Customer Reviews

More Than Friends

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This was one of the best books I have ever read, EVER. Barbara Delinsky puts us right in there with the Popewells. She showed how Sam took responsibility for his actions and how one unfortunate, blurry incident changed everyone's life and brought out the good and the bad in every character. In addition, Barbara showed how mostly everyone has a skeleton in their closet. I absolutely loved the relationship Sam and Annie had - and, of course, routed for Teke and Grady to get together. JD, of course, was such an immature jerk. It angered me that although he defended Teke to his father, he so blatently, consistently, disrespected her to her face in front of the children. I thought "Coast Road" and "Together Alone" were excellent, but Barbara Delinsky outdid herself in "More Than Friends." I'll probably read it again in a few months. Barbara, please keep writing.

There are two things I hate reading about: misery and stupidity. This book is filled with both of these things. While it has received a great deal of positive feedback due to its "real life situations" and "realistic" portrayal of human beings, I found this book to be incredibly fake.
Real people do make mistakes. That much is true. The types of situations that occur in this book do happen in the real world. Cheating happens, but not for the reasons for which it happens in this book. A husband who cheated on his wife with her best friend, and regretted it, would not act like the husband in this book. It doesn't make sense that a husband would sleep with anybody other than his wife if his wife is the one he wanted to sleep with, and just because he thought of his wife while he was cheating does not make it okay. Sam acts like nothing happened. He feels no shame. And the wife, Annie, feels responsible because she has low self-esteem. It's bizzare. First of all, Annie's upset for the wrong reason. She thinks that she just isn't good or attractive enough for him and he has to go elsewhere, when what she should be upset about is the fact that he had sex with her best friend and then said it was okay because he was thinking of her. The fact that he can sleep with whoever without a second thought to how it effects her or their family just because he's pretending it is her is disturbing. The fact that she doesn't get angry for that reason is even more disturbing.
The same thing goes for the best friend, Teke. She sleeps with Sam and doesn't even consider how it will effect anything until her kid walks in and all hell breaks loose. Who goes to bed with her best friend's husband while thinking of a guy she hasn't even seen in 19 years? Come on!
Then there's the best friend's husband. He is soooo FAKE. He has no love for even his own children and does everything solely because he wants to be important. The author is trying so hard to make him into a flawed character, and she obviously has no idea what would motivate a person like that, so she guesses in the book. I think that that's actually true of most of the characters, but it's really noticable with J.D. He just isn't a real person. He's a lizard.
There's a quote from the book. It says: "She would have given anything to transform the events of the past two months into a work of fiction. No doubt she would shred it in the nearest machine."
This book is a work of fiction, and I agree with the author. It belongs in the nearest shredder.

I am suprised by all the positive reviews. Seriously this book didn't make me feel anything but anger and disgust. Yes people make mistakes but the reason behind the affair was rediculous and the characters were shallow and unsympathetic.

Annie and Teke were college roommates, their respecive spouces Sam and J.D. have been friends since childhood and work together at a law firm. One day Teke and J.D.'s son Michael witnesses Teke and Sam getting intimate and feeling betrayed runs into the street and gets struck by a car putting him in a coma.

I find it difficult to find any sympathy for Sam or Teke. Sam cheats on his wife with her best friend even though she is the one he wants to sleep with? That doesn't make any sense. He rationalizes his behavior by saying that he was thinking of Annie while with Teke. And his "reason" behind the affair? Everytime he wins a case him and his wife have sex. His wife is busy so he sleeps with his wife's best friend who is conveniently available. It is this stupidity that makes Sam a character I cannot have any sympathy for. And I am supposed to believe he loves his wife.

Teke is even worse. While sleeping with her best friend's husband she is thinking of her ex-boyfriend. Sure her husband is a waste of space but that gives her the right to damage her best friend's marriage as well? Instead of changing what makes her unhappy she takes others down with her. With friends like her who needs enemies.

And poor Annie believes she caused the affair by having low self esteem. She doesn't think she is attractive enough so her husband went elsewhere. The husband says it's because she wasn't there when he needed her. But he was thinking of her so it's alright. I don't think so! That just makes it that much worse.

And then it is all tied up with a big happily ever after ribbon. Michael wakes up, Teke gets back together with the ex she was thinking about while sleeping with her best friend's husband, and Annie forgives Sam. So what happens the next time he wins another case and his wife is busy? If it didn't take any urging the first time there's not much stopping a repeat.

The characters made it hard to even like them much less find any sympathy for. Sam was stupid, selfish, and arrogant. Teke was shallow and heartless. J.D. was just awful. Annie was the victim for NO reason. This is a book I'll never read again.

This book begins beyond the point in a relationship where many romance novels end. Members of two very close families both make mistakes that are life altering. All family members learn to deal with seeing people they love as flawed and fallible. Eventually we learn that it is foundations that count and not so much of what is built on top.

Sam is wonderful! He is able to cope with his feet of clay and not make a full fledged Greek tragedy from a blunder. He hangs in with his family, admits to his flaws, AND does the work that is needed to get the outcomes that he wants. He deals with life and its imperfections and does a great job of it. I can't imagine who could have done a better job of rediscovering the joys of family under such imperfect circumstances.

You should read this, I learned many important lessons from this Delinsky novel.

I absolutely loved this book! I read it in only 3 days. The characters are so believable and real. You feel every anguished moment that the families are going through. Barbara Delinsky has a way of making you feel as though you really know these people. How my heart bled for Annie and how I thought J.D. was an awful baby. This is the second book I have read by this author and I have just purchased two more. She is great! You won't be disappointed by this book.

