Isn’t It Nice We Both Hate the Same Things Book Review Friendship in Your Thirties Explained

Isn't It Nice We Both Hate The Same Things by Jessica Seaborn Book Review | Silk & Sentences | Danielle Robinson - Literary Reviewer + Writer + Lover of Pretty Things + Overthinker

Two star review for Isn't It Nice We Both Hate the Same Things by Jessica Seaborn

Friendship has a way of feeling permanent right up until the moment it isn’t.

Jessica Seaborn’s Isn’t It Nice We Both Hate the Same Things leans directly into that quiet, destabilising shift, the one that happens not with a dramatic falling out, but with distance, life changes, and the slow realisation that the people who once felt central are no longer quite within reach. It’s a novel that understands something many books skim past: losing your place in a social world can feel just as disorienting as losing a relationship.

At the centre is Charlie, a prime-time radio producer in her early thirties whose life fractures after she leaves her husband. The separation doesn’t just end a marriage, it also dismantles her entire friendship network. The group she once belonged to closes ranks, and she finds herself on the outside, navigating awkward encounters, unread messages, and the peculiar loneliness of still technically knowing people who are no longer yours.

What follows isn't a reinvention narrative in the glossy sense. Charlie doesn’t step neatly into a new life. Instead, she tries (sometimes desperately, sometimes awkwardly) to build one. There are book clubs, pub crawls, and team sports, and the effort is almost painfully recognisable. There’s a kind of vulnerability in trying to make friends as an adult, and Seaborn captures it without softening the edges. The small talk, the second-guessing, the constant internal calculation of whether you’re coming across as too much or not enough, believe me, it’s all here, observed with a sharp, often uncomfortable clarity.

Running alongside this is Charlie’s relationship with her best friend, Genevieve, which carries the emotional weight of the novel. Their drift is subtle rather than explosive, shaped by different life trajectories rather than a single moment of rupture. That quiet divergence lands harder than conflict ever could, and it asks a difficult question: what happens when someone who has always been part of your sense of self begins to move on without you?

Seaborn’s strength lies in her willingness to let Charlie be flawed. She's not always likeable, she avoids confrontation, misreads situations, and often makes her own life harder than it needs to be. There are moments where you want to shake her, but there are also moments where you recognise her entirely. This isn’t a novel interested in presenting a polished version of growth; it’s interested in the mess of it.

Thematically, the book sits firmly in the space of adult recalibration. It’s about the collapse of assumed structures, particularly the ideas that friendships will naturally endure, that your social identity is stable, and that proximity equals closeness. In its place, Seaborn offers something more ultimately more honest: that connection requires effort, and not every relationship is built to survive change.

There’s also an undercurrent of grief woven through the story, particularly in Charlie’s return to her childhood home for the anniversary of her father’s death. It broadens the novel’s scope beyond friendship alone, positioning loss as something that shapes how we hold onto people, how we avoid difficult conversations, and how we sometimes choose distance over discomfort.

What makes the novel resonate isn't its' plot, but it's recognition of a very specific emotional experience, and the embarrassment of loneliness in a stage of life where you’re expected to have everything settled. It captures that dissonance between how life looks from the outside and how it feels from within.

For readers drawn to Dolly Alderton or Zoë Foster Blake, this sits comfortably alongside those works, though it leans slightly more into introspection than charm. It’s witty without being flippant, and reflective without becoming heavy-handed.

If anything, Isn’t It Nice We Both Hate the Same Things works best when read as a mirror rather than an escape. It doesn’t offer easy answers or perfectly resolved relationships. Instead, it leaves you with a quieter, consideration: not how many people you have around you, but who you'd call, and who'd actually come.

Book Details

Title — Author Isn’t It Nice We Both Hate the Same Things — Jessica Seaborn

Paperback ISBN: 978-1761340109 (Penguin Random House Australia edition)

Hardcover ISBN: Not currently listed / may vary by region and retailer

eBook ISBN: 978-1761340116

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Australian Fiction, Friendship Fiction, Literary-Commercial Fiction

Tropes / Literary Threads: Adult friendship; friendship breakup; post-divorce social fallout; female friendship; loneliness in your thirties; found connection; emotional avoidance; grief and loss; self-sabotage; millennial womanhood; awkward social encounters; identity crisis; starting over; drifting friendships; platonic love; interpersonal communication breakdown; workplace instability; emotional immaturity; quality vs quantity in relationships; “who would actually turn up for you?”

Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

Series: Standalone

Formats Available: Paperback, eBook, Audiobook

Audiobook Narrator: Marny Kennedy

Release Date: August 5, 2025

Page Count: Approx. 432 pages

Awards & Recognition: Featured by ABC Australia; highly anticipated Australian commercial fiction release; praised for its portrayal of adult friendship and loneliness; compared to works by Dolly Alderton and Zoë Foster Blake

Setting: Contemporary Australia, primarily Sydney with references to regional Queensland

Comparable Titles: Everything I Know About Love — Dolly Alderton; Really Good, Actually — Monica Heisey; Your Friend and Mine — Jessica Dettmann; The Wrong Girl — Zoë Foster Blake

Themes: Adult loneliness; friendship as identity; social fallout after divorce; emotional avoidance; grief; female companionship; reinvention in your thirties; vulnerability and belonging; quality over quantity in relationships

Critical Reception: Praised for its relatable exploration of friendship and flawed female protagonist, emotional honesty, humour, and contemporary social observations. Some criticism directed toward the frustrating nature of the protagonist, lack of strong sense of place, and repetitive communication conflicts

Where to Buy (Australia): Available via Amazon AU, Booktopia, Dymocks, QBD Books, Audible Australia, and independent bookstores across Australia

Silk & Sentences | Danielle Robinson - Literary Critic, Writer, Interior Curator

Danielle Robinson is a literary critic, writer, and interior curator whose work explores the relationship between literature, home, and heritage through a reflective lens. Holding a double degree in philosophy and theology, she brings academic rigour to her writing alongside a cultivated, deeply aesthetic sensibility. Danielle is an internationally published, multi-award-winning makeup artist and former fashion stylist and interior stager, with over 30 years’ experience shaping visual and cultural spaces. She reads widely and rigorously, reviewing more than 200 books each year as both an ARC reader and commissioned critic. Through her platform and podcast, Silk & Sentences, she considers literature not simply as text, but as atmosphere—something that informs the way we live, curate, and remember. She writes from her meticulously curated rural Queensland home, where she lives with Alex, her husband of 33 years, her dog, Oscar, and surrounded by family & close friends at every opportunity.