Book Club- Book One(ish): The Girls From Ames

So, I joined a book club a month ago, and this week as I was procrastinating about reading this month's book I thought to myself: "if I'm going to go to all the trouble of reading a book and really holding it in my mind for discussion, then I should at least get some blog entires out of it." After all, it is clear that this poor neglected blog is not going to write itself.

Now, I'm going to say this is book one, because it is the first one I'm writing about and so that will make sense to you. It is actually the SECOND book we've read, but since that one will probably never show up here because I don't have a time machine and don't feel like goig back and revisiting a book I read like 10 books ago, it is just going to fade into oblivion in terms of my review. For the record the first book was The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, and it was good, not great, interesting, but not nearly as mind opening or life changing as I had hoped it would be. Still, super quick read so if you are so inclined take a gander - he was a remarkable guy.

Now, onto Book One as pertains to THIS blog (which of course is all that matters).

The Girls From Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow


This book chronicles the 40 year friendship of ten women from Ames, Iowa. I have to say, as someone without a single long term friendship, I was hesitant to start this book. I worried that it might be painful for me, or rub in all the things I don't have by not having girlfriends. and certianly there were spots where I wished I had more of what these women have, but in general the story was so compelling, and it was so specifically about THESE women, that I didn't feel that loneliness or sense of isolation.

The way it starts out, there is a chapter devoted to one woman at a time; offering important glimpses and anecdotes about their lives or childhoods so that we really deepen our understanding of each character on her own. However their stories are so intertwined (some of these women have literally known each ither since birth - having been born days apart in the same hospital) that as you are really getting to know each woman in each chapter youa re also seeing how they relate to one another. The only problem is this only continues for four chapters, so seven women (in case you are quesitoning my math 10-4=7 say what?- one died in her early twenties [not a spoiler!] so there were really 11 to start) get short changed. A few of the girls (they are called this by themselves and throughout the book) are so integral in everyone's lives that we get a really good sense of who they are anyway, but in the end I was left really not knowing who a few of these characters were at all. Maybe they didn't have as compelling anecdotes, maybe they couldn't participate as openly in the process of this book, who knows? I just wish each woman had gotten her own separate focus so that I could have gotten to know them all a little better. Further chapters seemed to focus more on themes - how they've dealt together with grief for example, and I just didn't feel these chapters hung together as well as the ones within the one woman per chapter framework.

Overall however, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The writing was conversational and easy to fly through, and despite the "plot" basically being teh life stories of regular women, it was engrossing. Each has had a vibrant and interesting life, and despite no classical heroics or epic adventure, this book holds your attention with the tragedies and triumphs of everday life, and these 10 women who have a bond that transcends time, distance, heartache and joy.


Next month: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls