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404 Inklings #16
BFFs: The Radical Potential of Female Friendship
BFFs examines female friendship as a site of radical intimacy, as told through the cultural touchstones around us. From Elena Ferrante to Booksmart, Little Women to Insecure, and beyond, the book considers how female friendships can offer a more expansive and emancipatory understanding of female intimacy.
112 pages, Paperback
Published March 9, 2023
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1679 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 136 reviews
May 9, 2023
It’s not often that I read a book and simmer with quiet jealously over the devastating fact that I didn’t write it. This book is a triumph. Barring an instance of Grey’s Anatomy slander that I am willing to overlook, it is a masterpiece.
Such an eloquent, shockingly accurate portrayal of the visceral emotionality and undeniable corporeality of female friendships through the lens of popular culture. Absolutely sensational. I could not put it down.
Such an eloquent, shockingly accurate portrayal of the visceral emotionality and undeniable corporeality of female friendships through the lens of popular culture. Absolutely sensational. I could not put it down.
April 23, 2023
It's hard to formulate this review because I used to despise female presenting friendships. I thought they were toxic, overly emotionally taxing and surface leveled. I grew up around boys most of my life, my childhood friends are boys and a lot of the children I got along with were boys. It wasn't until I was 14, just starting high school, that I made my first, genuine female friend. We were inseparable, people knew where one went the other would follow, she was my partner in crime. We played on the same sports team, we texted every day, we made plans with each other constantly; I still have the photos of us going to our first movie together. I thought this was going to be ride-or-die friend for the rest of my life. I was wrong. She and I had a massive falling out that eventually ended the relationship, just as we hit the seven year mark. I think that was my first real friendship breakup, I don't think any of my failed romantic ones have even hit remotely close.
I tell this because she opened my eyes to the importance of female friendships. High school was the first time in my life that the overwhelming majority of my friends were female presenting. That I didn't have to hide the fact that I had a monthly visit that made me want to drown myself in savory foods or I had days were I wanted to be held in with no strings attached. Even with my disdain for high school and all its nonsense, I take those relationships forged through that nonsense to each stage of my life whether I speak to those friends or not. I think about how 14 year old me would react to the vast circle of female friends I have now. Hopefully, she would be able to see the love and adoration I have for these woman and what they have for me.
This book solidified what I have been feeling since I was 14 years old. The intimacy, love, respect and support female friendships have is nothing like any friendship/relationship I have had in my life. Now don't get me wrong, I do have male presenting friends who I love and love me just as much but something about those ride-or-die female friendship hits just a little bit differently.
Recommend 1000%
I tell this because she opened my eyes to the importance of female friendships. High school was the first time in my life that the overwhelming majority of my friends were female presenting. That I didn't have to hide the fact that I had a monthly visit that made me want to drown myself in savory foods or I had days were I wanted to be held in with no strings attached. Even with my disdain for high school and all its nonsense, I take those relationships forged through that nonsense to each stage of my life whether I speak to those friends or not. I think about how 14 year old me would react to the vast circle of female friends I have now. Hopefully, she would be able to see the love and adoration I have for these woman and what they have for me.
This book solidified what I have been feeling since I was 14 years old. The intimacy, love, respect and support female friendships have is nothing like any friendship/relationship I have had in my life. Now don't get me wrong, I do have male presenting friends who I love and love me just as much but something about those ride-or-die female friendship hits just a little bit differently.
Recommend 1000%
October 23, 2023
I loved the last chapter, and so many things in this book needed to be said, but I also struggled with the style and it felt quite obvious at times, struggling to really touch on what is radical about female friendships and how to make them more radical/their potential.
December 10, 2023
Breathtaking actually, in its loveliness and joys as well as its honesty and pain. Friendship is so important to me but societally not celebrated like romance, and this book has me daydreaming of wider possibility. Adding everything mentioned to the reading / watchlist to experience more of the bestie canon and I shall have to reread for inspiration because I hope one day I can become this eloquent a writer.
