The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow, 352 pages.
Meet the Ames Girls: eleven childhood friends who formed a special bond growing up in Ames, Iowa. As young women, they moved to eight different states, yet managed to maintain an enduring friendship that would carry them through college and careers, marriage and motherhood, dating and divorce, a child’s illness and the mysterious death of one member of their group. Capturing their remarkable story, The Girls from Ames is a testament to the deep bonds of women as they experience life’s joys and challenges — and the power of friendship to triumph over heartbreak and unexpected tragedy.
As someone who struggles with staying in touch, I find long-term friendships fascinating. I have a wonderful model in my mother who has kept her small group of childhood friends for fifty plus years, so I have seen it work and work beautifully. However the idea of 11 women managing to hang in there together for forty years strikes me as pretty close to a miracle. And I wanted to see how they did it.
Naturally in a group that large there have been disagreements and some mean girl behavior but they have managed to hold strong despite their differences. I admire these women for not being afraid to open their lives - good, bad, and ugly - knowing what they have together is special. While the book did give a glimpse into each girl/woman's background and who they grew up to be, it never really connected the dots. Perhaps because the author is a journalist, the book reads like an article - vignettes sprinkled with various studies and statistics about women and friendship. So there was not the narrative element that I craved.
In spite of my lukewarm feelings, I still think it would make a great book club selection. There is a wealth of discussion material and I've been told the author is willing to call in and participate (that's so cool).
You can read more about the book, the author, and the ladies here: http://www.girlsfromames.com Thank you to TLC Book Tours for providing a review copy and including me once again. There are more reviews found here.
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