Book Review: With Friends Like You by Amy Chozick — New Motherhood and a Twist You Won’t See Coming

Prose Society with Eli Rallo

In this episode of Prose Society with Eli Rallo, the host dives into a passionate book review of Amy Chozick's debut novel 'With Friends Lik

Key takeaways

• The novel masterfully captures the emotional turbulence of first-time motherhood amid high-pressure social environments.
• Chozick's narrative reflects a microcosm of Manhattan's image-conscious culture, blending capitalism with personal identity struggles.

Main topics

• New motherhood and emotional isolation
• Elite Manhattan social dynamics

Notable quotes

I was the best reader when I was in high school. That being said, it reminded me not of books that I liked to read in high school, but how I felt when I read books in high school.

Conclusion

Eli Rallo concludes with heartfelt praise for Amy Chozick's debut novel, celebrating its emotional depth,

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:07) Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Pro Society. We're in the home studio. Let me hear it for the home studio. It's day one of the home studio. Okay, so you're going to have to give some grace as we build up a very robust studio. I asked iHeart, I was like, listen, like, I want to build an at-home replica, a Barcelona wine bar. And they were like, that's just not going to happen at this time, but maybe in the future. So unfortunately, we don't have an at-home replica of Barcelona wine bar. But Fingers crossed that maybe that's where things will trend. As of right now, we've actually put in a lot of work, even though it probably doesn't look like it. What I'm picturing, if you were wondering, even though you might not be watching this, if you're listening, like I'll paint the scene for you. We have this beautiful table in the center here. I have a stack of books that kind of gave my energy for the day and I plan to switch them out based on my energy. Right now we have Sense and Sensibility. No, we don't. We have Persuasion by Jane Austen. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, Chanel, Prada, and Dior, which are just little coffee table books. And then we have my book. I hope Eden reads this on a little book stand and she'll kind of be anchored here for now. So this is kind of the vibe. We have two chairs, but you can only see one right now. Thank you, West Elm. They're very comfy. And I have a weighted Lola blanket on my lap, which is just delicious. for the energy. This is not sponsored by Lola, but like if they're wanting to roll into the DMs, we are available and open for collaboration. This is a great little room. I have big plans to put wallpaper behind me, like a beautiful print, get some booms for the mic and potentially also a mic stand because if you're watching, you might see that I'm holding onto the mic, but that's okay. We're just going to get some like hand and wrist mobility in today. This is our book review episode. It's very exciting. This is the episode every single month where we're going to break down our monthly book pick and I'm going to give you guys my review. Now, I want to start this out by saying I'm always going to like the book because I chose it to share with a lot of people. However, I do have analytical thoughts and I do have things to say. If you're new here, our first book pick was With Friends Like You by Amy Chozek. She's a debut fiction writer. She's a journalist. She had a very illustrious career specifically in political reporting and then made an even bigger name for herself doing features on really controversial and high profile women such as Stormy Daniels, Elizabeth Holmes, Lauren Bezos. I almost forgot her name for a sec. Lauren Bezos. She's done all those profiles and she's always wanted to write. fiction. So this is her debut fiction novel. It's amazing. I love it. And I'm really excited to talk about it today. If you have not read the book, but you plan to, this will contain spoilers. I don't know about you guys. Spoilers don't bother me. I feel like I'm very anomalous in that. But like when something happens, like when there's like a big TV show or something, did I lose my necklace? I knew this was happening the whole time. It broke. What does that mean? Can you look up what that means? Is that a bad omen? Okay, so we're releasing chakras, energy, all the vibes. I kept feeling like my necklace was like not on me anymore. And I was like playing with it in the beginning. I was like, don't play with it. Like my mom's going to watch this and she's going to be like, you're fidgeting. I'm such a fidgeter. Like I always need to kind of be moving. Anyways, back to what I was saying. We are going to do the book review today. I'm going to give you my thoughts on this book. If you don't want it spoiled, don't listen to this. But spoilers don't bother me. Whenever something happens like... The Bachelor or whatever, and I'm behind and people are like, don't spoil it. I kind of like knowing who wins because then I can watch it with that in mind. Does that make me insane? I don't know, but I've never minded spoilers very much. So they don't necessarily bother me. And that's just me. But if they bother you, don't watch this because you're going to get them. Okay, for starters, how are we doing? This is a call and response. Like tell me how you're doing or if you don't want to tell me out loud because that's weird. I don't know. I talk to myself. I don't know if you guys do. You can just feel free to like ruminate a little bit on how you're doing. I'm gonna tell you how I'm doing. I'm great. I love this book. I'm really amped to talk about it today. I've seen a lot of feedback that you guys feel like maybe the podcast you wanted it to be more book focused or less book focused. I'm doing my best to please everyone, which I know is impossible and I can't do. But