Billy No-Mates

LoveReading Says

Billy No-Mates must have been a difficult book to title, because although Max Dickins begins his masculinity journey with the realisation that he is struggling to name a best man for his wedding, this book is about so much more than maintaining male friendships. It's nothing short of a forensic exploration of what it is to be a bloke. The combination of high-quality comedic writing layered on top of methodical research with therapists, academics and so on (the appendix notes are 30 pages long) is brilliantly engaging.

Regardless of the expert opinions researched and referenced throughout, no one knows the real Max better than his soon-to-be fiancé Naomi of course, and some of the discourse and dialogue between the pair are the best moments in the book. By the time we get to his proposal (genius!), then wedding and his creative solution to the best man problem, Dickins has taken us on a bit of a roller-coaster covering everything from being a schoolboy, to male banter, to toxic masculinity, and to – a new one for me – ‘emotional labour’ (basically, the effort required to make a relationship work). Note to self...

In addition to the humour, the expertise, the personal memoir and the romantic storyline there is a very serious and timely point to this book – which is how to avoid drifting towards loneliness, a significant contributor to the alarming statistics around male suicide. In his epilogue, Dickins muses whether, after mental and physical health, social health might be the last male taboo for men. Perhaps it is a taboo, or perhaps it’s something men don’t necessarily even think about. Billy No-Mates did a brilliant job of making me do so and gave me a lot of laughs along the way.

Greg Hackett

Find This Book In