Friends and Strangers captures the conflicting emotions of parenthood with palpable sympathy ... We’ve seen this scenario played for satire and terror, but Sullivan approaches her story with deep-seated compassion for both sides ... With its carefully drawn scenes of home life and its focus on the trials of motherhood and infertility, Friends and Strangers will be shelved as domestic fiction. But it’s as much a story about money and politics. Everywhere in the background we can detect the wreckage of an economy no longer capable of sustaining middle-class life ... But if Sullivan’s vision of this country sounds cynical, her faith in individuals remains profound. There’s a rare degree of emotional maturity in Friends and Strangers, a willingness to resist demonizing any of the players, a commitment to exploring the demands of family with the deliberate care such complex relations require. Once again, Sullivan has shown herself to be one of the wisest and least pretentious chroniclers of modern life. Every hard-won insight here is offered up with such casual grace.

At the heart of Friends and Strangers is the complex dynamic that’s familiar to anyone who has been on either the providing or receiving end of professional child care. But drawn by Sullivan’s deft hand, the relationship feels authentic and richly textured ... The novel branches off in myriad directions, some more fruitful than others ... Elisabeth’s voice takes over the narrative, and is so consistently, monotonically disdainful that one wishes less time could be devoted to these extraneous stories and more to the endlessly complicated—and ultimately doomed—relationship between her and Sam, which is ripe with unexplored fodder ... Sam’s plight is the most fully realized and the most compelling ... Sam takes us along for an intriguing ride, showing what it’s like to inhabit someone else’s space and care for someone else’s child, to be pulled by the siren song of other people’s lives—their trappings ... it’s in these quiet, humanizing scenes, rather than in the exploration of broader existential questions or class dynamics, that Sullivan’s novel comes to life. Friends and Strangers is a big novel with big ideas. Sullivan sets out to cover a lot of terrain, from systemic inequality and the true definition of privilege to the bizarre social doctrine of dorm life and the politics of suburban book clubs. But where this novel shines brightest is in her patchwork of spot on minutiae, her honest rendering of what happens behind closed doors.

Best-selling novelist Sullivan humanizes the roadblocks to successful relationships and the modern tools that help or hinder those bonds—career networking, in vitro fertilization, social media, social justice

... worthy but flawed ... Sam is a wonderful authorial creation, endearing and flawed and complicated in recognizably human and compelling ways. Sullivan exquisitely captures the intoxication of young love, the way that romantic relationships offer a sense of expansive promise even as they threaten to constrict us, the liminal state between childhood and adulthood inhabited by college students. She deftly depicts Sam's friendships with her wealthy, spoiled, but funny and smart roommate, Isabella, and her fellow dining hall workers ... giving half the book to Elizabeth was a mistake ... Spending time in her head can be irritating, tedious, and frustrating. She isn’t a compellingly unlikable person—her ethical and moral deficiencies aren’t especially interesting—and many of her missteps and misdeeds feel motivated by the demands of plot rather than character ... Sullivan’s style is unfussy and straightforward; no fashionable metafiction, no authorial flourishes or showy allusions for her. Sincere, earnest, and well-meaning, intermittently funny and always smart, Friends and Strangers is ultimately a bit disappointing.

It’s a lot, it moves slowly, and Sullivan’s approach to social issues is earnest and predictable ... a bit toothless ... Richly textured relationships have been Sullivan’s strength since her debut, and even the minor characters in the large cast of 'friends and strangers' assembled here show her sure hand.

Sullivan successfully peels away the layers of domestic bonds, motherhood, friendship, class, and privilege. Although it’s disguised as a 'small book,' lacking a big concept, I was riveted by the intimacy Sullivan presents in the lives of the two main characters, Elisabeth and Sam, and found the novel utterly absorbing ... At its heart, Friends and Strangers is an engrossing story about power dynamics within our closest relationships, especially female friendship ... Sullivan surrounds Elisabeth and Sam with a delightful, entertaining, and often moving cast of characters who bring humor, depth, and needed perspective to each woman’s story ... a breezy literary choice to enjoy while sitting by the pool, but it has enough heft for book clubs to sink their teeth into, too.

... readers should jettison any expectation they have for the book--fish-out-of-water story, manipulative-nanny chiller, send-up of campus culture. J. Courtney Sullivan's fifth novel offers something more interesting ... Sullivan massages her themes in scenes as barbed as they are funny, by way of characters as infuriating as they are heartbreaking.

... quietly perceptive ... Sullivan does a fine job depicting Elisabeth’s and Sam’s respective dilemmas ... well-drawn supporting characters ... The tension sometimes wanes, but Friends and Strangers is at its best when Sullivan emphasizes the widening class difference in America between people who can afford $46 peony-scented hand soaps and those worried about meeting basic needs. Sullivan dares to further complicate her narrative by showing that financial security doesn’t guarantee happiness. The result is a poignant look at the biases of modern society.

Sullivan...writes with empathy for her characters even as she reveals their flaws and shortcomings. And while the story she tells focuses primarily on two women from different backgrounds and at different stages of life, it also illuminates broader issues about money, privilege, and class; marriage, family, and friendship; and the dueling demands of career and domesticity with which many women struggle ... This perceptive novel about a complex friendship between two women resonates as broadly as it does deeply.

Sullivan...once again displays her keen observation skills with this insightful examination of two women at very different places in their lives. With well-developed, very real-feeling characters the story moves seamlessly from one perspective to the other. Friends and Strangers is a deeply personal yet profound exploration of motherhood, friendships, and the role of privilege in determining how we shape our lives.

Sullivan’s intimate, incisive latest...explores the evolving friendship between a new mother and her babysitter ... Observations on domestic and social interactions add weight to Sullivan’s inquiry into Elisabeth and Sam’s interior lives, showing where the cracks seep into their friendship. Readers will be captivated by Sullivan’s authentic portrait of modern motherhood.