The Bitch Posse [Hardcover]

Martha O'Connor (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312333927 | ISBN-13: 978-0312333928 | Publication Date: April 21, 2005 | Edition: First Edition

These are the confessions of the Bitch Posse. Cherry, Rennie, and Amy were outcasts, rebels, and dreamers. And their friendship was so all-encompassing that some would call it dangerous. This is the story of three women-as seniors in high school and as women in their mid-thirties---who formed a bond in order to survive the pitfalls and perils of their lives. In the present day, one of them is a wife and mother-to-be, trying to live a "normal" life. One of them is a writer who engages in a number of self-destructive relationships. And one of them is in a mental hospital---and has been ever since that one fateful night fifteen years ago, when a heart-wrenching betrayal and the unraveling of relationships led them to a point of no return, where their actions triggered unimaginable consequences. These secrets have torn them apart while inextricably binding them to one another. What happened to them? And can they survive their shared history, even today?

The Bitch Posse is an anthem for friendships that defy society's approval or disapproval. It's a novel of secrets, courage, sacrifice, and hope against the odds. It is both a journey back to being a girl on the verge of adulthood, and a journey forward, showing how the events of our past can unearth the best in us today.

Dare to jump in.

"Astonishing and truly remarkable...tough, subtle, tense, authentic, and very beautiful. If this isn't really Alice Sebold, Donna Tartt, or Barbara Vine writing under a pseudonym, then Martha O'Connor is a huge new talent who is already about as good as it gets."
---Lee Child, author of The Enemy

"Compulsively readable…delicious and slightly macabre details of the mid-1980's alterna-teen culture."
-The Washington Post Book World

"There's nothing pink and frilly about this tale…It's scathing, dark and impossible to put down."
-The Newark Star-Ledger

"A sizzling page-turner."
-Cosmopolitan

"The Bitch Posse is a riveting and emotionally charged read. No fluff here."
--Chicago Tribune

“Mysterious, violent…good girls by day and serious risk takers at night.”
--Los Angeles Times

"Eye-opening, gut-wrenching…one of the best first novels I've read this year, one that I'd literally love to put in every discerning reader's hands."
- Sarah Weinman, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, Pick of the Week

"Intense, disturbing, and deeply intriguing…Fast-paced yet hauntingly reflective, this is one tough and tender read."
--Robert Gray, author of Fresh Eyes: A Bookseller's Journal

"Quite unabashedly satisfying...prompting even this most jaded reviewer to stay up until the wee hours of the night just to find out what happened next...a thrilling ride."
--Bookreporter

"Not for the faint of heart, this debut novel will keep readers glued to the very last page."
--Library Journal

"The story fascinates even as it repels."
--Publishers Weekly

"As good a debut as it's cracked up to be...edgy, smart and sexy, like its heroines."
-The Tatler (UK)

"Reminiscent of cult movie 'Heathers', it revels in the seedy underbelly of American life."
--Glamour (UK)

"O'Connor nails the intense, us-against-the-world, overcooked emotion that defines the friendship of teen girls and the druggy delirium of first, sexual love."
--The Cleveland Plain-Dealer

“Dark, compelling and not for the faint-hearted.'
--Heat (UK)

"An angsty, serious novel of lost dreams and sexual damage."
-MARIE CLAIRE (UK)

"A little substance never hurt anyone, and The Bitch Posse offers plenty."
--Winnipeg Free Press

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"You Have Now Entered a Chick-Lit-Free Zone," O'Connor's dark, scabrous debut warns. Given the sassy title and the familiar subject matter of female friendship, readers should be forgiven if they expect Bridget Jones—but O'Conner's heroines resemble that lovable Brit like leopards resemble kittens. The story focuses on three friends, Cherry, Amy and Rennie, as high school seniors and as women in their mid-30s. Compelled by miserable home lives to form the Bitch Posse as teenagers, the three girls ricochet dangerously through their last year of high school, sharing a passionate, almost sinister bond until a terrible secret rips them apart. Still damaged—and separated—by the unspeakable event, the three live equally wretched lives as adults, Cherry in a mental institution, Rennie as a promiscuous failed writer and Amy in a loveless marriage. After pages of vodka, cocaine, "fucking" and "cutting" (in both past and present narratives), the friends' terrible secret finally comes to light, though it reveals logistical and thematic gaps in the narrative. "[H]er past is like a sore that won't ever heal, memories are spurting at her like blood and she can't close the wound" characterizes the level of emotional complexity attained in this heavy-handed novel, but the story fascinates even as it repels. Agent, Mary Evans. (May)
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Review

"A book that will walk alongside you, and haunt your dreams, long after you turn the last page." -- Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean

"A debut worthy of Joyce Carol Oates." -- Edmund White, author of Fanny: A Fiction

"A little substance never hurt anyone, and The Bitch Posse offers plenty." -- Winnipeg Free Press

"A novel that gets under the skin, a novel that cuts deep." -- Gayle Brandeis, author of The Book of Dead Birds

