
I did find the opening chapter (that follows the enticing prologue) a bit off-putting in the profusion of characters, too much like the real experience of being overwhelmed by an excess of introductions at a big party, but persistence pays off. How to Make a Friend is a light read with a deeper undercurrent around the desperation of loneliness and the risks of unbalanced friendships. It also merits a deeper reading in terms of the defence of projective identification: Sam may be the personification of Alice’s guilt at the accident that killed her friend or the “vengeful alter ego” (p292) of a woman who swallowed down her anger about her continual appeasement of others, reminiscent of the superwoman role adopted by Jenny in Shelley Harris’s Vigilante. Thanks to Bantam Press for my review copy. For my reviews of other novels about friendship, see these posts: The pain of being human; The country house meets friendship betrayed; Nemesis or scapegoat?; Friend fatale.
