Sloane and Myles are happily married. Or are they? When Sloane discovers Myles’ infidelity she is devastated. She has so much going on in her life, but it feels like everything has fallen apart. Can she rebuild her life without Myles?

Rating:  ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Genre:  women’s lit, fiction
Pros:  coffee shop scene, empowering message
Cons:  pacing

I received a free ARC of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an unbiased review.

I want to start this review off by saying that most of the summaries and blurbs you will read for this book will not really tell you what it is. The summaries make it sound like the only thing happening in the book is Sloane’s relationship troubles and the blurbs call this a romance. Neither are accurate.

Sloane has a full life outside of her marriage. She has friends, a successful business, and a loving father, all of which we get to experience in this book. But her marriage, something Sloane counts on in her life, is not what she believes it to be. And unfortunately, the man she loves isn’t who she thought he was.

No, We Can’t Be Friends is a painfully accurate portrayal of the demise of a marriage due to infidelity. As someone who has been in Sloane’s place I found it both difficult to read and extremely validating.

The author speaks through her characters to make sure the reader knows who exactly is in the wrong and why Sloane is in no way at fault for her husband’s philandering. Sloane is better off without Myles and Ranald makes sure we know it without a doubt.

One particular part of this book that I have to praise is the portrayal of gaslighting manipulation. When Sloane confronts Myles he goes on the offense and leaves her feeling like everything is her fault and she can’t trust her own knowledge and feelings.

I also really loved the “women supporting women” aspect of this story.

The only thing I didn’t like was the pacing. I felt like the part of the story where Sloane is trying to make her marriage work took up too much of the novel, and the part where she is on her own again not enough. All the scenes before she confronts Myles seem to drag, possibly because we already know from the beginning what is coming and are not blindsided the way Sloane is.

If you are a fan of women’s fiction or just someone who has been through what Sloane has and wants to see their experience laid out in a novel, this book is for you.