April 10, 2023
Loved every single word. So beautifully written. The cultural references are amazing. I love women so much ❤️❤️❤️❤️
April 11, 2024
my best friend gave me her annotated copy and i cried multiple times
January 22, 2024
4.5⭐️
"I have always been unlucky in romance, and lucky in friendship. I almost wrote "unlucky in love", but that is not true; yet the instinct exists - to pour all our experience of love into one particular vessel. My friendships have been vast, encompassing, and structuring, framing all the important and unimportant moments in my life. There have been friends at parties and as neighbours and in hospitals and running errands and holding my hand, screaming off the edge of a sharp cliff. I don't really think of them as family, because this implies that family is the only way to practise such strong bonds of care. They are just, in every way, crucial to my life; to the everyday and the grand future and everything in between."
Now more than ever is the concept of girlhood, and shared and celebrated female friendship part of our cultural zeitgeist. 'BFFs' explores beyond the magic of Barbie and The Eras Tour however; it is an exploration of the radical solidarity and hardships we find in female friendships. How the pressures to conform to patriarchal and capitalist romantic and familial relationships, challenges the otherwise infantilised and trivialised importance of friendship, and yet how (despite their social issues) they persist with women throughout our whole lives.
Girls, drop a message of love to your group chats. Give your besties a cuddle. Oh, and do everyone a favour and start prioritising the beautiful and rewarding comfort that are platonic soulmates.
"I have always been unlucky in romance, and lucky in friendship. I almost wrote "unlucky in love", but that is not true; yet the instinct exists - to pour all our experience of love into one particular vessel. My friendships have been vast, encompassing, and structuring, framing all the important and unimportant moments in my life. There have been friends at parties and as neighbours and in hospitals and running errands and holding my hand, screaming off the edge of a sharp cliff. I don't really think of them as family, because this implies that family is the only way to practise such strong bonds of care. They are just, in every way, crucial to my life; to the everyday and the grand future and everything in between."
Now more than ever is the concept of girlhood, and shared and celebrated female friendship part of our cultural zeitgeist. 'BFFs' explores beyond the magic of Barbie and The Eras Tour however; it is an exploration of the radical solidarity and hardships we find in female friendships. How the pressures to conform to patriarchal and capitalist romantic and familial relationships, challenges the otherwise infantilised and trivialised importance of friendship, and yet how (despite their social issues) they persist with women throughout our whole lives.
Girls, drop a message of love to your group chats. Give your besties a cuddle. Oh, and do everyone a favour and start prioritising the beautiful and rewarding comfort that are platonic soulmates.
April 30, 2023
i could only dream of writing this, it was so wonderful and i wanted to highlight every single line in agreement - also on a selfish level, so many of my favourite books and films are discussed in here, I want to commission the author to write about Frances ha and the Neapolitan quartet for another 1000 pages
December 19, 2023
I devoured this, thank you Millie 🥹 feeling pretty radical rn
"[female friends] are just, in every way, crucial to my life: to the everyday and the grand future and everything in between."
"Desires for intimacy that bypass the couple or the life narrative it generates have no alternative plots, let alone few laws and stable spaces of culture in which to clarify and to cultivate them. What happens to the energy of attachment when it has no designated space? To the glances, gestures, encounters, collabo-rations, or fantasies that have no canon?" (Lauren Berlant)
"it is, I often think, so impossible to be a woman in this world, with millennia upon millennia of structural violence, eroding away at your life"
"There are times when, like the Lisbon sisters, my body feels like an imposition, like an inherited property over which I have no say, in which I am merely kept, and monitored, and maintained. I am tired of thinking about it, about its possibilities and its failures, tired of tracking the futility of sickening desires and anxieties that I cannot quiet or contain, tired of the way that my agency seems to dissolve against the barriers of my skin - that the things I want and believe rarely seem to translate."
