{"id":1090,"date":"2026-04-09T18:08:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tadoley.com\/?p=1090"},"modified":"2026-04-09T18:08:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:08:00","slug":"a-gripping-debut-novel-with-an-intense-female-friendship-at-its-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tadoley.com\/?p=1090","title":{"rendered":"A Gripping Debut Novel with an Intense Female Friendship at Its Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.anothermag.com\/design-living\/17114\/stephanie-wambugu-interview-lonely-crowds-debut-novel-hachette?utm_source=Linkamp;utm_medium=Linkamp;utm_campaign=RSSFeedamp;utm_term=a-gripping-debut-novel-with-an-intense-female-friendship-at-its-centre\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.anothermag.com\/786\/azure\/another-prod\/470\/2\/472206.jpg\" alt=\"Stephanie Wambugu\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>Friendship and obsession are at the core of <strong>Stephanie Wambugu<\/strong>\u2019s debut novel, <strong>Lonely Crowds<\/strong>. The book\u2019s protagonist and narrator, Ruth, becomes almost instantaneously bound to Maria upon their first encounter as little girls, and through the book, we see this relationship and their selfhoods evolve. First in the suffocating classrooms of the Catholic school they attend, then through their rarefied liberal arts education at university, and finally in thehellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.anothermag.com\/design-living\/17114\/stephanie-wambugu-interview-lonely-crowds-debut-novel-hachette?utm_source=Linkutm_medium=Linkutm_campaign=RSSFeedutm_term=a-gripping-debut-novel-with-an-intense-female-friendship-at-its-centre\">read more raquo;<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friendship and obsession are at the core of Stephanie Wambugu\u2019s debut novel, Lonely Crowds. The book\u2019s protagonist and narrator, Ruth, becomes almost instantaneously bound to Maria upon their first encounter as little girls, and through the book, we see this&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tadoley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tadoley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tadoley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tadoley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tadoley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tadoley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tadoley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tadoley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tadoley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tadoley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}