"An angsty, serious novel of lost dreams and sexual damage." -- MARIE CLAIRE (UK)

"As good a debut as it's cracked up to be...edgy, smart and sexy, like its heroines." -- The Tatler (UK)

"One of the saddest, funniest, and most original stories about deep emotional connections and_the forces that threaten to unravel them." -- Lori Gottlieb, author of Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self

"Reminiscent of cult movie 'Heathers', it revels in the seedy underbelly of American life." -- Glamour (UK)

"The story fascinates even as it repels." -- Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (April 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312333927
• ISBN-13: 978-0312333928
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,475,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Entertaining!!, July 10, 2005

By 

Mercedes L. Johnmeyer "The Most Happy" (Summerville, SC) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bitch Posse (Hardcover)

Unfortunately I decided to grab this book on my way out the door headed for a week camping trip. What a mistake! This book was so hard to put down, not something you should leave town with! This is the story of Amy, Cherry, and Rennie (a.k.a. the Bitch Posse).

These three girls were best friends and blood sisters back in 1988, their senior year of high school in Holland, Illinois. The chapters alternate between each girl, and the past and present. In 1988 at the Porter Place (a local hangout for teenagers) a terrible thing happened to separate these three girls forever. The girls of today (2003) have moved on and tried to forget, scattered all over the country, we see how each one turned out after getting glimpses into their wild teenage days.

Rennie's a famous author struggling with drugs, an addiction to sex, and trying to get her second book written, Amy's pregnant with a skeezer of a husband, but is trying with all her might to lead a simple normal life, and Cherry is in a psychiatric hospital, trying to get through each day.

I'm telling you, once you pick this up you will not be able to put it down. Just the suspense of "What happened in 1988 at the Porter Place that so severely messed up these girls and kept them from ever speaking to each other again" will keep you turning the pages. Not recommended for anyone under the age of seventeen, but an entertaining juicy read for the rest of us.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As a challenge, November 18, 2005

By 

Kay xxx (Rocking in Manchester, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bitch Posse (Hardcover)

I felt obliged to head over from my comfort zone of Amazon.co.uk and write a review on here, too.

There I was stood in Waterstone's and the title leaped out at me (It's pusblished under "The Bitch Goddess Notebook" in the UK") so I read the abck where people had put comments and one was "this'll haunt you long after you've turned the last page" to which I rolled my eyes because, well, I'm cynical but hey, I like a good challenge (and I have money to waste) so I bought it.

At first I couldn't get into it. The alternating between the past and present irritates the hell out of me (Jodi Picoult's books have me screaming with annoyance but I'm a masochist so I continue to buy them!) but I persevered mainly because it'd cost me a tenner (about $14 for you Americans) and I refuse to give up when I've worked for that money!

As the book proceeded I began to, shock horror, find the past-present endearing rather than irritating, and I fell in love with Rennie, Cherry and Amy probably because I see a bit of each of them in my friends. It's ironic, but this book touched me more than any other chick-lit-happy-ending-we-love-the-world-and-everyone-in-it books because it was so dark. Yes, it's too the extreme but that's OK.

And to the comments that it's a "bad influence" I disagree. I am 17, and I think the majority of readers my age will view as a book and nothing more. Please, give us some credit. As for the ones, that won't and don't, well they're going to be promiscuous, drug users with or without this book if they're that way inclined.

Even months after, I still catch myself thinking about the book. One line.

"You have to hurt to feel anything at all"

That statement, for me, is the one thing that haunts me most about the whole book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pointless Self-Destruction for 20-Somethings?, August 22, 2007

By 

Christine Zibas "AnythngArt" (Chicagoland, IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bitch Posse (Paperback)

This book, "The Bitch Posse," reminded me a great deal of the movie "Girl Interrupted." Although the author fearlessly warns her story is not "chick lit," I was a bit disappointed with the book, especially considering the glowing reviews that fill the book jacket. Maybe this is just a book for women of an age that I have passed through long ago, but I did not find the story that holds these three women together compelling. Each woman (Cherry, Amy, and Rennie) is driven by demons and an unhappy childhood to become a "wild child," but this fearsome approach to life only means lives of desperation later on. Their connection, a friendship in high school, crumbles as surely as their demons take over their adult lives, tearing them apart.

Despite their shared friendship, it is a terrible event which holds them together long after the glue of friendship has evaporated. One has a loveless marriage, one is in a psychiatric hospital, and the narrator (a writer) goes from one man and one bottle to the next. When they finally come together, the event at the center seems to collapse in on them, leaving the reader with a story, but not much of a reason to care about their self-destructive tendencies.

The individuals are probably more interesting independent of the friendships that tie this storyline together. Although the novel was easy reading, but I just left the book feeling unsatisfied with the conclusion. The storyline that involves the writer, Rennie, was probably most interesting (and no doubt probably the most autobiographical). If you are in your 20s and a woman, you might enjoy this book. For everyone else, I'd give it a pass.