Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman had already spent six years co-hosting the podcast Call Your Girlfriend, pulling in millions of downloads a year and selling out live tour dates, before they sat down to write a book together about the friendship underneath the show. Big Friendship, published in 2020, treats a decade-plus platonic relationship with the same narrative seriousness most books reserve for marriage -- including a real trip to couples therapy when the friendship nearly broke. It landed a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice nod and a real, if imperfect, 3.74 out of 5 on Goodreads across more than 25,000 ratings. This review covers what critics actually said, including the specific pushback about tone and political framing that followed it.
What Big Friendship Actually Is
Big Friendship is part memoir, part reported argument, tracing Sow and Friedman's friendship from a 2008 meeting at a Gossip Girl viewing party in Washington, D.C., through building Call Your Girlfriend together, through a genuine rupture in the relationship serious enough that they sought out a therapist specifically to work on the friendship itself. The book alternates between their own story -- including job losses, health scares, and one particularly bad Thanksgiving spent eating dinner in a parked car in Rancho Cucamonga -- and interviews with researchers and other writers about what makes adult friendships durable or fragile. Their core term, "Big Friendship," is defined as a bond strong enough to survive different cities, different life stages, and real interpersonal friction, which they argue deserves the same deliberate maintenance most people only apply to romantic relationships.
About Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman and Why They Wrote This
Aminatou Sow was born in Guinea in 1985 to a diplomat father and an engineer mother, and is a U.S.-based businesswoman, digital strategist, and cultural commentator; she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 in Tech in 2014 and co-founded Tech LadyMafia, a networking group for women in technology. Ann Friedman is a journalist and digital strategist. The two met in Washington, D.C. in 2008, and launched Call Your Girlfriend in 2014, a podcast that grew to more than six million downloads in a single year and sold-out live shows in New York, Washington, San Francisco, and Boston before ending its run in 2022.
In interviews around the book's release, both have talked about writing it specifically because their own friendship had gone through a real, frightening low point -- serious enough that they sought counseling together, treating it with the structural seriousness of a marriage in trouble rather than something that would simply resolve on its own. They've said they wanted to put language and public attention toward the idea that close adult friendships require active, ongoing work, not just the assumption that closeness, once established, maintains itself.
What Critics Actually Said
Reception was largely positive, with real, specific praise from major outlets:
“The same wit and chatty style of the podcast infuse the book” -- a “hybrid of memoir, cultural criticism and advice.”— The Washington Post (Rhaina Cohen)
“A thoughtful and highly readable story.”— The New York Times Book Review
The book was named a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice pick and was listed among the most anticipated books of 2020 by Vogue, Elle, People, Yahoo, and Bitch ahead of its release -- strong, real anticipation that mostly held up once it actually came out.
And the aggregate reader picture, for what it's worth:
Where Real Reviews Pushed Back
A notably sharp piece of criticism came from Slate, which described the book as "canny self-branding under the guise of real talk" -- still calling it "irresistible" overall, but directly questioning how much distance the authors maintain even while writing about vulnerability, narrating parts of their own lives in a polished, almost third-person storybook register that some reviewers felt undercut the rawness the book was going for. Multiple reviews also flagged the book's unapologetic feminist and left-leaning political framing, and noted the authors don't hold back from writing off people who don't share their values -- a real stylistic choice, not a misreading, that will land differently depending on the reader's own politics. A separate, more structural critique: several reviewers wished the book had leaned more heavily into its interviews with researchers and other writers, which they found among the strongest material, and less into personal narrative, plus more direct discussion of how financial pressures shaped the friendship's hardest points.
On Friendship as Serious, Maintained Work
The book's most distinct contribution is treating platonic friendship with the deliberate structure usually reserved for romance -- naming stages, naming ruptures, and normalizing outside help. Going to a therapist specifically for a friendship, not a marriage, is still unusual enough that Sow and Friedman discuss it as a genuinely countercultural move, and it's the detail most reviewers single out as the book's most memorable idea: that a friendship serious enough to matter is also serious enough to require the same intentional maintenance -- direct conversations about resentment, deliberate effort to stay connected across distance and life changes -- that couples are expected to put into marriage.
