book and what it was like growing up in the 2000s before social media took over everything, and all the nostalgic things about that time. I love how she talked about the “nothing” calls and “nothing” visits where you don’t even have a specific plan with a friend but you just enjoy each others company so much. She also beautifully captured the childlike wonder that all us millennials carry well into adulthood.
The book serves as a great reminder to hold your friends close, and how important and special platonic relationships are.
I laughed, I cried (a lot), and felt all the emotions. I am so glad that I read this book and that Grace decided to share the details of the beautiful friendship she had with Katie. Highly recommend this for everyone, especially my fellow millennial girls.
Grace, what an amazing thing you’ve done writing this book about your best friend Katie. You perfectly described what it’s like to find a soulmate in a friend - the kind of friendship that becomes woven into every part of your life. The book highlights all the highs and lows of friendship, the inside jokes, the fierce love and loyalty, and the feeling of finding someone who understands you in a way nobody else can.
Being a similar age to Grace myself, I really resonated with a lot of this book and what it was like growing up in the 2000s before social media took over everything, and all the nostalgic things about that time. I love how she talked about the “nothing” calls and “nothing” visits where you don’t even have a specific plan with a friend but you just enjoy each others company so much. She also beautifully captured the childlike wonder that all us millennials carry well into adulthood.
The book serves as a great reminder to hold your friends close, and how important and special platonic relationships are.
I laughed, I cried (a lot), and felt all the emotions. I am so glad that I read this book and that Grace decided to share the details of the beautiful friendship she had with Katie. Highly recommend this for everyone, especially my fellow millennial girls.
May 29, 2026
I don't read a lot of memoir, so tend to dip my toes in tentatively, but this book grabbed me by the ankles and pulled me into open water before I even knew what was happening. It's about epic, big-time Love, the platonic female bestie wine-worshiping kind, with all the emotional triumph and tragedy that you'd get from a great romance. I devoured it. And now I'm left with a kind of ache, and want to read it all over again. Sure, it's about deep friendship/ soul mates and subsequent grief, so, so much grief (Rouvray paints the dull endless grief fog SO accurately), but it's also about growing up, growing apart, and coming back together again; a kind of balance sheet tracking the emotional energy it takes to have a life-changing relationship (or just be a human being with a working heart), and a joyful ode to finding someone with whom you have unmatchable chemistry.
Guess I'll be reading more memoir from now on!
Guess I'll be reading more memoir from now on!
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
All the feels!!!! Such a love letter to friendship and early adulthood and inner west Sydney! I adore Katie and really appreciate being able to know such a firecracker on the page because she was gone way too soon. This is such a gift of a memoir, I kind of feel now I did an acting degree alongside grace and Katie, that I was there for their meet cute and wondering if it’s too early to bitch about that annoying girl over there…there is so much written about romantic love and finding your soulmate; this is such a soulmate finding story about platonic love. Loved it
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews