Elizabeth Day has found her niche as an astute, approachable social anthropologist, observing emotions and behaviour we are reluctant to discuss – such as failure – and draining them of their stigma. Her new book tackles the subject of friendship, which she points out has been far less analysed than romantic relationships. Her honesty and her ability to listen make her an endearing narrator and charming interviewer.

She examines why friendship has always been so important to her. Admirers of her previous book, How to Fail, will recall that her childhood involved a stint at a Belfast boarding school where she was bullied, an experience she touches on again here. As well as making one feel defensive of her (I experienced a similar shaming over a school photo), it explains her drive to make friends. There is much comfort in being loved when you have been inexplicably treated badly as a child.

Many one-time outsiders develop a hyper-acute desire to help others, and so it is with Day. But she acknowledges that she must not spread herself too thinly by having a vast number of friends and being unable to fulfil their, or her own, requirements. She recognises that friends need nurturing and quality time. We learn how boundaries are vitally important – one has to make room for those one loves the most, otherwise one is constantly irked by feeling obliged to be there for less close friends – and how overlooking repeated bad behaviour is not the magnanimous, harmless act it may seem.

Day writes movingly about her harrowing miscarriage. Some trauma victims will identify with the way she tried to carry on without making time to grieve. Many people feel guilty if they voice their needs or can’t perform, whether at work, at home or socially. One of Day’s erstwhile friends who lashes out is very different from Day’s best friend Emma, whom she met at university. Yet Day also understands that fallings out often come from pain and confusion, misunderstanding or mixed messages. Far too nobly, she blames herself for friendships that have ended. Her account of being ghosted by a friend is bizarre. She castigates herself; but I wonder if the friend was jealous of Day’s beauty and success. The tragedy is that honesty from the ghoster would have resolved miscommunication at an early stage.

Day gets to the heart of the dynamics of friendship. She is clearly a very giving person; her gratitude for the emotional support she has received from her closest friends is apparent, and it’s obvious from her writing and podcasts that she reciprocates. This is a warm exploration of the joys of friendship:  self-deprecating, insightful and engrossing.

The music writer Harriet Gibsone’s Is This OK? is also about bonds, but the destructive, imaginary ones confected through the internet when stalking crushes or envying their admirers. When young, Gibsone was wild and outrageous and her frenetic behaviour (incessant stalking, insecurity, seeing all women as competition, admiring cruel, gonzo writing, being crazily obsessional, only being interested in obscure bands) is sad rather than entertaining, despite the wisecracking.

For most of the book, there is no analysis of her actions. Each time she seems to be leading up to self-insight she hits us with an anecdote about winning best-looking 11th grader, or flashing her breasts at a party, or landing another cool guy and stalking his female followers online. Her life was about pretending to be someone she wasn’t. I would have liked her thoughts on her insecurity and the donning of fake personae. There were many times she clearly suffered – from eating disorders, the death of an ex and heartbreak. I cringed when she stole Amy Winehouse’s foundation and an interviewee’s shades, and wished that her friends’ bewilderment at her behaviour had alerted her to seek professional help back then.

In the last third of the book she finds love and stability, thank goodness, and gets help for her internet addiction. Whether she suffers from borderline personality disorder, bipolarism or OCD, I hope she achieves some of Day’s calm self-acceptance. Being part of the self-consciously cool music world beyond one’s teens must be stressful for someone  riddled by self-doubt, and I’m relieved Gibsone found sanctuary in a less shallow world.