Adult friendship is hard.

This book makes it better.

We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships
Written and illustrated by Kat Vellos

“There is so much to love about this handbook.”
— BookLife starred review, Editor’s Pick⚡️

“Looking to improve the quality of your relationships? Let Kat Vellos be your expert guide.”
— Casper ter Kuile, author of The Power of Ritual

“Kat Vellos is the Queen of Friendship. Her words offer inspiration to all of us to slow down, deepen our connections, make new friends wherever we go, and find belonging in the digital age.”
— Adam Smiley Poswolsky, Author of Friendship in the Age of Loneliness 

“This book is one that I am definitely going to recommend to clients when they struggle to make new friends or believe that those days are over. This book is uplifting, hopeful, and action-oriented. It's a revelation!”
— Lisa Orbe-Austin, Psychologist, author of Own Your Greatness

“This book should be mandatory reading for all adults!
— Monica DiChristina, therapist and host of the Still Becoming podcast

Friendship shouldn’t be a punchline

I get it. Adult friendship is hard (even when we’re not in a freakin’ pandemic). But it doesn’t have to be.

We Should Get Together is the handbook for anyone who’s ready for better friendships, now.

We’ll unpack the four biggest challenges that adults face when trying to make or maintain friendships during adulthood, and I’ll give you the tools to overcome them with:

  • Expert research

  • Relatable non-cringey stories

  • Practical tips and inspiring action steps

  • 60 illustrations

  • 55 suggested activities

  • A book club discussion guide

  • 300+ conversation starters

We Should Get Together is the perfect book for anyone who wants to have dedicated, life-enriching friends, and who wants to be that kind of friend, too.

I’ll read it to you

You’re only 5 hours and 17 minutes away from a world of better friendships. Listen to the audiobook while you're walking the dog, cooking, doing dishes, or exercising.

What the experts say

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Available everywhere books are sold

Physical books: Order online
Mmmm, paper. I suggest ordering physical copies via my affiliate links all over this website which will take you to Amazon or Bookshop. When you buy via affiliate links, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. Thanks for your support!

Physical books: Buy it in person
Walk into your favorite local bookstore, and ask them to order it for you. Whether you’re in Brooklyn, Berlin, or Buenos Aires, they can get it for you.

Ebooks: I recommend ordering ebooks directly from me. When you buy directly from creators like me, I get to keep 100% of the sale price. You can also get it on most major ebook stores like Kindle.

Audiobook: We Should Get Together is available on Audible, narrated by me.

Reviews: Please post reviews on Amazon or Goodreads. We all go there to read reviews even if when we intend to shop elsewhere, amirite? If you post a review on Amazon, just be sure to mention that you bought the book elsewhere so they don’t take down your review when they notice the book’s not in your order history because that’s a thing that can happen.

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Fans around the world

Professional Reviews

Professional Review from Publisher’s Weekly BookLife division

“Vellos, a user experience designer and founder of the discussion series Better Than Small Talk, brings her social know-how to the masses with her marvelous debut handbook on adult friendship. After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area and having a tough time making long-term, quality friends, Vellos decided to study experiences of friendship. In interviews, discussions, and surveys, she found that most people reported a feeling she calls platonic longing. Vellos attributes this longing to the quest for friendship being stymied by frequent moves, busyness, other relationship commitments, and “antisocial media.” She is a firm believer that vulnerability and hard work are the keys to overcoming these obstacles and building quality connections, and her book lays out strategies for cultivating friendships both new and old.

There is so much to love about this handbook. Vellos’s writing is easy and conversational; she shares stories of cooking with housemates and neighbors as if chatting with the reader over a meal. Such anecdotes are seamlessly accompanied by robust research that helps readers understand the value of relationships in measurable ways. At the end of each chapter, a “Try it” section is filled with activities, journal prompts, and more invitations to dig deeper. Vellos’s own charming drawings complement the text.

Vellos powerfully and personally challenges the reader. Her tips are more like life coaching sessions, pushing her audience to defy awkwardness and ask thoughtful questions. Those reading this book to improve their friendships may end up improving themselves as well. The only limitation is that Vellos’s advice is focused on face-to-face relationships in urban environments, though much of it is applicable in other situations. If every person who reads this book takes it to heart, there will be a lot more friendship in the world.

Takeaway: This tender, practical handbook will help lonely millennials, isolated elders, the recently heartbroken, and anyone else eager for more and better friendships.

Great for fans of Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, Brené Brown, Mari Andrew.”

— BookLife, Starred review, Editor's pick ⚡️

“...The sheer amount of energy and inventiveness on display in these pages, engagingly written and illustrated by the author, will give even the most jaded some hope for more friendships in the future. A heartfelt and winningly optimistic guide to understanding—and finding more—friendship.”


— Kirkus Reviews


Out in the wild

You can read it on a plane, you can read it on a train, you can read it anywhere except out in the rain. If you’re in the rain, listen to the audiobook instead.

Got a cute photo of you with the book? Post it on Instagram and tag me @katvellos_author

We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships

Book Identifier Numbers and Editorial Detail


We Should Get Together
ISBN Hardcover: 978-1-73437-970-9
ISBN Paperback: 978-1-73437-971-6
ISBN Ebook: 978-1-73437-973-0

Author: Kat Vellos
Illustrator: Kat Vellos

We Should Get Together was edited by Katie Salisbury, who also edited the bestsellers Why We Can’t Sleep by Ada Calhoun, The Leader’s Guide by Eric Ries, Women Who Don’t Wait in Line by Reshma Saujani, and Who Am I to Lead by Torin Perez. Katie was a 2021 finalist for the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship program. In addition to being a spectacular editor, Katie is also a writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Ringer, the Asian American Writers' Workshop, and elsewhere. As a Spring 2017 TED Resident, Katie gave a TED Talk titled "As American as Chop Suey" about her photojournalism project on Chinese restaurant workers in New York. Her book about Anna May Wong, the first Asian American movie star, will be released by Dutton in 2024.