Customer Reviews

Girls Dinner Club

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Junie and Celia are best friends who welcome Danielle into their circle. The three girls soon discover that they enjoy cooking together. Danielle and her grandmother teach the other two to concoct luscious Italian dishes. While the girls are inspired to try other recipes and invent their own food creations, they become closer, sharing the most intimate details of their lives and drawing support and comfort from each other.

Junie's parents are always gone. Trying sex with her boyfriend, Brian, has been a turning point for their relationship. Junie did not enjoy the act and hasn't been able to confide in Brian. She leans on her friends as her connection with Brian unravels. Eventually, Junie finds herself crushing from afar after one glimpse of Danielle's hunky cousin, Roberto. Amazingly, he seems to be attracted to her as well. Rob is a cheese expert and teaches Junie some fascinating facts about this calcium-filled food. However, as time goes by, Junie finds herself daydreaming about Brian again and feeling irritated by some of Rob's mannerisms.

Celia's cozy life with her dad is rocked when he brings Jane home. Celia despises Jane, and is horrified that her dad would get involved with her. However, she ends up grudgingly escorting Jane's British nephew, Henry, around New York and discovers a redeeming feature --- Henry can cook! Still, Celia can't wait to see the end of Henry's trip to New York. Or can she?

Danielle adores her grandmother, Nonna, but loathes the paths her mother and sister have chosen to follow as lingerie saleswomen. Nonna and others urge Danielle not to waste her beautiful singing voice, but Danielle has her reasons for turning them down. When bad boy Steve returns, she more or less forgets how he broke her heart. Then she uncovers an amazing family secret, and her perspective on her own life changes.

This is an enjoyable read, celebrating both the intense joy of cooking good food and the pleasures of friendship. The reader comes to care about each girl, rooting for successes and worrying over setbacks. Each character is clearly defined, and there are frequent funny scenes. The one way to improve this book? Include recipes!

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I loved this book. I laughed, cried, and smiled. It was slow at some parts but later on i could not put it down. You knew what was going to happen at some parts but others you did not. I would read this book if you get the chance.

I am an adult who enjoys well written teen fiction.

The Girls Dinner Club is a wonderfully crafty novel. All of the main characters are flawed, but through it all, the author manages to keep them enjoyable.

You can feel the camaraderie of these three girls, despite the fact that they are all so different. They each, in their own ways are suffering, but still manage to be there for each other.

I thought the whole dad and eccentric girlfriend was a tad cliché, but yet the author makes it work with a bit of a twist at the end of this storyline.

The writing is wonderful and entertaining and the pacing was just right!

I hope this author is working on another novel of this quality. It would be great if she would bring back these characters. It would be interesting to see them grow together.

This book has it all: great friendship, food, heartbreak, boys, and everything in between. This is one of my favorite books. I can really relate to everything the girls are going through, because it is well written and is about things everyone goes through. It is a great story about finding friendship where you least expect it, and having good friends who are going to help you through tough times. Junie, Danielle, and Celia are so realistic and fun to read about! I recommend it!

Celia, Junie, and Danielle all become friends on a whim. Celia and Junie are already friends when GIRLS DINNER CLUB starts, and one night, Danielle was at Celia's house while Junie was there. Danielle offers to make them both dinner, and because of this all the girls become friends by regularly meeting at each others houses and making and having dinner together. They celebrate with each other through the good times and the bad. Some of the things that happen to the girls include: crushes, boyfriend problems, and family issues; just the basic teenage girl problems. It's definitely not written in a depressing way, as there are so many funny things that happen in the book. During one of their dinners together they even get in a food fight! It shows a great friendship that grows between the girls. I would recommend this book to any girl who loves to read about friendships, relationships, and great food.

While I was reading GIRLS DINNER CLUB all I could think about was how good of friends the girls became. All formed such a close bond over something everyone loves--food! This is the first book that Jessie Elliot has written and there will hopefully be more to come. Even though this is Ms. Elliot's first book, it feels like she has written a million stories! GIRLS DINNER CLUB is so well-written and the characters seem so real that it feels like you could be their friend, as well.

