Anyway, before the holidays we met for Book Club on December 15th and read The Girls from Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow, the co-author of The Last Lecture.
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A little introduction from the book's site: "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." . . . "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."
Sounds great, right? Well, we really didn't think so. . .
WARNING, the following discussions may act as a SPOILER!
The book starts off wonderfully - the ladies are now in their forties and the author has accompanied them at their most recent Ames Girls Reunion held at one of their homes. The first chapter includes a brief introduction coupled with photos (our favorite part of the book!) and recollections from all the ladies.
The next four chapters dive closer into four of the ladies' lives - Marilyn, Karla, Sheila and Kelly. . . why only these four I'm not sure, but it probably has something to do with the fact that most of these women are simple and ordinary people just like us and don't have enough to talk about for one chapter. This is the major problem we all had with this book - it could have been written about any group of women. In fact, we joked about a book surrounding my sister-in-law and her close-knit group of friends (most of whom are in baci's book club) called The Ladies of Tallmadge - lol! There just wasn't enough excitement, so about half-way through The Girls from Ames we grew bored. . . and confused. Trying to differentiate between eleven women you've just met in person is one thing - trying to figure out who's who when you're simply reading about them is downright impossible. Thankfully there is a guide at the beginning of the book with childhood photos, high school graduation photos and a little snipper about each girl. . . but flipping back every 30 seconds proved to be exhausting and honestly not that helpful.
So all in all, we wouldn't really recommend The Girls from Ames - it wasn't all bad, but it certainly wasn't one of our favorites.
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For next month we've chosen Tayari Jones' Silver Sparrow - a book about a a bigamist and his two families. Honestly, I've already finished it because I couldn't put it down - love! We'll have to see what the rest of the ladies say :o) We'll be meeting Thursday, January 19th - see you then!
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