The Friends We Keep: A Woman's Quest for the Soul of Friendship [Paperback]

Sarah Zacharias Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 21, 2009

Why are women’s friendships so tricky?

During a particularly painful time in her life, Sarah Zacharias Davis learned how delightful–and wounding–women can be in friendship. She saw how some friendships end badly, others die slow deaths, and how a chance acquaintance can become that enduring friend you need.

The Friends We Keep is Sarah’s thoughtful account of her own story and the stories of other women about navigating friendship. Her revealing discoveries tackle the questions every woman asks:

• Why do we long so for women friends?
• Do we need friends like we need air or food or water?
• What causes cattiness, competition, and co-dependency in too many friendships?
• Why do some friendships last forever and others only a season?
• How do I foster friendship?
• When is it time to let a friend go, and how do I do so?

With heartfelt, intelligent writing, Sarah explores these questions and more with personal stories, cultural references and history, faith, and grace. In the process, she delivers wisdom for navigating the challenges, mysteries, and delights of friendship: why we need friendships with other women, what it means to be safe in relationship, and how to embrace what a friend has to offer, whether meager or generous.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Evangelical Christian author Davis (Transparent) has created a sobering yet thoroughly satisfying primer on women's friendships. Davis, vice president of marketing/development for her father, who heads Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, presents a bold and touching view of the whys and wherefores of female relationships. She offers her own friendships as illustrations of the types of friendships women keep. Chapter by chapter, Davis discusses varying roles women adopt; how space between two people is sometimes healthy; when—or if—confrontation is called for; the possibilities of circles of friends and their survival rate; and much more. Readers will find the author's observations distinctive and instructive; they afford women the opportunity to review their own past and present friendships. While Davis's text is thoroughly sound and biblically on track, an overall sad note is woven into her conclusions about women and their ways with one another. (July 21)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“Friendships take years to cultivate yet can be lost in a matter of minutes. Sarah Zacharias Davis deftly explores the complex terrain of that human bond, explaining why so many of us long to be known and how important it is cultivate at least a few faithful people who will stand beside us the rest of our lives.”
–Julia Duin, religion editor for The Washington Times and author of Quitting Church: Why the Faithful are Fleeing and What to Do About It

“Sarah’s words could not come at a better time. Too many of us have allowed our female friendships to slip on the priority scale and this book is the perfect reminder of the essential, beautifully ordained connection between women. Reading and relishing her words, I recalled with rich nostalgia the formative friendships of my childhood and emerged from the pages with a fresh perspective and heightened appreciation for the special women in my life today. This book reads like the voice of a friend, intimate and true.”
–Kristin Armstrong, contributing editor for Runner’s World magazine and author of four books, including Happily Ever After: Walking with Peace and Courage Through a Year of Divorce and Work in Progress: An Unfinished Woman’s Guide to Grace

“The Friends We Keep is a true and tender testimony to the joys and struggles we women experience in our friendships with one another. As I read I found myself nodding in agreement, and sometimes tearing up in remembrance. We don’t always get it right, but we need each other–and there is deep satisfaction to be found in the relationships we forge. I loved Sarah’s book and recommend it to anyone who seeks to know (or find) her truest friends.
–Leigh McLeroy, author of The Beautiful Ache and Treasured

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: WaterBrook Press; Original edition (July 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400074398
• ISBN-13: 978-1400074396
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #610,925 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What kind of friend are you?, August 14, 2009

By 

K. Herbrand - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Friends We Keep: A Woman's Quest for the Soul of Friendship (Paperback)

This book was about - you guessed it - friends. But not just any friends - women and their friends. Why we need them, how we make them, how we keep them, and even why we lose them.

Each chapter shared some one's story that was relevant to the point that the author was trying to make. A lot of the stories I could relate to, or at the very least, knew someone who would fit in it. She explores a lot of the different sides to friendships, like the different ways we can love a friend, why we might need a particular friend - or why that friend might need us. What we get from a relationship - do we give or take from it? The book ends with how and why we need to be friends with our self.

