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janneyf's review against another edition
5.0
I must be at the time and place in my life when I love reading about friendships between girls/women. And this book is splendid. Claire Messud is such a skillful, intelligent writer, and I found myself stopping throughout the story to contemplate one sentence or another. This story is full of deep emotion and the truth about girls' friendships--I just loved it. I read it in two days because I couldn't put it down.
ridgewaygirl's review against another edition
4.0
This is the story of Cassie, as seen through the eyes of her best friend, JuJu. The two girls were inseparable, and during the summer before they began middle school, they wandered all over their small Massachusetts town and the woods around it, but beginning in middle school, the girls drift apart, a process that JuJu finds confusing and painful. She's been put in all the advanced classes, while Cassie falls in with the crowd of popular kids who party. From a distance, JuJu watches Cassie change and when she gains a stepfather, the speed at which she embraces a risky lifestyle increases.
Messud has done a good job in writing her adolescent characters. JuJu is intelligent and insightful, but she's also full of the drama of the situation. The book is told from JuJu's POV and the author restricts the level of information the reader is given to what JuJu knows, which means we are getting Cassie's story in random sudden lumps and through hearsay, which was surprisingly effective, even as it meant that a lot of the questions remain unanswered.
Messud has done a good job in writing her adolescent characters. JuJu is intelligent and insightful, but she's also full of the drama of the situation. The book is told from JuJu's POV and the author restricts the level of information the reader is given to what JuJu knows, which means we are getting Cassie's story in random sudden lumps and through hearsay, which was surprisingly effective, even as it meant that a lot of the questions remain unanswered.
hatrireads's review against another edition
3.0
I like this author. A very compelling coming of age story about two close girl friends who grow apart as they enter their teen years. I could recommend this book.
bookyanne's review against another edition
4.0
I really liked this book! An interesting coming of age story about two girls. I enjoyed the narration and how it felt a bit train-of-thought-y. It was just a girl telling a story, which was sometime sad and sometimes happy and overall just a story about the pain of growing up and growing apart. Very well written and would recommend.
arielamandah's review against another edition
3.0
This was an easy read. A story about summer and friendship and growing out of people. There is certainly truth about how it feels to be a teenager here: the way friends come and go and how circles widen and contract. It didn’t knock my socks off, but I wouldn’t say it was a waste of time, either.
irishlibrarian's review against another edition
4.0
Really well-written, true-to-life description of female friends whose paths diverge when adolescence strikes.
lizaroo71's review against another edition
3.0
I was mixed on Messud's last book, [b:The Woman Upstairs|40676261|The Woman Upstairs|Claire Messud|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1530377333s/40676261.jpg|18450578], but I have heard good things about this one, so I picked it up.
I think this is an interesting exploration of a friendship of young girls. The type of friendship my own daughter, in eighth grade, is experiencing right now. You grow up with someone and you are the best of friends. You share secrets and sorrows. You trust them with everything. And then one day that person is just different somehow and you understand that you will never be friends with them in the same way you once were. You must mourn the loss, but you move on.
It seems the two friends here, Julia and Cassie, have different views of the friendship. We can never know as Julia is our narrator. I feel like she is telling us the events from her eighteen year old self, but I can't be sure. If that is the case, then she hasn't removed herself enough from the events that take place.
This is a short book with compelling writing and some keen observations about being a girl and the type of friendships that develop between females, but there isn't much insight. The tension builds up to not much and there seems to be too many threads left loose.
I think this is an interesting exploration of a friendship of young girls. The type of friendship my own daughter, in eighth grade, is experiencing right now. You grow up with someone and you are the best of friends. You share secrets and sorrows. You trust them with everything. And then one day that person is just different somehow and you understand that you will never be friends with them in the same way you once were. You must mourn the loss, but you move on.
It seems the two friends here, Julia and Cassie, have different views of the friendship. We can never know as Julia is our narrator. I feel like she is telling us the events from her eighteen year old self, but I can't be sure. If that is the case, then she hasn't removed herself enough from the events that take place.
This is a short book with compelling writing and some keen observations about being a girl and the type of friendships that develop between females, but there isn't much insight. The tension builds up to not much and there seems to be too many threads left loose.