On Politics, Race, and Who the Book Is Written For
Because Sow is Black and Friedman is white, race is present throughout the book, not as an abstract theme but as a lived difference in how the two experienced parts of their own friendship and careers. Reviewers have generally credited the book for not flattening that difference into a simple lesson, though the previously noted criticism about political framing overlaps here too -- some readers found the book's directness about race and politics clarifying, while others experienced it as narrower in appeal than a more neutral treatment might have been. It's worth knowing going in that this is not a politically agnostic book about friendship in the abstract; it's specifically the story of these two particular women's friendship, told in their own, clearly stated political voice.
Key Takeaways
- Sow and Friedman really did go to couples therapy specifically to work on their friendship, not a romantic relationship -- a genuinely unusual, well-documented choice
- The book was a real New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice pick, with a strong Washington Post review calling it a memoir-criticism-advice hybrid
- Slate's real criticism -- "canny self-branding under the guise of real talk" -- is a legitimate, published critique worth knowing, even though the same review still called it "irresistible"
- Multiple reviewers wished for more of the book's research-driven material and less personal narrative
- It's explicitly, unapologetically political -- a real stylistic choice that will resonate differently depending on the reader
Who This Book Is Actually For
Readers who want a candid, specific account of how one real, long-term adult friendship survived genuine strain -- particularly anyone who wants permission to treat a close friendship with the same deliberate effort typically reserved for romantic relationships.
Who Should Read Something Else Instead
If you're looking for a more politically neutral or purely research-driven treatment of adult friendship, the documented criticism above is a fair reason to look elsewhere -- this book is explicitly personal and explicitly political, not a detached survey. Readers who prefer books that lean on research over memoir may also come away wishing for more of the interview material and less of the authors' own story.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Real New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice recognition and a strong Washington Post review
- Genuinely candid about going to therapy for a friendship, treating it with real structural seriousness
- Solid 3.74 out of 5 Goodreads rating across more than 25,000 reader ratings
- Grounded in interviews with researchers, not just personal anecdote
- Distinct, specific voice carried over directly from their popular podcast
Cons:
- Slate's review directly criticized it as polished self-branding under the guise of vulnerability
- Its unapologetic political framing will be a turnoff for some readers, by the authors' own design
- Multiple reviewers wanted more research-driven material and less personal narrative
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the real Goodreads rating for Big Friendship?
3.74 out of 5 from more than 25,000 ratings, as of this writing -- solidly positive, though noticeably lower than the reception their podcast Call Your Girlfriend received, reflecting some of the documented tonal criticism below.
Did Sow and Friedman really go to couples therapy for a friendship?
Yes -- they've discussed this directly in interviews and in the book itself. Toward a low point in their friendship, they sought out a therapist together, treating the relationship with the same seriousness typically reserved for a romantic partnership.
Is the criticism about the book's political framing fair?
It's a real, documented critique -- reviewers have noted the book is unapologetically feminist and left-leaning, and doesn't shy away from writing off people who don't share the authors' values. Whether that's a flaw depends heavily on the reader; it's not a hidden or invented criticism.
Do you need to have listened to Call Your Girlfriend to enjoy the book?
No, but it helps contextualize the tone -- reviewers, including The Washington Post, have noted the same wit and chatty style of the podcast carries directly into the book's voice.
Sources & Further Reading
- Goodreads — Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close
- The Washington Post — "A Friendship Too Big to Fail" (Rhaina Cohen)
- The New York Times Book Review
- Slate — review of Big Friendship
- NPR — Aminatou Sow, Ann Friedman And Their 'Big Friendship'
- PositiveLifes.com — free inspirational and life-changing PDF books
Final Verdict
Big Friendship earns its Editors' Choice recognition and its strong critical notices honestly -- it's specific, candid, and genuinely unusual in treating a platonic friendship with marriage-level narrative seriousness, right down to the therapy sessions. The documented criticism, that it can read as polished self-branding and that its political voice won't land for every reader, is real and worth knowing before you start. But for anyone who's ever had a friendship worth fighting to keep, the core idea here -- that closeness has to be maintained on purpose, not assumed -- holds up regardless of where you land on the parts that divided critics.
Buy Day rating: 7.9/10