In an embrace with female friends: "I can take my body and tuck it away - hidden and hushed - from the dictates of all the narratives that make it feel inept and undone. Friendship has always been a physical proposition - I learnt this long ago - an encounter between breathing, heart-pounding bodies. It is not possible to separate it from the politics of the body that dominate the rest of our lives. Amid the amphitheatre of female spectacle that constitutes our reality, there is a defiance to this language of silence, of reclaimed and wilfully rearticulated desire. It takes up the long-decided script of our skin and blood and flesh; it strikes out what came before and writes anew."
"[female friends] are just, in every way, crucial to my life: to the everyday and the grand future and everything in between."
"Desires for intimacy that bypass the couple or the life narrative it generates have no alternative plots, let alone few laws and stable spaces of culture in which to clarify and to cultivate them. What happens to the energy of attachment when it has no designated space? To the glances, gestures, encounters, collabo-rations, or fantasies that have no canon?" (Lauren Berlant)
"it is, I often think, so impossible to be a woman in this world, with millennia upon millennia of structural violence, eroding away at your life"
"There are times when, like the Lisbon sisters, my body feels like an imposition, like an inherited property over which I have no say, in which I am merely kept, and monitored, and maintained. I am tired of thinking about it, about its possibilities and its failures, tired of tracking the futility of sickening desires and anxieties that I cannot quiet or contain, tired of the way that my agency seems to dissolve against the barriers of my skin - that the things I want and believe rarely seem to translate."
In an embrace with female friends: "I can take my body and tuck it away - hidden and hushed - from the dictates of all the narratives that make it feel inept and undone. Friendship has always been a physical proposition - I learnt this long ago - an encounter between breathing, heart-pounding bodies. It is not possible to separate it from the politics of the body that dominate the rest of our lives. Amid the amphitheatre of female spectacle that constitutes our reality, there is a defiance to this language of silence, of reclaimed and wilfully rearticulated desire. It takes up the long-decided script of our skin and blood and flesh; it strikes out what came before and writes anew."
July 27, 2023
i really enjoyed this book and i think it perfectly encapsulates everything i’m interested in right now. that being said, i feel like this book served more to categorize the themes of the literary/film references than to provide deep analysis on it. every time one piece of media was done being explained, another was promptly brought in. i think i got more out of reading and watching all of the references before reading this book than i did from BFFs itself. however, this book was still really fun and i really enjoyed seeing all my favorite things being talked about in one place, and behrooz’s writing when she talked about her own life was beautiful.
December 26, 2024
Ik vond dit heel interessant en treffend en ruimte gevend voor een klein stukje revolutie in de wereld. Heel feministisch en ook wel echt als een academisch essay, waarbij ik soms net iets meer diepgang had willen lezen, maar het is dan ook een klein en beknopt boekje. Aanrader voor alle vriendinnies xxxxxx
“Something wonderfully tangled, and fiercely altering, can be imagined, and grasped, and lived and lived.”
“Something wonderfully tangled, and fiercely altering, can be imagined, and grasped, and lived and lived.”
March 6, 2023
Essential, revelatory, life-affirming reading! Makes you think of all the possibilities for friendships and ways society often lets them slip away. I'm going to be calling all my friends later <3
March 8, 2024
Enjoyed the analysis but unsure if it truly met it's goal of talking about the 'radical potential of female friendship'
January 28, 2025
I love any and all celebrations of friendship, as an integral, beautiful and at times transformative form of relationship. This is a short, very sweet reflection on many well-trodden scripts of (and about) female friendship. God, the writing is so good. My only gripe with it is that, in tracing cultural narratives of female friendship (envy/rivalry, endings), at times the "radical potential" placed in the title gets lost. Behrooz compellingly places heteropatriarchy and the valorisation of romantic partnerships and marriage as structural factors contributing to "drifting" of female friendships in adulthood but I wish there had been more on the JOY of friendships that feel like sisterhood, that transcend gaps in space and time, or prompt a rejection of relational norms. Still, a delightful read, fittingly gifted to me by one of my own nearest and dearest pals, whose friendship makes me a happier, smarter and generally better person every day
January 9, 2024
What an amazing read to start the year. Two main things stand out from this book:
First, looking in depth at how friendships shape the people we want to be, and how we want to be loved.... it's made me feel so grateful to have had such amazing women in my life, tangled into my memories. Striving to share memories with people and seek connection makes our experiences valuable. Even those friends that we've grown apart from... their contribution to our sense of self should be appreciated and remembered fondly.
