I'm a sucker for stories of women's friendships, especially is they are set in a time approximately contemporary with my own younger days. However, it's hard to like a book when one of the "friends" (Alexandra, AKA Alex) is so unlikable that when the worst things happen to her you just don't care, and the other, Rebecca, has little personality and absolutely no spunk whatsoever. A total waste of time. ( )

An engaging story about women struggling to find their place in a world that wants to force them into one role, that of wife and mother. It's a story of friendship, of mothers, of daughters, of trying to figure out who you are while struggling to be who society wants you to be.
I was invested in Rebecca's story and wanted desperately for her life to work out. I think I felt more anxious about her future than she did. ( )

I enjoyed the majority of this book. I think there were a few events within the book that could have had more depth which would have added to the story so that was a little disappointing but it was Part III that I didn't enjoy as much - it didn't flow as nicely and the story itself just didn't fit well with the rest of the book (in my opinion) ( )

Rebecca Madden and Alexandra Carrington meet in homeroom their freshman year of high school. Beautiful and vivacious Alex had just moved to Pasadena from Texas. Shy and studious Becky was as surprised as anyone when Alex asked to sit with her at lunch, but from the moment they met they were best friends. We found each other like two animals recognizing a similar species: noses raised, sniffing, alert.

The novel is told by an older Rebecca, relating her youth to her daughter. It’s a coming-of-age novel that is intensely personal and mimics the upheaval the country was undergoing in the 1960s – civil rights, Vietnam, women’s liberation. Raised in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, the girls chafe at the expectations of their mothers and go to college determined NOT to find husbands, but to succeed at their own dreams and ambitions. Breaking out of the mold is apparently easier for Alex than for Becky, but the results for both are much the same.

This is a character-driven novel. Told entirely from Rebecca’s viewpoint, it mostly explores her own awakening and maturing. In fact, Alex disappears from the story for a large part of it, as they finish college and wind up in different cities. But just as Alex awakened the 14-year-old Becky, it will be Alex who forces the adult Rebecca to recognize the truth of her life and spur her to take action.

The best way I can describe this novel is that it is atmospheric. Maybe that’s because I, too, was growing up in that era, and questioned the apparent expectations that society had for me. For our high school graduation, the PTA mothers gave each of us girls engraved formal calling cards (I still have the engraving plate). We had curfews in the college dorms, gentleman callers were confined to the formal sitting room which was always chaperoned, and all phone calls came through a central switchboard (which closed at 11p). Women were required to wear skirts to all meals in the college dining hall. It was a lifetime ago, and just a few moments ago.
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I received this book for free as part of a GoodRads book club discussion.

I really liked this book, even though a lot of reviews are not good, and I don't agree with them. I'll write more about my thoughts later. ( )