“Take What You Can is so brilliantly, unbelievably good I have a burning in my heart…. Love is utterly bewildering, and nobody writes about it better than Naima Coster.”

—Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich and Wreck

 
 

From the New York Times bestselling author of What’s Mine and Yours, a rich, panoramic exploration of female friendship, class, new motherhood, and independence.

Val and Milly fell in love with France at the same time they fell in love with each other and became immediate best friends. Then, they bonded as the only Black students on a study-abroad trip. Now, they are in their thirties, each married and with a baby girl on the way. When Milly suggests Val move to New York to raise their daughters together after a decade apart, it’s a resounding yes. 

Despite their excitement, the pair secretly wonder if their friendship has always worked best as a trio. From that first trip to France, these two motherless daughters were taken under the wing of an older woman named Helene. She showered them with money, love and attention, and showed them the possibilities of a meaningful future. But without Helene, who are Milly and Val?

Milly, a successful influencer married to restaurant royalty, is occupied with her desire for independence. Val, a brilliant journalist, is struggling to write her first book and fit into her old friend’s new world. The realities of class and social capital, of strained marriages and the demands of motherhood, serve as constant reminders of how far apart they’ve grown. And no matter how much they try to avoid it, everything comes back to the rift that began all those years ago in France. What they’ve long tried to bury may finally destroy their sisterhood.

Weaving between Brooklyn brownstones and the glittering beaches of southern France, Take What You Can is a dazzling novel exploring what it means to be a mother when you have none, a sister without blood ties, and a woman in pursuit of the life she wants. With her signature sharply-observed prose, Coster illustrates what it means to be—and to stay—someone’s person through all phases of life.

 

Advance Praise for Take What You Can


“Take What You Can is so brilliantly, unbelievably good I have a burning in my heart from gulping it down too fast. It is somehow both taut and expansive—a literary feat I don’t understand—and it’s about the pleasure, grief, and devotion of daughters, mothers, lovers, wives. But mostly it’s about the coming together and coming apart of a singular epic friendship between two women. Love is utterly bewildering, and nobody writes about it better than Naima Coster.”—Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich and Wreck

“A magnificent book of emotional precision and startling insight, as awake to beauty and light as it is unafraid of the shadows, Take What You Can had me spellbound as I tore through it.”—Megha Majumdar, National Book Award finalist for A Guardian and a Thief and bestselling author of A Burning

“In Take What You Can, Naima Coster ensnares us in the whole-hearted, consuming and sometimes malefic love of Milly and Val, two friends with unresolved pasts and decidedly different approaches to their futures. A riveting, gut-churning, unputdownable examination of friendship that, at times makes you want to throw this book against a wall. In the best way. I have not loved to hate to love two fully fleshed out fictional women this much since I left Elena and Lila in Naples… A triumph of beautiful writing and unforgettable characters.”—Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming and Anita de Monte Laughs Last

“Take What You Can bravely tackles so much of modern life…. Naima Coster’s gripping third novel is about chosen family, exploring the complex dynamic—perhaps more intimate than those of spouses, or even parents and their children—between truly close friends.”—Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind and Entitlement

“Long after reading the last page of Naima Coster’s latest exploration of love, I still feel Milly and Val pulsing through my soul. Their story of a shaky friendship amid the disorienting chaos of new motherhood made me feel seen, understood, and literally breathless, gasping at the precise, sophisticated ways these women know how to cut each other, then doctor the wounds. Take What You Can is the kind of novel you’ll be hungry to share with your own friends, debating who’s right, who’s wrong, and who could use a hug the most.”—Dawnie Walton, author of The Final Revival of Opal and Nev