The chapter I really like was titled "The Lesson of Lucy Van Pelt". I am sure that many of you remember Lucy from the Peanuts comic strip and what we are talking about here is gossip. This is something that I know I am guilty of and it is so easy to fall into gossiping about someone else. We can cover it up by making it look like we are really just "inquiring" because we are worried about someone or we try to cover up our gossip by "sugarcoating" it.

If you're not from the south, it goes something like this: "Since Anne Marie put on all that weight, she just looks poured into those pants. Someone needs to tell her those look terrible, bless her heart." Or, "Poor Donna Jo's husband has been cheating on her with his secretary, though I can't say I'm surprised. Men like women who cook for them, and she was always a dreadful cook, bless her heart." Add the word "little" and you can get away with saying even worse. "Shelby's wedding was sweet. Such a shame it will never last, bless her little heart." You get the idea. (The Friends We Keep, p44)


She ends this chapter with a story about a woman who had a casual friend that she had known for years. They weren't particularly close, and had really only kept in contact through mutual friends. When the woman was having a tough time in her life she was confiding her problems in only her close friends. This casual friend and her husband were at a dinner party when someone asked about how she was doing. This casual friend immediately jumped in and said that it was not appropriate for dinner conversation, and stopped any story telling that might have occurred. The woman relates "I felt a connection to her, instantly closer than I ever had in all the years I'd known her." (p48) This really touched me and made me take a closer look at things I may or may not have said over the years.

What if connection becomes greater by keeping secrets and sharing something personal to you rather than sharing what is personal to an absent other? What if power comes from empowering others rather than dominating them? What if friendship is cemented by rescuing a friend's reputation when it may be on the line? What if the glue that holds us together is discretion, no disclosure? (p48-49)




My thoughts: This book made me take a closer look at why I feel I don't have a lot of close friends. Even as a teen, I had just a handful of girls that I would call actually friends. I grew up in a small town, where we knew everybody - but I didn't feel like I fit in well with most of them. This feeling continued in college where I still only can recall 3-4 real girlfriends. It did make me see how I could benefit from having more friends, and that I should work on these relationships. Any thing worthwhile does take time. I was surprised by how many responses I have gotten on my give away for this book from women who said that they also did not have many friends, or had trouble making friends.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Joy and Challenges of Women's Friendship, August 18, 2009

By 

Tracy Keck "Reader, Writer, Reviewer" (Sunny, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Friends We Keep: A Woman's Quest for the Soul of Friendship (Paperback)

Friendship can be complicated, can't it? In "The Friends We Keep, A Woman's Quest for the Soul of Friendship," Sarah Zacharias Davis, explores some of the joys and difficulties of friendship. We love our friends and we need our friends, so why then do we get jealous or resentful of them? Broken friendships can often be more painful than even the breakups we've had with boyfriends. Some friendships are broken off suddenly, while others wilt away over time until there's nothing left. These are just some of the topics Davis explores as she attempts to navigate the often murky waters of friendship between women.

I did have some difficulty in reading this book, not because it isn't good - it is, but because it caused me to reflect on friendships I've had and still have. But I'm glad I read it, and I'm sure other women will also give thought to, and freshly appreciate their current friendships, and let go of those that have ended. There is a discussion guide included at the conclusion of the book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Friends are precious, August 15, 2009

By 

Terra Hangen (West coast, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Friends We Keep: A Woman's Quest for the Soul of Friendship (Paperback)

The author, Sarah Zacharias Davis, writes charmingly about women's friendships, and says that friends are there to defend, laugh, comfort, give physical care and even give space to each other as needed, and that friendships also contain shadows.
Jealousy and being snippy can occur, often followed by forgiveness.
Friendships can slip away, and sometimes they are repaired, and sometimes they end. Some friends are only for some steps along the journey, and not for a life time.
The author quotes from my favorite author, C.S. Lewis and his book "The Four Loves", and explores some movies like Beaches and The Big Chill, which makes me want to revisit them.
Davis' book encourages me to look carefully at my friendships, strive to make them nurturing and continuing, and sometimes facing that we need to say goodbye to closeness that was treasured.