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31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very Entertaining!!, July 10, 2005
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.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
As a challenge, November 18, 2005
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.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pointless Self-Destruction for 20-Somethings?, August 22, 2007
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.
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