Don't get mad. Get everything.
When their best friend commits suicide over her divorce, Elise, Brenda and Annie decide enough is enough. Each was crucial to her husband's career. But now that the men are successful, they've traded in their wives for newer, blonder models.
Over lunch one day they form the First Wives Club. But this is no support group. This is the SAS in Chanel. Painstakingly, inexorably, they plan the downfall of the men who've wrecked their lives - and know that revenge has never tasted sweeter...

Each woman, united in their being spurned by their husbands - often for younger models - and having been to school together, come together after the fourth of their group commits suicide. They then conive to get back all that they think they deserve, having contributed much to their husbands' current way of living.

Much better than the film, (which I dont remember having Diane Keaton's daughter being Down Syndrome, or Goldie Hawn's aging actress being a dignified near 60 year old dypso getting a younger boyfriend, or Bette Midler ending up as a middle aged lesbian) the book is a little harder and edgier - and covers some subjects that mid 90s Hollywood is clearly not ready for.
( )

Annie, Brenda y Elise. Tres mujeres de mediana edad. Tienen historias distintas, distintos caracteres, pero algo en común: las tres fueron abandonadas por sus respectivos maridos. Todas tuvieron que ver cómo aquellos a quienes ayudaron a triunfar las abandonaban por mujeres más jóvenes. Ahora, ha nacido El club de las primeras..., ellos pueden empezar a tremblar poque sólo a los fuertes se les hace justicia.

I cheated by accident and watched the film long before I read the novel, but not on purpose. I didn't even know that the film was based on a book!

Irregardless of any differences between the two mediums and plot changes, I highly enjoyed both. The film is a bit more comedic - largely due to the actors - and the book has a more wide-ranging revenge plan, but they are both centred around themes of female empowerment and the age old adage "a woman scorned..." I hope that this book is able to act as an inspiration for women who didn't grow up with my liberal ideas about male-female relationships, because no woman should be used and abused by a man (or anyone for that matter). ( )

I've always been a big believer of reading the book before watching the movie, but I've seen The First Wives Club movie several times and it's always something I turn on when it's on tv. So I thought the book must be as great as the movie. I couldn't have been more wrong.

The book isn't terrible, it's just not as fun and slap-stick comedy driven like the movie is. Everything is much darker and the things the men do is just repulsive in parts. Maybe it's also the time frame of when it was written (a la the early '90s) that some of the language seemed unnecessary and offensive. You can get your point across without having to use a derogatory term to describe someone. And most importantly, we get it, Brenda is fat. We don't need to be reminded of it every page.

For me, the best part was reading about the husbands and what was coming to them. Ultimately, this book could have been reduced by 100 pages and you wouldn't have missed much. Besides that, I think I'll stick with the movie. ( )

Really very very good. Read it years ago, but forgot & now when I rediscovered the author, liked her very much, re-read. So worthwhile. She draws me into her character's lives. Stayed up til 2:30 last night reading 250+ pages. Will finish tonight. Gotta get the movie!!! -- LATER: This is way way better than the movie; that is campy, trying to be funny. Also bought myself a copy of the book. Want to re-read soon. ( )