Customer Reviews

The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship

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1 star:		(29)

 

 

What first drew me to this book is the fact that I had cousins in Ames, and all through my growing up years, spent time there. It was fun to see the names of places I recognized and, upon contacting my relatives, finding out that they were friends with some of the families mentioned in the book. The personal connection aside, I found the book well done and very interesting. The author writes a column for the Wall Street Journal called "Moving On", and one piece dealing with turning points in women's friendships yielded an e-mail from one of the "Ames Girls", telling about their group of 11 who had remained friends since childhood until now, in their forties. He decided to do a year-long study of that friendship which results in this book. We get a good look at each of the girls as they're growing up and as they become adults. Amazing to me is the diversity of these women and the fact that they could all stay close for this many years. That's the beauty of the book, and of the friendship. In spite of different life philosophies, political leanings, and careers, through thick and thin (and there are plenty of life crises among them), they are always there for each other, regardless of geographic distances. Whether physically, emotionally, or both, they are there. The author does a bit of comparison with men and their close friendships, and how they differ so completely from women's friendships. But this doesn't come off as a "study". It comes off as an accolade to these women, who have been so blessed to have each other.

In THE GIRLS FROM AMES, author Jeffrey Zaslow documents the backgrounds of a group of friends from Ames, Iowa. What's remarkable is the group's size, 11, and its longevity, more than 40 years. But what's not remarkable is the book. Zaslow manages to wring 316 pages of writing from interviews with, and conversations between, these women, and it reads like it has been wrung--from a dull topic. The women's relationships just aren't that interesting. Why? Is it the author's at-a-distance documentary style? The book's mundane topics? My thwarted expectation that I'd learn something new about friendship? I don't know. And it's not because I don't greatly value my own longstanding friendships. I rely on them.

Who might enjoy THE GIRLS FROM AMES? Men and women who live/have lived in Ames, people who enjoy reading about aspects of the agricultural Midwest, women's groups, high school classmates who are still friends several years after graduation.

When I heard the author and two of the subjects on NPR I immediately bought a copy, wondering if I would know any of the "girls." I was living and working in Ames in 1981 when their class graduated from Ames High, and sure enough, I immediately recognized one of the main characters, and had connections with the families of others. Reading the book was much like the odd dislocation that Walker Percy describes in The Moviegoer when surprised by a scene on screen that is familiar in real life. That said, Zaslow is a columnist and this is a story that needs the skills of a novelist. You can't build character by simply piling on anecdotes, and he is hampered by a lack of source material (and by an inexcusable lack of research--no evidence that he visited their old haunts or even read their yearbook), an inability to recreate a sense of place or time, what appears to be cursory interviews with a broad number of sources, and his core experience, a reunion with the main subjects in North Carolina, where there is no connection with their common roots. While the cast is not exactly War and Peace, it is difficult to keep the characters straight, an experience not aided by the author's determination to use just first names. Was Kelly the feisty one or the sassy one--no that was Cathy, or was it Karen or Karla? The fuzzy pics on the cheesy paper used in the original edition are not a plus. You do learn a bit -- who knew that Brad Pitt was "a pleasant-but-not-especially attractive journalism major at the University of Missouri"? Or that Hollywood hair dressers have a code of not gossiping about their clients--except when someone is writing a book about the friendships of 11 Iowa girls and apparently needs to spice up the flagging narration with a flurry of name dropping. This is not to take away anything from the 11 original friends or their admirably deep and lengthy friendships, but if you're looking for an equally deep explanation of such relationships, you'll not find it here.

In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't (or should I say couldn't?) read past Chapter 3. But I feel it's okay to write this as the problem isn't in the story but how the story is told. Many good authors have written fantastic books about everyday people and events. Unfortunately, this is not the case for the Girls from Ames.

This book was recommended by a salesclerk who kept talking about how much both she and her mother could relate to it. Reading through the introduction, I was already anticipating that this was a book that I too would want to share with family and friends.

I couldn't wait to read it...then just as quickly, I couldn't wait to put it down. This book simply doesn't deliver what it promises. There are no bonds formed with the reader. Tears and laughter aren't shared but words on a page. The writing is almost clinical and the factual telling doesn't bring to life what makes ordinary friendships so special.

In the introduction, the author spends some time justifying his ability to tell this story despite being male. He goes on to explain his understanding of women. In hindsight, it should've been a BIG warning. While I don't know the author, I can say that his writing does not support his claims.

The Girls from Ames may have something that is special but the author completely fails in capturing the magic of their friendship.

This book chronicles the lives of 11 girls who became friends in their youth and have maintained that friendship over 40 years and hundreds of miles. They all came together in Ames, Iowa in the 1960s with some having met as babies in the church nursery while others joined the group later in junior high and high school. There were, and are, shifting subgroups and pairings within the group so not everyone was friends with everyone else equally. It describes how the group was formed over the years and who brought who into the group and how the evolved into who they became. It follows them from their earliest years to the present and the group is still intact (minus one member) and they still view each other as best friends even though 40 years have passed and they are geographically spread across the country.

There were several things that attracted me to this book -- I loved "The Last Lecture" by this author, I am only one or two years older than the women in this book, I was born and raised in the midwest (city of 130,000 in Indiana) and one of my first friends out of college went to Iowa State in Ames, Iowa. All that combined meant I was excited to dig in and read.

For those of you who are looking for stunning insights into the meaning of life, that is not what this book delivers. It's more of a case study of these women, their lives and their friendships. I found myself totally engrossed and finished it within twenty-four hours since I couldn't put it down. What the book did for me was to make me think about my own path and life choices and the impact (or lack thereof) of childhood friends and wonder how some friendships stay intact while others fade. Even though there are many parallels between these girls and me, I found many differences as well -- they were much "wilder" than my group of friends was during the teen years and my group of friends did not stay together, not even Christmas cards. It really made me contemplate why some women's friendships survive and some don't. There is also some good research shared by the author about women's friendships and when they are likely to pull apart, how they compare to men's friendships, and correlation betweeen friendships and overall health.

I found this book to be interesting and causing personal reflection and introspection -- who could ask for more?

Like other reviewers, I wanted to like this book and was excited to read it. My excitement quickly waned. I can usually tell if I will like a book by the first chapter and if I don't that's fine, and I stop reading and move on to something more interesting. I usually always finish a book but I could not get past the half way mark in this one, even though I really, really tried.

This book is awfully dull. From the cover and the hype, you would expect to fall in love with these characters, become something of "friends" with them yourself and have all of the great attributes of female friendships reconfirmed. I read the preaface and was even more excited to have these concepts driven home with expert writing by a male author. I was rooting for him to beat the odds and successfully accomplish this daunting task. He failed. I am sure the real Ames girls are lovely and have had exciting lives and accomplishments but wow, did they ever seem boring. I stopped reading the book after the segment about the girl who passed away (Sheila, If I am recalling correctly...). How could such a climatic experience be so blandy told? I couldn't bear any more of the like and returned the book to the library.

Truly one of the poorest written books I have read in 20 years. I, too, am from Iowa and have a group of high school girlfriends who still keep in touch, meeting in one state or another every couple of years. Thus my interest in the book. Regrettably, however, I found it to be a dull and boring account, written in an almost documentary style with no humor, no thread, no theme, no "story," and not even any kind of conclusion. My kudos for this group of women, however, for keeping up their friendship and for the support they provide to one another. That is not a little thing in this hectic world we live in.

I wanted to read the book because I have had friendships for over 40 years and also graduated high school at the same time. I found some circumstances similar to my friendships, but, perhaps they would be differently portrayed if it was a female author.
I also thought that the book dragged on at times, and repeated itself. The story could have been told in less words with more emphasis.
I'm not sure if Zaslow told it from the heart, or just had a profit on the backburner as he told the story. I found it unbelievable that he is really interested in women's friendships.

I bought this book thinking it would be a good summer read but was disappointed overall. Yes, it is a story of friendship that has spanned decades but I can't find anything unique or greatly interesting about these womens' lives that I can't find at a neighborhood coffee morning.

While I agree that childhood friendships are very precious, I just didn't see the difference between these women and so many others I know.

It was also hard to keep everyone's stories straight because of the large number of characters involved and the similarities of their stories.

I like the idea of this book but the story needed a great deal more editing! I felt like the story unfolded in a strange way -- some girls got their own chapters but others remained somewhat shadowy. And profiling a group of 11 friends is about five friends too many, in my opinion. Just too many names and personalities to keep track of. Even after reading the book cover-to-cover I had a hard time remembering the difference between Karla, Kelly, Cathy, etc. And some key information seemed to be omitted: how did they decide where to hold the reunions? Was it always the same weekend? Were there guidelines or parameters for these gatherings? Instead I know way too much information about their high school years...