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With Friends Like These: A Novel (edition 2010)

by Sally Koslow

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8617128,313 (3.38)2
Member:curvymommy
Title:With Friends Like These: A Novel
Authors:Sally Koslow
Info:Ballantine Books (2010), Edition: 1, Hardcover, 336 pages
Collections:Your library, To read
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Tags:TBR

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With Friends Like These: A Novel by Sally Koslow

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Showing 1-5 of 17 (next | show all)
I always feel guilty starting a book and not finishing it, like I owe it to the author. I started this book and there just wasn't that "grab a hold and take off point" where I couldn't put the book down. I wasn't connected to the characters for lack of descriptive writing concerning their personalities, they were all described without flair. That may be the point of view the author wanted to take on, concentrating on the problems they were facing but I really didn't care too much about their problems because I didn't feel any emotional connection to them. I probably wouldn't recommend this even for a beach read for the simple fact that even when I was reading this, in my home uninterrupted, I would get bored with it and find my mind wondering back to my day instead of staying in the moment. Like a few of the other reviewers, I would have to look back and recap the characters and their lives to remember who was the narrator of this chapter, I kept getting everyones lives and families and troubles confused. I have heard good reviews of her previous book and will have to TRY to read that one before I form an opinion of the author. ( )
  ARBELL | Jun 7, 2011 |
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
This book will be a terrific movie -- it's a great light read dealing with complex friendships. While the story doesn't go down deep, it's still enjoyable and deals with issues and topics that most people will be interested in. I think this would a perfect beach, airplane or purse read -- something you can pick up right where you left off without any trouble.
If you are looking for a deep meaningful look at friendship -- you will be frustrated with this book. It could be a good book for a book club's summer selections (if they pick something lighter during the heat of the summer)
  leadmomma | Oct 2, 2010 |
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
With Friends Like These by Sally Koslow (ARC)
Published by Ballantine Books
ISBN 978-0-345-50622-1
At the request of Pump Up Your Book, a PB ARC was sent, at no cost to me, for my honest opinion.
Synopsis (from book): A novel following four New York City women's complicated friendships across a span of twenty years.
When Quincy, Jules, Talia and Chloe become fast friends despite their drastically different personalities. Now, nearly twenty years later, their lives have diverged as much as they possibly can within one city: Quincy is mourning a miscarriage and lusting for the perfect Manhattan apartment; Jules, a woman with an outsize personality, is facing forty alone; Talia, married and the mother of a four-year-old, is her family's reluctant breadwinner; and Chloe faces pressure from her hedge fund manager husband to be more ambitious. As these women grapple with the challenges of marriage, motherhood, careers, and real estate, they can't help but assess their positions in life in comparison to each other-leading them to envy and disillusionment.
My Thoughts and Opinion: I thoroughly enjoyed this contemporary chick lit novel, maybe even more so, because of recent personal issues, namely empty nesting. Lately I have been thinking about the past 20+ years, reassessing, recalling memories, taking inventory of life's ups and downs and what I have learned from them in my own personal life. The same premise as this book. I could relate to many experiences that these 4 very diverse women with different personality traits encountered in their lives. I could also compare them to my friendships that I have been lucky to have, for many years, and how each of us has changed but still maintained that special friendship bond. Ms Koslow has written a very emotional, touching and thought provoking novel that has an outcome that will have the reader, at least it did for me, taking stock of our own lives and friendships. What makes friendships endure for years? Even when there are times where intentions aren't truly genuine and/or have even a little bit of envy. The plot is profound and meaningful, whereas the author, creates 4 characters that experience so many real life emotions, trials and tribulations and through her written words, allows the reader to palpate each and every sentiment. A poignant must read !!!
My Rating: 4 ( )
  CMash | Aug 28, 2010 |
My full review can be found on my blog Rundpinne (http://www.rundpinne.com)

"With Friends Like These by Sally Koslow chronicles the lives of four women; Quincy, Jules, Talia, and Chloe from their first meeting then jumping ahead to their adult lives as wives. The four women once lived together in a Manhattan apartment and for ten years were best friends until life and circumstances changed them. Can these four women regain what has been lost with life changes and time and do they want to? The chapters alternate so that the four women narrate the entire story, which is a style I enjoy in a book about many main characters, unfortunately I found these four women to be annoying at best and would not care to know any of them." ( )
  knittingmomof3 | Aug 20, 2010 |
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
Quick read, full of entanglements of the four women whose friendship started when they shared an apartment in New York, when they were all embarking on their lives. Thier friendship has continued into adulthood, through marriage, kids, and jobs. Sally Koslow captures the myraid of things that encompass most friendships involving women, all of the strings, webs of feelings of best friends.
She also portrays the intricacies of marriage, in a somewhat real degree.
This is a lighthearted, enjoyable read. ( )
  mlschmidt | Aug 15, 2010 |
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Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0345506227, Hardcover)

Sally Koslow on With Friends Like These

If we're lucky, we find caring friends who'll value us as much as we value them. They'll make us balloon animals if life throws a suckerpunch and don't secretly rejoice when we gain a chin and a second mortgage. Nor do they send us internet chain letters with apocalyptic threats should we fail to forward the news flash to 17 pals in the next hour. It's when such sterling friends disappoint us that north starts looking like south.

This is the theme--disappointment among friends--that I explore in my new novel, With Friends Like These.

We know not every friend is destined to be a perennial, the James Taylor or Carole King of our emotional road show. What brings a friendship to the Do Not Resuscitate point? The result depends on how bad we feel we've been had, whether and to what degree the evil one serves up remorse and plain old manners.

Here’s what got me going on writing With Friends Like These. A buddy tried to snatch an apartment I found and bid on. Afterward we didn't speak for many months. This wasn't exactly Draconian punishment, but I missed her enough so that once she sang her sorries, we moved on. I had a harder time trying to get past a very close (or so I thought) chum who "by mistake" copied me on an email whining about how she didn't want to go to my last book party. I was hurt at this and other passive-aggressive gestures I began to realize I could not overlook.

The slow erode of this friendship--which I thought would be a lifer--is more painful than the bruise caused by the savage apartment-hunter, because with my party-dissing friend I'd believed there was an unbreakable mutual regard. Realizing that you're not appreciated at a molecular level moves a relationship into the land of phony baloney, a place reached by sailing on the ship of fools--and truly, who's got the time? Do. Not. Resuscitate.

An early reviewer of With Friends Like These called its story line--about four once-close women--"achingly real." The characters don't set out to hurt one another, but reality gets in the way, and sooner than you can say steak tartare, four friendships turn raw.

The gaping hole in our lives left by the missing friendship can hurt like a phantom limb. Which is why With Friends Like These is also a story of forgiveness. Because is any aspect of friendship more important and profound than forgiveness? I don’t think so. If you can’t be a person who learns to forgive, you can’t be a good friend.

(retrieved from Amazon Mon, 20 Sep 2010 01:09:40 -0400)

Forging a deep friendship in spite of their differences, former roommates Quincy, Jules, Talia and Chloe struggle with respective challenges in the ensuing years, which are complicated by their illusion-based comparisons to one another's circumstances.… (more)

(summary from another edition)

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