The second thing being that after university, there doesn't seem to be a built-in space for friendship like the one we've had growing up. Friendships are expected to be left behind as priorities change over time: career, family, boyfriends etc. However, without imposing anything on anyone, this book challenges you to think outside the box. Incorporating friendships into one's daily routine as an adult is a rebellious act that feels like is not even something we will ever have to worry about. Funny enough, the loneliness that comes from graduating and being expected to 'grow up' is the direct outcome of society's inability to give space to friendship, or prioritise it.
It's made me realise that I am, too, 'stuck in a state of irreconcilable desire, caught between stability and independence, subsumption and equity, entanglement and freedom'. We all do live the same life.
On days like these, I love being a woman. I can't wait to re-read this.
First, looking in depth at how friendships shape the people we want to be, and how we want to be loved.... it's made me feel so grateful to have had such amazing women in my life, tangled into my memories. Striving to share memories with people and seek connection makes our experiences valuable. Even those friends that we've grown apart from... their contribution to our sense of self should be appreciated and remembered fondly.
The second thing being that after university, there doesn't seem to be a built-in space for friendship like the one we've had growing up. Friendships are expected to be left behind as priorities change over time: career, family, boyfriends etc. However, without imposing anything on anyone, this book challenges you to think outside the box. Incorporating friendships into one's daily routine as an adult is a rebellious act that feels like is not even something we will ever have to worry about. Funny enough, the loneliness that comes from graduating and being expected to 'grow up' is the direct outcome of society's inability to give space to friendship, or prioritise it.
It's made me realise that I am, too, 'stuck in a state of irreconcilable desire, caught between stability and independence, subsumption and equity, entanglement and freedom'. We all do live the same life.
On days like these, I love being a woman. I can't wait to re-read this.
December 28, 2024
I got this book from a friend for Christmas and this was an incredible and beautiful essay!!! I ended up underlining a lot in here, and came out of here with so many recommendations in books and tv shows!!!
This book explores in an excellent way the different type of friendships you find through life, from childhood, to teen years, to young adulthood and later, but in these way it also explores how society expects friendship to be less important as we grow older, that you should put it aside for romantic relationships... and I love how the book goes into this "radical" view of friendship, of this desire and wish that they can be put in the same ground by the world (this is is talking about us as an individual, but making sure you can have some of the same benefits that people can have in marriage or civil union).
A lot of these conversations are then paired with examples from media projects, from things I've read and watched, and some new things to me, and I love how it gets to discuss the dynamics of iconic female friendships, from the domestic moments you share, to the break ups (and how they can destroy you so entirely), to brunch-friendships, to the unhealthy competition between friends...
This was just an excellent read, that I absolutely LOVED!!! And I'm looking forward to continue to read more from this series (luckily I already own another one ;) )
This book explores in an excellent way the different type of friendships you find through life, from childhood, to teen years, to young adulthood and later, but in these way it also explores how society expects friendship to be less important as we grow older, that you should put it aside for romantic relationships... and I love how the book goes into this "radical" view of friendship, of this desire and wish that they can be put in the same ground by the world (this is is talking about us as an individual, but making sure you can have some of the same benefits that people can have in marriage or civil union).
A lot of these conversations are then paired with examples from media projects, from things I've read and watched, and some new things to me, and I love how it gets to discuss the dynamics of iconic female friendships, from the domestic moments you share, to the break ups (and how they can destroy you so entirely), to brunch-friendships, to the unhealthy competition between friends...
