Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I picked up this book I thought it would be the creative-non-fiction telling of 11 women's friendship. Instead, The Girls from Ames, is the journalistic account of these women's lives with a lot of statistics and studies thrown in for good measure.

At the beginning of the book, Jeffery Zaslow wonders if he is the right person to pen this account. I am still wondering. Zaslow is very detailed, but he is very much a man standing outside of this circle of girlfriends simply reporting what he observes. The author's lack of connectiveness prevented me from joining this group of gals as if I were one of them. I always felt like an outsider looking in.

Here is what I liked about this book:
1.I graduated from a high school in Iowa and attended Iowa State University in Ames around the same time the girls were in high school/college. I enjoyed identified with many of the places and events described.
2. I found how these friends supported each other through life's trails very touching and encouraging.

Here is what I disliked about this book:
1. I found the way it was organized to be very confusing. Many times I would have to reread a section to figure out who the author was talking about.
2. The journalistic writing style. The author told us a lot about these girls, but showed us very little. It was like reading a very long newspaper article.
3. I could careless about the various findings on friendships. These studies might be a revelation to a guy, but to us gals, this stuff is pretty obvious. The statistics just weighed the book down.

I am not sorry that I read this book, but I would have a hard time recommending it to anybody. The actually girls from Ames may be fabulous, but the book wasn't.

I eagerly snatched this book from the shelves of an airport bookshop. The girls are from Iowa -- I'm from Iowa! They grew up in the 70s -- I grew up in the 70s! In fact, I went to school not far from Ames and even lived there for a short while. But, that's where the similarities ended. I tried, but couldn't identify with these girls. Somehow, I don't think it's due to them personally, or their experiences.

I couldn't help feeling that I was getting the author's take on it all, rather than on the true spirit of the girls' friendships. I feel I know (more than I want to) all about the author's political and religious interests. I know very little about most of the girls. I appears some were deemed unworthy of much mention.

The strangest part of the book was the organization. Having written a non-fiction book myself, I agonized over how to make the information flow properly. It's a tough job. Connecting one chapter to another and building concepts was paramount to me. It seems this author put very little thought into the chronology of his information at all. Like a mixed-bag of ideas, the chapters stop and start and often repeat ideas and messages as if they'd not been mentioned before. I know that's not entirely the author's fault, but who edited this book, anyway?

The saddest thing is that even though I SO wanted to love this book, I can't even say I liked it.

The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women & a Forty~Year Friendship is an intimate look at the friendships of eleven women over a forty~year period. Interspersed with studies that highlight the importance of the development and maintenance of close relationships in the health and well~being of women, The Girls from Ames is part sociology study, part biography and part cultural reference book. The women came of age just at the tail end of the Baby Boom, so they are the immediate benefactors of the women's rights movement and other social changes that marked the 60s, 70s and 80s. It was fun to read about the different hairstyles and clothes the women wore and the music they listened to as their stories unfolded, these cultural references provided a musical and visual backdrop against which their stories could be shared by women from different walks of life.

During a weekend reunion, the women shared the details of their relationships (some good, some bad) with author, Jeffrey Zaslow. They also invited him to look at scrapbooks, read emails, interview friends, quasi~enemies and family to find out what has kept the girls so closely knit when other relationships have unraveled. At points, it seemed that the ladies' relationships were ebbing but the women proved that they did not need constant contact to remain close, especially when email came about and they were able to simply hit "Reply All."

The women have supported each other through elementary school, high school and beyond. They've offered shoulders to cry on when they've been given devastating news and they've given tough love when it was warranted. But more than anything else, they've been there for each other. Even when they didn't agree with the choices that the other was making, they let their feeling be known and then they offered support... That the women were able to love each other unconditionally, even when the other's choices conflicted with their religious or moral beliefs was one of the things that stood out most to me ~ unconditional, unfailing, all~encompassing love.