Reviewed by: Taylor Rector

The summary of this book was what had me intrigued and wanting to read it. When I did finally finish, I felt very ambivalent about it - I liked some of it, I didn't like some of it. It turned out to be just an average read for me.

While I did enjoy the idea of the Girls Dinner Club for these three friends, and it was amusing seeing how varied and fun their menus were for every time they did it, I do wish there had been more emphasis on this. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few additions that might have made the book even more interesting and meaningful - adding recipes for the dishes the girls cooked, choosing dishes based significantly on what they could mean or symbolize, thematic dinner club sessions instead of just picking whatever they felt like.

I did like the friendship between the girls, and the realistic portrayal of the different situations they were facing. There's a lot of tough stuff happening all around them, and finding solace in their dinners and in each other was such a beautiful concept. Each girl faces her own personal struggles and, in the end, though not necessarily perfectly resolved, there seems to be a conclusive improvement or change in their lives.

This book is an okay read, but I wouldn't really say it was one of my favorites.

After reading Girls Dinner Club, I was left a little informed, a little overexposed, and a little touched. It had it's overly innapropriate scenes and was written for an older teen, but I still liked it. The food sounded so good! Celia's crush on Henry was a bit predictable, but so romantic! The book made me laugh, cry, and grimace. But most of all, it made me realize how important it is to have close friends. A good read.

Girls Dinner Club by Jessie Elliot is a story about three high school girls of very different backgrounds bonding together to uncover the mysteries of love, friendship, and the art of cooking. Elliot successfully creates a relationship between the book's characters and the reader. It's an entertaining tale of the recipes of life, however too advanced for the targeted audience, who may not be able to see beyond some of the titillating details. Best friends Junie and Celia welcome classmate Danielle to join them for dinner one evening after working on a school project. The casual meal turns into a weekly tradition where the girls try their hand at lavish, mouth-watering cuisines while developing an unbreakable sisterhood union. Individually, the girls each have problems they are desperately trying to overcome. Junie's yearlong relationship comes to a screeching halt when she becomes unsure of the direction it is taking, and then she becomes tempted by Danielle's hunky twenty-one-year-old cousin. Celia's sheltered world is turned upside-down when her father brings home a new woman and her annoying or wait, maybe her mystifyingly charming nephew. Life hasn't been easy for Danielle being raised by mom, grandma, and big sis Christine especially when bad boy Steve resurfaces as a "changed man." The lack of parental guidance throughout the novel is evident when the seventeen-year-olds either have no curfew at all, or defy the 11:00 p.m. weeknights and 12:30 a.m. weekends set for them. Together the trio battles decisions of sex, underage drinking, cheating boyfriends, and sneaking around behind their parents' backs. The content is not appropriate for 12 and up. I would not be comfortable with middle school readers being exposed to issues like sex, underage drinking, and defiance of family rules. This behavior is perfectly acceptable according to this book.

Reviewed by Natalie Yandrick for Flamingnet Book Reviews
www.flamingnet.com
Preteen and Young Adult Book Reviews

I've been trying to figure out why the book left me wanting. The story lacked a certain emotional intensity. Perhaps it's because the author tried too hard. The three girls, three different ethnicities, three different lifestyles, three different schools concept left me with the feeling of seeing too much of the author's hand at work as I read through the story. It felt too contrived. The author could have mined the dinner club concept more, too, as it came off more as a plot contrivance. In the end I wanted to know more.

The novel is clearly for the older teen (grades 10 and up) and not for those who are still young emotionally. I do think the author's handling of Julie's reaction to having sex is provocative. Her sudden need to distance herself from her boyfriend is something many girls may be surprised to learn happens.

While I do have problems with the scope of this novel, I would certainly be interested in reading any future books by the author.

This book was mediocre. It was good, but I expected much more. Celia and Junie were best friends and they brought in another girl, Danielle. They bonded over delish meals and built a friendship in a dinner club, just for the three girls. This book will make you laugh, smile, and even cry. This was an overall great read.