This was just an excellent read, that I absolutely LOVED!!! And I'm looking forward to continue to read more from this series (luckily I already own another one ;) )
December 28, 2024
On the last weekend of the year, I read my favourite book of the year. I'm a little embarrassed thinking back to my Creative Writing MA dissertation on this exact topic using some of the same texts; it totally fell apart. But mostly I am in awe and relieved that everything I wanted to say has been put into words. I bought this immediately upon release but put off reading it for an intricate web of reasons including a) if it's wonderful I'll be jealous, b) if it's not I'll be annoyed. It was wonderful, comforting, inspiring and so deeply and personally moving.
For people who loved this and want more like it, I recommend Radical Intimacy by Sophie K Rosa, and even Motherhood by Sheila Heti. For those who'd prefer something easier to absorb that reads more like chick-lit or a celebrity memoir (with a deeply moving section about fertility), I recommend Elizabeth Day's Friendaholic . Anahit Behrooz's tiny book on female friendship is less sugary than the cover suggests, and makes you work a little. In just 90 pages, it is an incredible feat in essay writing.
For people who loved this and want more like it, I recommend Radical Intimacy by Sophie K Rosa, and even Motherhood by Sheila Heti. For those who'd prefer something easier to absorb that reads more like chick-lit or a celebrity memoir (with a deeply moving section about fertility), I recommend Elizabeth Day's Friendaholic . Anahit Behrooz's tiny book on female friendship is less sugary than the cover suggests, and makes you work a little. In just 90 pages, it is an incredible feat in essay writing.
September 13, 2023
I adore the intimacy of female friendship and feel so blessed for the depth of these friendships that I am currently surrounded in. Not a day goes by where I don't think of it all and this book perfectly articulated thoughts I didn't even know I had. It mirrored my gut feeling and love for female friendship.
Discussing different stages/aspects of female friendship in conjunction amd reference to different medias presenting female friendships, this beautifully written book depicts the good, bad, ugly and glory of female friendship and girlhood. I personally couldn't have read this at a better time.
404 inklings, you've done it again. I shouldn't be surprised at this point. I wanna collect them all like pokemon now :O
Discussing different stages/aspects of female friendship in conjunction amd reference to different medias presenting female friendships, this beautifully written book depicts the good, bad, ugly and glory of female friendship and girlhood. I personally couldn't have read this at a better time.
404 inklings, you've done it again. I shouldn't be surprised at this point. I wanna collect them all like pokemon now :O
July 12, 2024
an interesting read!! after the first two chapters, i expected more depth in the ideas presented and this i don’t believe was entirely provided - behrooz maintained a consistently mild examination of female friendships and their idiosyncrasies throughout. this being said, i enjoyed the frequent and necessary reference to pop culture and literature, old and new, with which behrooz felt exemplified specific facets of female friendships, as well as the idea that any female friendship was innately radical in its unconventional intimacy that permeated throughout. mention of the impact of modern capitalism and patriarchy on women and their connections was also done appropriately throughout. glad i read this!
April 27, 2024
Friendship is a 'corporeal act that occurs between people', suitably encompassed by the action of one of the most beloved people in my life annotating 'BFFs: The Radical Potential of Female Friendship' with inside jokes, cultural references and fleeting thoughts. As I annotated in response the book quickly became one of my most prized and beloved possessions in a manner similar to the way in which Elif is one of my most prized and beloved friends. I could rhapsodise about Behrooz's succinct analysis of the links between intimacy, patriarchy, capitalism and media, but for that I would just urge you to read the book as I am certain that it would resonate with anyone. Instead, I will transcribe an annotation that I left halfway through the text in response to a chapter discussing art, political action and love:
'I think we lean so easily towards art as an expression of our personal politic because it is individual and controllable in a way that other forms of expression are not. If we establish community centers and stage protests, governments and oppressive capitalist modes can intervene, but song and language is intangible enough that nobody can rip it from our hearts, even if they first go for our hands. Love is a pillar of collective action and art is one of the only protectable forms of it; even if books are banned and media is censored, the act of their creation is often significant enough. Mitski reminds us that 'my love is mine all mine' even when 'nothing in the world belongs to me'.