Once I got into this book I could not put it down, Barbara Delinsky has a way of making me feel like I know her characters personally. I felt sorry for them, I was angry with them and relieved when young Michael woke up. I have reread it several times because of its very real themes - friendship, cheating, jealousy, power and love - and they are not so ridiculous that they aren't believable like some books. Definitely a keeper!

This is a story about trust, and about how different people react to feeling that their trust has been violated. Two families' lives are changed when a moment of spontaneous passion occurs between two individuals of each respective family. Told from the point of view of all the major characters, including the children, every emotion from guilt, anger, sorrow, and love surfaces as a result. The story evolves with an outcome that reveals how each person comes to terms with what has occurred. Among Delinsky's best.

i hated all the characters, they were all selfish and stupid. the hero (cant even remember his name) cheats on his wife with a close friend of his wife's, (the friend sleeps with his cause shes thinking of her lost love, awwwww!) and he sleeps with her cause he won a case and he always sleeps with his wife after he wins a case, but since his wife wasnt around he slept with the first woman he came in contact too, THEN he blames his wife for his indiscretion, because she wasnt around when he NEEDED to sleep with her, as if hes a little boy who has to be followed around so he wont be misbehaved. he was such a jerk, but his wife was the bigger fool for forgiving him. i've always believed in forgiveness, but not in being a fool, if he cheated on her once, its going to happen again. when you let someone get away with doing something wrong, their going to do it again. she should have forgiven him, and the dumped him, so she wouldnt have to live with the sadness of his betrayal.

This book is Delinsky's best to date, in my opinion. She has a cast of utterly unlikeable characters, apart from Annie, Zoe and Grady. There are oversexed, cheating husbands; power drunk, cruel and heartless men (J.S., J.D.); and other nasty people in this story that guarantees enough grist to keep a gal grinding her teeth or her gristmill of angst. There is the dimwitted, hormonally dominated,low class brood mare Teke who just continues to lame out and be helpless, her favorite mode of action. There are bratty teenagers whom one might want to kick all their over-privileged, over-indulged rearends any number of times. The story is a mind bending tour de force of the pain of dysfunctionality in families, and extended families, who in this story include best friends and their brood. Then there is a teenage revenge pregancy and a very malicious neighborhood gossip who involves herself in the story and literally brings down the families in a heartless power manipulation to grab her 5th husband from the fallout. Plus, there is plenty of other good stuff like control freak men with their raging threats and a powerful portrayal of two men with irrational, revenge mentalities who are utterly drunk on the dynamics of power manipulation. And the GUILT! It oozes from every pore in this story of mutual betrayals.

I loved this book. I could hate most of the main characters because of their despicability and root for the two who redeem the story. What an interesting polarity challenge. Rarely does an author write in such a way as to invite that sort of reader participation in the emotional abuse process unfolding in the book. The insights provided by the characters are not only relevant to the story line, they are relevant to one's own family structure for the book makes you look inward, to examine one's own reality and to THINK with new depth! A wonderful gift to a reader.

In fact, it would be a good research assignment for people who are studying sociology and psychology of family dynamics in their graduate programs at college. It is light years above the vacuous psychobabble of most of the mainstream psychology texts with their little powerpoint menus of dysfunctionality and hypothetical constructs. (Yawn). I know because I am a trained psychologist and I can attest to how meaningless those kinds of college texts are overall. If a reader is involved in a family mess of cheating spouses, control freak parents, bratty teenagers and those gut wrenching, raging dialogs by wronged parties then this book is a good way to externalize the grief, look at it, and gain the perspective provided by a whole lot of clues how to resolve conflict suggested in this work. I most definitely recommend this book.

I have to admit I find the reviews of a book just as amazing as the book itself. After finally seeing one reviewer acknowledging the unfair potrayal of some of the characters, I felt compelled to post a review myself, knowing someone else shares my thoughts.

In our therapy dominated world, it has become increasingly easy to dismiss sexual trysts as "human mistakes". However, any bearing of resentment or anger towards betrayal is somehow construed as irrational or inhuman. In other words, Sam and Teke should be forgiven for sleeping with each other, but JD is a jerk for resenting them. I wish the author had given us more insight into his feelings. Here is a proud guy who has just been betrayed by his wife and best friend; is the talk of the town, and his son is lying there, possibly paralyzed for the rest of his life. On top of that, his wife is hanging out with her ex-lover. Instead of giving HIM time to process all this, we hear Sam lecturing him on forgiveness, expecting JD to assume the role of a magnimous angel while Sam sits smugly dismissing his mistakes as a human act. And why should JD be expected to believe that it was a one time meaningless act. Why shouldnt he wonder if this wasnt a prolonged affair, simply because they say so. I felt Sam was the last person to be yelling at JD. The author was totally unfair in the way he was potrayed. I understand this is chick lit, but maybe this is why feminism rings hollow these days.

I know JD had his own affairs, but like Sam himself acknowledged, he wasnt sleeping with his best friend's wife. I hated the way he was potrayed as having "abandoned" Teke. She asked for it. why should he be expected to stick together with her? For the kids? she wasnt thinking of them when she had the affair, so why should JD be expected to do that. Teke came across as totally selfish and irresponsible.

My boyfriend was betrayed by his ex a long time back and the scars ran deep for a very long time. Its only in fiction that one is expected to forget and forgive so quickly, and I am surprised so many reviewers fell for it.