Title: Best Friends Forever
Author: Jennifer Weiner
Genre: Women's Lives & Relationship
Publication Date: 2009
Number of Pages: 359
Geographical Setting: Pleasant Ridge, Illinois
Time Period: early 2000's
Plot Summary:
Addie Downs was eight years old when Valerie Adler moved across the street. Shortly after they first met, they decided to be best friends forever. But everything changed when a tragedy occurred, and a betrayal in their teen years tore them apart. Addie has grown accustomed to her simple, yet lonely life of living in the house she inherited from her parents, and painting beautiful watercolors for a greeting card company. When, 25 years later, Val shows up at Addie's front door with blood on her coat and a look of fear on her face, it is the start of a wild adventure for two women joined by love and history.
Subject Headings:
Female friendship -- Fiction
Appeal: This book offers a female protagonist that we learn about through flash backs of her past, and current relationships with family and her best friend. The pacing is easy and the story offers a great deal of detail through descriptions and flash backs. The mood is light and humorous with a little bit of mystery thrown in for interest. The story line provides a great deal about the characters - their past issues and current problems, and how the two are related.
3 Terms that describe this book: predictable, funny, mysterious
Similar Authors & Works:
Fiction-
- Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand -- Like Best Friends Forever, this title offers a story of estranged best friends who find each other again when life throws them a curveball.
- Friends forever by Danielle Steel -- Similar to Best Friends Forever, this story tells a tale of friends who slowly grow apart as they become adults and are thrown back together when tragedy tears through their lives
- Conversations with the fat girl by Liza Palmer -- Both are stories of grown women dealing with changes in themselves and their childhood friends.
- The twisted sisterhood: unraveling the dark legacy of female friendships by Kelly Valen
- Between women: love, envy, and competition in women's friendships by Luise Eichenbaum and Susie Orbach
- Connecting: the enduring power of female friendship by Sandy Sheehy
I haven't read anything by Jennifer Weiner before and I wasn't expecting the mystery part of the storyline! It sounds like something you could use to market the book to someone who usually reads more mysteries/suspense, but is looking for something more upbeat.
ReplyDeleteYour summary made this book sound really intriguing. It sounds like something I would enjoy and I will put it on my list to read. I also like that you included non-fiction read-alikes. Those sound really interesting, too. Great job!
ReplyDeleteWonderful annotation, full points!
ReplyDeleteGreat annotation. I'm so curious about what happened to cause the two friends to become estranged and also, why there is blood on Val's coat, so I think I need to read the book! I also suddenly have this desire to call my best friend! Good choice of similar works.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds very similar to Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah. Two girlfriends that grow up, grow apart, and come together at the end due to a tragedy. I really enjoyed the Hannah novel because it was set in the 1970s when I was a teen, so it hit home in many areas. For the most part I am not much of a fan of these, what I call Lifetime channel, type reads. However, I'm thrilled that others enjoy this genre of books.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds very similar to Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah. Two girlfriends that grow up, grow apart, and come together at the end due to a tragedy. I really enjoyed the Hannah novel because it was set in the 1970s when I was a teen, so it hit home in many areas. For the most part I am not much of a fan of these, what I call Lifetime channel, type reads. However, I'm thrilled that others enjoy this genre of books.
ReplyDelete