In many ways, you can tell the author is a journalist; each vignette is punctuated by studies that point out the importance of life~long friendships to women and their health. At first, I found the analysis to be intrusive and more than a bit annoying, however, by the end of the book, I was impressed with how much these women supported the data presented. The overriding conclusion of all of the data presented in the book and supported by the women's lives indicates that women who have strong friendships live happier and healthier lives ~ and when diagnosed with an illness, their chances of survival are increased significantly.

Part of the charm of this story is that each woman offers something to the reader with which they can identify, but more than that is the emotional tug~of~war of the story. At points, I found myself laughing and other times I found myself crying. In the end, I found myself a whole lot jealous. These women have the type of friendship that goes beyond the casual acquaintances that many of us share. They are soul sisters in every sense of the word. I believe the greatest lesson to be learned from this book is to treasure the people around you and never take anyone for granted.


Disclosure: I received this book free from Penguin Group in exchange for a review. I am not required to write a positive review, just an honest one.

I strongly disliked this book. It felt like a set of disconnected biographies rather than a cohesive story. I felt no connection to the characters at all-- I think that's because the author does little more than describe what happened in these women's lives, rather than give me a sense of who these women were. The tense that it was written in felt awkward (almost reads likes the first draft of a story) and the pacing was uneven.

I initially read this book with my sister who was preparing to lead the discussion in her book club. Early on in the reading, I contacted five high school friends and asked them to read it with me. It reminded me so much of those all-important girlfriend relationships that last for decades. Though we don't see each other often, we keep in contact, encouraging each other, praying together during the tough times, and expressing pride in the others' accomplishments.
I recommend this book to any woman who cherishes those long-time friendships and returns emotionally to "the good ole days."
bought on line at amazon.com

This book is easily one of my new favorites. I read it at the suggestion of one of my own girlfriends, and it has made me pick up the phone and call some of my other girlfriends a little more often, or plan that trip we keep putting off. It reads like a novel, yet every word is true! If you have long-time friends, you should read this book. Celebrate what makes you friends!

Two of my friends recommended this book, saying they couldn't put it down. Well, I read the first 60 pages and almost couldn't pick it back up! I really wanted to like it, I wanted to care about the people, but I just couldn't. Honestly, how many anecdotes of teenage parties and so on, am I supposed to care about? I ended up skimming the rest of the book in about half an hour and managed to get the basic idea of the trajectory of their lives, and how they all benefitted from their network of friends. That's not to slight any of the women themselves or their personal stories. I think part of the problem is the writing style of the book. While I suppose this is a nice case study of friendships over time, as a woman and a psychologist the "insights" into friendships and their benefits weren't new and didn't hold much interest for me.

The Girls from Ames follows the 40-year friendship of 11 women from Ames, Iowa. Though they are now living in places all over the country, these women have continued to nurture the friendship they built in their school days. They have been available to support each other during the high points of their lives as well as when they faced personal crises.

While I was not always interested in the details of these women's lives--after all how many of us can say that what we liked in high school would be fascinating for others to read about--I was struck by the value their friendship has brought them in so many ways.

The topics of friendship, family, personal response to tragedy and having a place to call home are prominent throughout The Girls from Ames. Stories are told about the girls and women as individuals, and to illustrate the role they each play as a member of the group.

When I started reading the story, I worked hard to keep track of each woman and her circumstances, but I soon came to feel that each person's importance is more as a representation of the kind of person she is than as an individual in this specific group. Often, things they said or did reminded me of people I know in my own life.

In the end I felt The Girls from Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow provides a way for us to reflect on and talk about the value of long-time friendship in our lives. I believe it should prompt discussions within a mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 16 and up about their own relationships.

I usually give an extra star to an author who can elicit a tear from my eyes; Jeffrey Zaslow came close with this one. To women, friendships are extremely important, but often difficult to sustain. This sweet story of eleven women from Ames Iowa who have been truly life-long friends reinforces my desire to maintain friendships with my high school and college friends, while identifying the difficulties of doing this. Great read for forty-something women and those who love them, too.

The book was a hard start and I almost put it down a few times, but eventually got into it and the curiousity of what happened to each woman and their story pulled me through to the end. It's not a book I'd recommend to everyone, but select friends you know would enjoy a heartfelt, piecemeal story.