10/28/10

REVIEW: With Friends Like These by Sally Koslow

Description

Have you ever been a less than perfect friend? To whom does your first loyalty belong—your best friend or your husband? With her trademark wit and empathy, Sally Koslow explores the entangled lives of women in this candid, fast-paced novel.

Quincy, Talia, Chloe, and Jules met in the early nineties after answering a roommate ad for a Manhattan apartment. Despite having little in common, the women became fast friends. A decade later, their lives have diverged, though their ties remain strong.

Quincy, a Midwestern introvert, is trying to overcome a set of tragedies by hunting for the perfect home; Talia, a high-energy Brooklyn wife and mom with an outspoken conscience, is growing resentful of her friends’ greater financial stability and her husband’s lack of ambition; timid Chloe, also a mother, is trying to deflect pressure from her husband, a hedge fund manager, to play the role of trophy wife; while Jules, a fiercely independent actress/entrepreneur with a wicked set of life rules, is confronting her forties alone.

 When Jules gives her new boyfriend the inside scoop on the real estate gem Quincy is lusting after, and Talia chases a lucrative job earmarked for Chloe, the women are forced to wrestle with the challenges of love and motherhood. Will their friendships and marriages survive? And at what price? Punchy yet tender, a high-five to sisterhood, this book will hit an emotional bull’s-eye for anyone who has had—or been—less than a perfect friend.
 

About the Author

Sally Koslow is the author of With Friends Like These, The Late, Lamented Molly Marx and Little Pink Slips. Her essays have been published in More, O: The Oprah Magazine, and The New York Observer, among other publications. She was the editor in chief of both McCall’s and Lifetime, was an editor at Mademoiselle and Woman’s Day, and teaches creative writing at the Writing Institute of Sarah Lawrence College. The mother of two sons, she lives in New York City with her husband.

Details

  • Hardcover: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (August 10, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0345506227
  • ISBN-13: 978-0345506221
SOURCE:  LIBRARY THING EARLY REVIEWER

MY THOUGHTS
LOVED IT

I was frustrated by the characters in this book.  I thought that there was no way people treat each other that way, but with further examination, the actions are so little, yet develop into life changing consequences for each one, that it turns out it be realistic.  Four roommates become fast friends and try to retain their friendship even though they have all taken different paths and outgrown each other. Overall I have to say, that I really enjoyed the book. 

1 comment:

  1. Although I liked this book, I was frustrated with the characters at times. I enjoyed her earlier novel too, The Late Lamented Molly Marx. It was a little more inventive.

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