in my... In my mind, if I can give you guys a little bit of books, but also a little bit of everything else that widens the scope of people that could be listening, and maybe will inspire more people to read, which is the goal of all of this anyways. So that's what's going on. And this is the home studio and we're slowly going to make it work. I wanted to start by saying I'm so glad you guys liked this book. I saw so much positive feedback about the first selection and... At the end of this episode, I'm going to announce the second book, which is a lot different than our first book, but is a book that I freaking loved. And I'm so excited to tell you guys about. So yeah, that's the vibes with the books. I'm settling into our new house. We have this beautiful home studio space, which is so exciting. I have spent a lot of time this August in Houston, and it's been really nice just getting settled. In September, I'll be in New York. I'll be in Vegas. We're going to visit our honeymoon friends that we made on our honeymoon. How cute is that? Like, isn't that just the kind of thing that you picture? Like, no, it's not even the kind of thing that you picture. My parents like have all of these couple friends and they're like, oh, we met them here. We met them here. We met them in the school drop-off line. We met them because it's always my dad being crazy. Like we met them because we were doing a paddleboard race around the entire island of Manhattan. And I'm like. Okay. Side quest alert. These people we met on our honeymoon and I'm like, how cute that our kids will get to grow up like knowing them. I mean, I don't know if that's a stretch, but like, I feel like it's not. I love them. I'm obsessed with them. We're going to visit them in Nantucket. If influencers are just kidding. We're not going there. We're not going there. This is not a culture catch up. Anyways, going to have kind of an interesting September, lots of travel. It'll be great, but let's get into the book, shall we? Because that's why you're here. Obviously, you guys know that I love this book because I chose it, because I wanted to highlight it, because I wanted to highlight Amy. Like when I picked it up, it was unlike anything I've read in a really, really long time. That being said, it reminded me not of books that I liked to read in high school, but how I felt when I read books in high school. Please walk with me. I was the best reader. In my lifetime, I've been the best reader when I was in high school. I should be surprising to nobody that I wasn't exactly like a popular girl. That wasn't like really my thing. But I definitely had friends. I had a good community. I enjoyed high school. It was fine. I feel like I was, I feel like everything in time, like I enjoyed it, but I wasn't like, I can't go to college. I don't want to graduate. But I wasn't like, yes, we got to beat the school. Get out. Fuck high school. I was kind of in the middle where I was like. this served its purpose and I liked the four years and like I'm ready to move on. But I wasn't like super social. I was actually really afraid of alcohol when I was in high school, which is interesting. It was just my anxiety and my OCD told me like, I would throw up, I would get sick. You guys know I'm a metaphobic. I was really worried about like bucking the system and authority, which is so strange because I feel like now I'm like so buck the system vibes. But back then I was like more of a rule follower. So I was like... the town's DD. Like everyone knew that I would always DD my high school boyfriend, my friends. I would literally always drive. And I didn't really like going to parties. And when I did get invited to them, I'd probably just like drop people off like dead ass. And like sometimes I would stay and sometimes not. It wasn't until the very, very, very, very end of high school that I even drank alcohol. And it was because my parents were like, hey, like you need to try this before you go to college. So you don't like if you want to do it. Because I was always like, I'll do it when I get to college. My parents were like, you should probably like try this in this like, you know, safety of our own home. Anyways. I just much preferred like sitting around and reading and I read so much when I was in high school because I just had the privilege of time. Like I didn't have a ton of other stuff going on. Like I did the drama club, but you know, like that ends at six. Like I would literally read all night. Like I loved reading in high school and I feel like I read a lot more thrillers and I wouldn't. necessarily consider this a thriller, but it definitely is thriller adjacent. And reading it reminded me of like laying in my bed in high school and like racing through a book and how excited that made me and how much I loved it then. I really used to love thrillers and this is more of like a psychological thriller, but it definitely fits that vein. I don't usually rank books and I'm not going to be ranking them here either because I feel like it's implied that I like the books that I pick. And... Also, like, I don't, I don't know. I don't do Goodreads. I just feel like for me, so much of my life is cued into social media. even reading obviously is now something I do for my job, but I like to keep it for myself in the sense that like, I don't want to be posting reviews on Goodreads. Like I'll talk about my books here, but reading, I don't want to feel like I have to like plug into Goodreads and that's no shade on Goodreads. I think it's an amazing, amazing space and resource for readers and for writers. I love it. I think it's awesome. Same with Storygraph, all that. They're all fab. I just use this app called, I think it's called Reading List. It's literally the like worst app in terms of like, whoever coded it like did a bad job. Like it's like not a cute app. You just like manually enter the