Book Review: Galentine’s Day by Rebecca Anderson
Galentine’s Day by Rebecca Anderson
Content Warnings:
TW: this book contains mentions of sex, miscarriage, pregnancy, infidelity, therapy, hospitalisation, parental issues, toxic behaviours and grief. Readers 18+.
Publishing Date: January 6th, 2026
Publisher: Avon
Genres: Adult // Contemporary, Literary Fiction
Quick Thoughts: It’s hard to put into words just how flawlessly Rebecca captures the heart of female friendship through Hannah, Marnie and Alicia’s lives. What a wonder of a story Rebecca writes to capture this in all it’s delightful chaos and big-hearted joy.
Rating:
Friends since school
Annual sleepover
Bonds broken/mended
Celebrating girlhood
The funny, insightful love-letter to female friendship, perfect for fans of Dolly Alderton and The Bold Type!
Thirteen years, three women, one sleepover.
13th February 2013. Alicia, Marnie and Hannah have a sleepover on Galentine’s Day, the day before Valentine’s Day, for the first time. They’re eighteen, single, and the world is at their feet. Tomorrow, they’ll go their separate ways, to university, to a job, to a different country. But they promise that every year, they’ll have their annual sleepover.
13th February 2026. After thirteen years of faithful attendance at their annual sleepover, only two women are attending this year. Their friendship has seen partying, breakdowns, marriages, kids, divorces, and everything in between, but are their best Galentine’s Days now behind them?
My Review
I adored Officially Losing It in 2024, Rebecca’s YA debut, and couldn’t wait for more from her poignant way of bringing down-to-earth characters, and with Galentine’s Day, her Adult debut, the wait did not disappoint. We meet three friends at school, Alicia, Hannah and Marnie. They’re different on so many levels, from their passions and desires for their futures, but something wholesome connects them on a deeper wavelength, the entire essence of feminine friendship that is so hard to describe in it’s entirety. The day before Valentine’s Day when they are eighteen, they begin a tradition that will carry them through their lives for the next thirteen years, spurred by the breaking of Hannah’s heart—celebrating Galentine’s Day together under one roof, promising an oath to each other that it would be a forever thing.
Of course, time keeps moving and the girls turn into women, splintering into different directions, universities and cities. Hannah, the life and soul of the group, feels lost and hopeless as she strives to become an influencer. Alicia works her way into a teaching career, unsure if and when she’ll meet the right man. Meanwhile Marnie falls pregnant young, becoming a single mum, and her life changes shape overnight. Still, Galentine’s and their group chat remains, although sometimes they’re ships in the night, lost in the changing of their own lives. They try and be there for each other, but sometimes it’s hard—Hannah and Alicia know that Marnie is the glue that keeps them together, the reason they are friends at all, and often the lack of communication between them all can lead to silly arguments and misunderstandings. Yet, Galentine’s is a mighty entity in itself, and it manages to soften the sharp edges of it all, a day of healing. But after a colossal blunder and further fall-out between Hannah and Alicia about their pasts, something shifts between the women that threatens to shape their friendship forever.
It’s hard to put into words just how flawlessly Rebecca captures the heart of female friendship through Hannah, Marnie and Alicia’s lives. Despite being in third person POV, I felt entirely submerged in their thoughts and feelings as the years flew by. I felt the mirrored strain of adolescent friendship as it merges into adulthood, changing shape and never feeling quite the same. Hannah often came across as needing to put on a show, of never really showing weakness, and I was moved in the way she felt pressure as a second-generation immigrant. Alicia’s marriage troubles and the discussion of wanting children—and dealing with the coerced clashes—is something that I know a lot of twenty-somethings (and older) will see themselves reflected in. Likewise for Marnie, who found herself changing her entire life to give Sophie, her daughter, everything she needed, still wounded from the shame people made her feel, yet determined to never give up. On paper, the women shouldn’t be friends. They lived far apart now they were older, they didn’t always understand each other, and they had a tangled history—but Galentine’s Day was their saving grace, and in the end, isn’t that the beauty of female friendship? Something created for the celebration of friendship brought them together year after year, and in the end, it’s this tradition—this remedy—that forged an unbreakable sisterhood to last a lifetime, and what a wonder of a story Rebecca writes to capture this in all it’s delightful chaos and big-hearted joy.
Rating
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Happy Reading!
