Among Friends by Hal Ebbott

 Saturday, Oct. 25, 2026--San Antonio

Among Friends by Hal Ebbott has been named a top book of 2025 by NPR.  It is about the strain of time on relationships--particularly about a 25-year friendship between two college buddies (whose friendship seems almost closer to a gay relationship than a normal male/male friendship), between each of them and his wife (because the marriages have lasted long enough to move from lust and excitement to routine and because they have learned more about each other over time including things that are not appealing), and about the relationship between one of the couples and their 16-year-old daughter (when the husband and wife have differences of opinion on how to handle a disturbing event that has happened to her).  The book reminded me of Normal People because both are rather slow-moving stories that share certain topics--class differences and popularity differences, for instance.  Normal People is better written.  I found myself constantly having to figure out what was happening when and between whom because there would be complete changes between paragraphs with no double spacing or the placing of a printed divider to even let me know the change was taking place.  Many times, I had to go back and reread after going through one of these changes to reset my mind once I knew was happening.  But I can see Among Friends being turned into as good a film as Normal People was.  The story deserves a rating of 4 stars or higher, but because of awkward, non-evident transitions in the writing, I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.