The Friendship Cure: A Manifesto for Reconnecting in the Modern World

Australian-British journalist Leaver sings the praises of friendship in this combination encomium, memoir, and pop psychology book. Though the title primes the reader to expect strategies for combating isolation, few are offered; this is actually a lengthy yet shallow exploration of what friendship looks and feels like in 2018. After a lighthearted tour through types, venues, and experiences of friendships (between men, between women, between men and women, online, at work, when depressed, when they’re ending)—which may alienate some readers with its uncritical embrace of evolutionary psychology, or the assumption that the reader is straight and cisgender—come two chapters about the prevalence of loneliness and the health benefits of friendship, and a single page of vague prescriptions (“we need an aggressive, worldwide campaign of greater kindness and a dramatic revamp of our values as a human race”). A straightforward memoir whose narrator experiences change between the first and last pages might have had more emotional weight; more idiosyncratic, less general insights might have had more value to the reader interested in friendship. But this combination of observations, anecdotes, and quotes from experts that circle the same point that friendship is important feels repetitive, static, and without anything truly new. Agent: Robyn Drury, Diane Banks Associates Ltd. (Oct.)