When I finished this book within 12 hours of starting it, I physically hugged it to my chest and sat in silence for several minutes. I've been on a fiction streak recently, and as beloved as my fiction is, Behrooz cut straight through to my heart and overwhelmed me with gratitude for the deep yet casual intimacy that I realise not only guides but drives my entire existence in a very political manner.
'I think we lean so easily towards art as an expression of our personal politic because it is individual and controllable in a way that other forms of expression are not. If we establish community centers and stage protests, governments and oppressive capitalist modes can intervene, but song and language is intangible enough that nobody can rip it from our hearts, even if they first go for our hands. Love is a pillar of collective action and art is one of the only protectable forms of it; even if books are banned and media is censored, the act of their creation is often significant enough. Mitski reminds us that 'my love is mine all mine' even when 'nothing in the world belongs to me'.
When I finished this book within 12 hours of starting it, I physically hugged it to my chest and sat in silence for several minutes. I've been on a fiction streak recently, and as beloved as my fiction is, Behrooz cut straight through to my heart and overwhelmed me with gratitude for the deep yet casual intimacy that I realise not only guides but drives my entire existence in a very political manner.
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January 2, 2025Ik wilde dat mijn hersenen zouden zijn weggeblazen hierdoor. Ook jammer niks over de bff—>loml-gateway. Wel echt mooie quotes: “A room of one’s own, a white picket fence: the lives they represent are so wildly apart, yet what they house is so often the same — a woman negotiating impossible circumstances, trying to make her way through the world.”
August 18, 2024
Volevo sottolineare ogni parola, ogni frase, ogni riferimento.
Ho adorato l'ultimo capitolo.
What if I could accept these friendships as unfinished, rather than lost?
Ho adorato l'ultimo capitolo.
What if I could accept these friendships as unfinished, rather than lost?
March 25, 2023
A gorgeously poetic treatise on my favourite topic, from which I have come away with a huge reading and watching list.
February 13, 2024
gave this three stars at first but just changed it to four cause I’m still thinking about it. Even if I don’t agree with everything in it, I think the big points it was trying to make really stuck with me and I want to keep thinking about them.
July 16, 2025
Ho finito di leggere questo libro a un addio al nubilato, non me l'aspettavo ma è stato davvero calzante. A volte c'è bisogno che qualcuno indichi lo spazio per ricordarsi che lo spazio esiste: spazio per parlare di amicizia mettendola al centro, realizzando il piccolo miracolo della sua intensità, ampiezza, intimità. E poi quanto è bello allargare lo spazio, portarci dentro altre persone, far scaturire conversazioni ed emozionarsi per questi rapporti tutti umani!
August 15, 2024
i wish all my friends lived on my street and i didn’t have to work so we could just hangout all the time 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
April 22, 2023
Beautiful short essay on the representation of friendship in popular culture. Questioning the capitalist confines of the units of care bound within heternormative marriage and the nuclear family, this book queers these socially accepted support systems by championing the radical, lasting adult friendships that carry many of us through life.
August 4, 2024
m'he sentit una mica tonteta🤸
August 30, 2024
I wanted to liked this book but I found it hard to get through. Behrooz uses overly flowery and complex language which covers up the actual meaning behind the ideas being explored about friendship. Even beyond the language, there wasn’t enough analysis of her actual ideas about female friendship so I didn’t find myself leaving the book thinking much differently about the valuable and meaningful friendships in my life. Her own ideas and analysis are covered up by all the summarizing she does of other texts and pieces of media. While I think the literary analysis is important and interesting, all the summarizing and connecting between pieces of media Behrooz did prevented any meaningful analysis of her own ideas. Again, I wanted to like this book and leave it with new ways of viewing my female friendships but the book fell flat for me.
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