These Girls: A Novel
Internationally bestselling author Sarah Pekkanen examines the lives of three women working and living together in New York City and shows that family secrets may shape us all, but it's the rich, complicated layers of friendship that can save us. Family secrets may shape us all, but it's the rich, complicated layers of friendship that can save us. Cate, Renee, and Abby have come to New York for very different reasons, and in a bustling city of millions, they are linked together through circumstance and chance. Cate has just been named the features editor of Gloss, a high-end lifestyle magazine. It's a professional coup, but her new job comes with more complications than Cate ever anticipated. Her roommate Renee will do anything to nab the plum job of beauty editor at Gloss. But snide comments about Renee's weight send her into an emotional tailspin. Soon she is taking black market diet pills--despite the racing heartbeat and trembling hands that signal she's heading for real danger. Then there's Abby, whom they take in as a third roommate. Once a joyful graduate student working as a nanny part time, she abruptly fled a seemingly happy life in the D.C. suburbs. No one knows what shattered Abby--or why she left everything she once loved behind. Pekkanen's most compelling, true-to-life novel yet tells the story of three very different women as they navigate the complications of careers and love--and find the lifeline they need in each other.
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Community Reviews
This is the story of three women in their late 20s in NYC. Of course two of them (Cate and Renee) work at a magazine, because it seems all chic lit that takes place in the Big Apple has to include at least one woman working at a Vogue-like magazine. It would have been lovely to have more creativity here.
The third woman has run away suddenly from her nanny job in Maryland (20 min from where I live, outside DC, and as I was a nanny here for 10 years this story line was a little more interesting) and is living w/ her brother but stays w/ Cate and Renee.
At one point, Renee realizes she's lived with Cate for six month and is just now figuring out that Cate is shy. Really? They work two cubicles from each other and live together and it took her six months to figure this out? That just seems poorly written/thought out by the author.
The details of Abby's live-in nanny job were well developed, and seeing that the author lives here in the DC area and has a nanny (and she thanked her nanny in the acknowledgements, which is huge!) shows that this is an area with which she is familiar. It can be difficult to maintain the line between friend and employee, and when there is obvious tension in the employers' marriage, it makes it awkward and uncomfortable for any household staff members. I also related well with the panic attacks Abby had and I think anyone who's experienced a panic attack will understand how she felt. I won't spoil the ending, but the way her story wraps up was done well.
Renee is struggling with her weight. I felt that while there are thousands of women who feel the same every day, the way she chose to deal with it, the aftermath, and the way it ended were not done in such a way as to encourage the reader to be healthy. It was more of a "it wasn't really all that bad in the end and I got the results I wanted" ending.
Cate's story was the weakest in my opinion. As I sit here, and I just finished the book last night, I can't even remember the main point of her storyline, so instead of going back and looking it up, I'll let that fact speak for itself.
The third woman has run away suddenly from her nanny job in Maryland (20 min from where I live, outside DC, and as I was a nanny here for 10 years this story line was a little more interesting) and is living w/ her brother but stays w/ Cate and Renee.
At one point, Renee realizes she's lived with Cate for six month and is just now figuring out that Cate is shy. Really? They work two cubicles from each other and live together and it took her six months to figure this out? That just seems poorly written/thought out by the author.
The details of Abby's live-in nanny job were well developed, and seeing that the author lives here in the DC area and has a nanny (and she thanked her nanny in the acknowledgements, which is huge!) shows that this is an area with which she is familiar. It can be difficult to maintain the line between friend and employee, and when there is obvious tension in the employers' marriage, it makes it awkward and uncomfortable for any household staff members. I also related well with the panic attacks Abby had and I think anyone who's experienced a panic attack will understand how she felt. I won't spoil the ending, but the way her story wraps up was done well.
Renee is struggling with her weight. I felt that while there are thousands of women who feel the same every day, the way she chose to deal with it, the aftermath, and the way it ended were not done in such a way as to encourage the reader to be healthy. It was more of a "it wasn't really all that bad in the end and I got the results I wanted" ending.
Cate's story was the weakest in my opinion. As I sit here, and I just finished the book last night, I can't even remember the main point of her storyline, so instead of going back and looking it up, I'll let that fact speak for itself.
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