Friendship
The Girls from Ames
Book Review by Nicole Hanratty
The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women & a Forty-Year Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow (Non-Fiction)
Cancel all of your plans for twenty-four hours after you pick up this book because once you begin reading it, you will not be able to put it down.
Any woman who has ever had a lifelong friendship that has seen dark unenviable hours, bouts of inane laughter, profound sadness, and monumental happiness will relate to this tear-jerking powerful story of the extraordinary friendship of eleven average women living normal lives that spans four decades.
At times funny, it is an honest look at dynamics that transpire in female relationships, how cliques are perceived from both the inside and out. Jeffrey Zaslow, (regardless of being a man), captures the ebb and flow of how girlfriends drift in and out of closeness without ever losing their sense of sisterhood flawlessly. As these eleven friends recount their memories and lives in detail, the author's presence is forgotten. Their old letters and journals recreate their journey into adulthood and take us back to their innocent youth. Read More...
Wife Goes On
Book Review by Nicole Hanratty
Wife Goes On by Leslie Lehr
For any woman thinking of leaving her husband, currently going through a divorce, or whom has already travelled that rode, this book is a support group in and of itself.
Diane, a newly single mom with two kids, pulls together a network of women who help each other patch their open wounds as she moves through the stages of grieving her marriage. Together Diane, Lana, Bonnie and Annette form an unlikely alliance bound by their shared relationship woes.
This entertaining--if not sometimes all too real--fictional tale leaves the reader with a strong message about the power of friendship that can propel women through the most difficult of circumstances. It touches on the importance of allowing yourself to make new friends who can relate to your circumstances and illustrates the importance of building support networks. Read More...
