Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Circle of Friends (edition 1991)by Maeve Binchy
Work InformationCircle of Friends by Maeve Binchy
Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Friendship Maeve Binchy just tells a good story, and Circle of Friends was no exception and possibly one of her best. Bernie and Eve become friends as young girls, and we follow their lives as they move into the world, finding love and joy and heartbreak. Through it all, the two girls support each other. Binchy creates complex characters navigating life's ups and downs while also giving us insight into how ancient social structures still continue to impact life in Ireland. We can usually anticipate a happy ending as well where the good guys triumph. Excellent read! Benny (Bernadette) Hogan is 10 years old and expectant about her birthday party. She hopes that she will receive a velvet dress and shoes with pom poms for her birthday. Unfortunately she is a large girl and her overprotective parents dress her in dark colors with sensible cuts. She makes a friend of Eve Malone, an orphan who is being raised by Mother Francis and the nuns at St. Marys convent. The two girls are inseparable until it comes time for them to leave for college in Dublin. Benny is going, but Eve is to do a secretarial course in Dublin while living in Mother Clare's convent there. Unfortunately, things do not work out well with Mother Clare and Eve is hospitalized after she is hit in an accident. This gives her time to think about school. She determines to get the money for her college from her estranged cousin Simon Westward. The two girls meet several new people on their first days in Dublin: Jack Foley, a doctor's son and astonishingly handsome; Nan Mahon, a beautiful girl and daughter of a drunken and abusive builder; Aiden Lynch, Jack's soccer friend from high school; Bill Dunne, another soccer friend; and two girls, Rebecca and Sheila who have set their cap for Jack Foley. The entire story takes place in 1957-58 in Knockglen and Dublin, Ireland. This book was over 700 pages! Seriously. At one point I nodded off and I think my finger kept moving or something so I woke up to a totally different place in the book, and did not go back. I just couldn't. I really do love Maeve Binchy's works and since I saw the movie version of this, I really wanted to read this. If I had known how long it was and how some parts deviated from the book though, I would have passed. I think the biggest issue is that at first the book focuses on two school children (Benny Hogan and Eve Malone) and we somehow fast forward through their childhood to when they move onto Dublin and meet another student named Nan. And then the book starts working in Nan's third person POV as well so she became a sort of third main character to the book. I rather wish we hadn't delved into Nan so much and just focused on Benny and Eve. And also, the book did not need to be as long as it was for us to get to the main point. The main point being apparently, once a cheater, always a cheater. I think that Binchy over time was able to edit herself more and keep the plot moving much better in her later books. The flow in this book was pretty bad. Things were repeatedly said about the same person over and over again. I started rooting for nuns to die (just for something to happen). I think once the book moved firmly to the Dublin section it just got worse in my eyes. We get even more characters thrown at us and I just wanted to tell everyone to just have sex and be done with it. Reading about the girls that would, the girls that wouldn't, how boys wanted it, and everything in between was boring. I think this was touted as a coming of age story and blah. I prefer the movie version of this. no reviews | add a review
Is contained inHas the adaptationIs abridged inAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:“[An] irresistible invitation to share the lives of people who believe in enduring values.”—Detroit Free Press It began with Benny Hogan and Eve Malone, growing up, inseparable, in the village of Knockglen. Benny—the only child, yearning to break free from her adoring parents. . . . Eve—the orphaned offspring of a convent handyman and a rebellious blueblood, abandoned by her mother's wealthy family to be raised by nuns. Eve and Benny—they knew the sins and secrets behind every villager's lace curtains . . . except their own. It widened at Dublin, at the university where Benny and Eve met beautiful Nan Mahlon and Jack Foley, a doctor's handsome son. But heartbreak and betrayal would bring the worlds of Knockglen and Dublin into explosive collision. Long-hidden lies would emerge to test the meaning of love and the strength of ties held within the fragile gold bands of a. . . Circle Of Friends. Praise for Circle of Friends “A rare pleasure . . . at terrific tale, told by a master storyteller.”—Susan Isaacs, The New York Times Book Review “Circle of Friends welcomes you in.”—The Washington Post. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |