Girl Talk

by Julianna Baggott

Lissy Jablonski was fifteen during the summer of 1985. That was the summer her father, a soft-spoken gynecologist, up and left her mother for a redheaded bank teller. The same summer Lissy and her mother disappeared from their quiet New Hampshire lives to have an adventure of their own amid a cast of unlikely characters, including a Valium-addicted ex-debutante and a suspected mobster. The summer the reliably comforting "girl talks" with her mother began to reveal startling secrets. Now an almost-thirty-year-old advertising executive in Manhattan, faced with her father's imminent death and newly pregnant by her married ex-lover, an unmoored Lissy finds herself looking back across the years. Contending with her affections for an old flame and his doomed marriage to a Korean stripper named Kitty Hawk, as well as the tangible legacies of that unmentionable summer with her mother, she realizes that she has become more like her mother than she ever could have imagined.

Genres: Chick Lit, Fiction, Romance, Coming Of Age, Novels

Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Critically acclaimed, bestselling author Julianna Baggott has published more than twenty books under her own name as well as pen names Bridget Asher and N.E. Bode. Her recent novel, Harriet Wolf’s Seventh Book of Wonders, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (2015). Her novel Pure, the first of a trilogy, was also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (2012) and won an ALA Alex Award. Her work has been optioned by Fox2000, Nickelodeon/Paramount, and Anonymous Content and she currently has work in development at Netflix with Shawn Levy attached to direct, Paramount with Jessica Biel attached, Disney+, Lionsgate, and Warner Brothers, to name a few. For more on her film and TV work, click here. There are over one hundred foreign editions of Julianna’s novels published or forthcoming overseas. Baggott’s work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Modern Love column, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The International Herald Tribune, Glamour, Real Simple, Best Creative Nonfiction, Best American Poetry, and has been read on NPR’s Here and Now, Talk of the Nation, and All Things Considered. Her essays, stories, and poems are highly anthologized.

Baggott began publishing short stories when she was twenty-two and sold her first novel while still in her twenties. After receiving her M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she published her first novel, the national bestseller Girl Talk. It was quickly followed by The Boston Globe bestseller, The Miss America Family, and then The Boston Herald Book Club selection, The Madam, an historical novel based on the life of her grandmother. She co-wrote Which Brings Me to You with Steve Almond, A Best Book of 2006 (Kirkus Reviews); it has been optioned by Anonymous Content, and currently by BCDF, with a screenplay penned by playwright Keith Bunin.

Her Bridget Asher novels, published by Bantam Dell at Random House, include All of Us and Everything, listed in “Best New Books” in People magazine (2015), The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, The Pretend Wife, and My Husband’s Sweethearts.

Although the bulk of her work is for adults, she has published award-winning novels for younger readers under the pen name N.E. Bode as well as her own name. Her seven novels for younger readers include, most notably, The Anybodies trilogy, which was a People Magazine summer reading pick alongside David Sedaris and Bill Clinton, a Washington Post Book of the Week, a Girl’s Life Top Ten, a Booksense selection, and was in development at Nickelodeon/Paramount. Other titles include The Slippery Map, The Ever Breath, and the prequel to Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, a movie starring Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, and Jason Bateman. For two years, Bode was a recurring personality on XM Sirius Radio. Julianna’s Boston Red Sox novel The Prince of Fenway Park (HarperCollins) was on the Sunshine State Young Readers Awards List and The Massachusetts Children’s Book Award for 2011-2012.

Baggott also has an acclaimed career as a poet, having published four collections of poetry – Instructions: Abject & Fuming, This Country of Mothers, Compulsions of Silkworms and Bees, and Lizzie Borden in Love. Her poems have appeared in some of the most venerable literary publications in the country, including Poetry, The American Poetry Review, and Best American Poetry (2001, 2011, and 2012).

She is an associate professor at Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts where she teaches screenwriting. From 2013-2017, she held the William H.P. Jenks Chair in Contemporary American Letters at the College of the Holy Cross. In 2006, Baggott and her husband, David Scott, co-founded the nonprofit organization Kids in Need – Books in Deed which focuses on literacy and getting free books into the hands of underprivileged children in the state of Florida. David Scott is also her creative and business partner. They have four children. Her oldest daughte

Reviews

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a fan of this book. It stared out interesting but by the time I was half way through I was still waiting for the main point of the story, and when I was almost finished with the book I felt like I was expecting much more! I didn't care for how the book jumped around from past time to current and everywhere in between; just as I felt I was getting into it, the time period changed and the story went off on another tangent. One story would almost come full circle but not quite make a significant connection and then a whole new story would start. I think I would read another book by this author, I just didn't care for this one 😏

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes I really liked what this author wrote, and barked out loud. But, then I would shake my head because it wasn't quite right. You know, when you open a present someone is so excited to give you, but they've missed the mark. And, you're left looking down at a mustard polyester leisure suit with a bemused look on your face. Oh, well. Maybe the poems are better.

[Kyla · Rating 3 out of 5]

First novel written by a friend in Delaware-- really enjoyed it, and don't regret a minute I spent with it. Quick read, enjoyable.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good chick lit

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty good read I would say.

[Cassandra Dumont · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rarely give out five stars.

This is not my genre of choice.

That’s all you need to know.

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Big nope on this one!

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am really surprised by how much I liked this book given I read the other reviews of it before I started it. This whole book read like a woman examining her life trying to figure out how she got to where she is now. I enjoyed the correlation between mother and daughter and how Lissy makes a conscious choice at the end of book to do something different for herself and her child then her mother did. It wasn’t an ending per se but I could certainly see growth in her.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this. I get the whole "my life is topsy-turvy and also folks are dying" genre and I have totally been there. Not super keen on this one, but it might be for you. :)

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't understand why people think this book is great. There were a lot of words and very little story. In fact, the entire story was summed up in the description. Not worth reading.

[L L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story about the impact of trauma across three generations of women. An enjoyable read but not unputdownable

[Cathi Trevor-reeves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved it from beginning to end; a mother and daughter relationship that touched my heart as it was warm witty and the perfect two day read!!!

[Oniks Dokle Troshani · Rating 3 out of 5]

it’s like looking into someone life, someway comforting

[Mary Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked all the characters and it seemed like a very relatable story, but nothing ever seemed to really happen. Had potential to be a really funny story, just didn't seem to give much

[Karo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave Girl Talk a whirl, having heard about it here and there, and I must say that I was disappointed. Not because I had had particularly high expectations of the novel, because I hadn't. I was disappointed simply because I felt that Girl Talk COULD have been great. It had all the right elements -- interesting characters, an intriguing plot. But for whatever reason, people involved in the book's publication obviously didn't do their jobs as well as they should have.

First of all, and I know that this is a minor gripe, there are a few words of Polish sprinkled throughout the novel. Great, I think, throwing those in there will make the grandmother seem more real, better fleshed out. The problem, however, is that I speak Polish, and the few words thrown into the book were, well, NOT. Almost every Polish word in the book was misspelled, and strange accents were thrown in where they didn't belong. But ok, I know very few people are going to notice that. However, there were a few more editing gaffes. For example, there is a character in the book with a prosthetic leg. Lissy uses the exact same metaphor to describe the book twice in the novel -- it's like a lover waiting for her. I'm almost certain that the author did not mean to repeat herself -- she simply had the same good idea twice and no one caught it.

So. I'll most likely read Ms. Baggott's next attempt, if only to see if she lives up to her promise. As for this book, it's largely skip-able. I'd recommend Amy and Isbaelle for a mother-daughter book, or My Year of Meats perhaps.

[Yvonne O'Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Lindsay Jablonski was 15 (in 1985), her father left with another woman for a summer. She and her mother had their own adventure and Lissy learned of her real father, her mother's past and much more. Flash forward 14 years and Lissy finds herself pregnant by a married man and not sure what she will do. Her friend/old flame, Church, comes to visit, falls for her stripper ex-roommate and marries her! In a blend of Lissy at 15 and then at 29, we come to know the whole history of how daughter, mother, and even grandmother are linked. In the end, you don't know if Lissy will have the baby, but you get the sense she will be just fine.

I started reading this book, but realized its format was not good for short reading sessions. I picked it up again and read it over 3 days and found the story much easier to follow. I liked that the focus wasn't on finding a man to "save" her or on "fixing" her past, but just coming to grips with everything that made her who she is. I love that none of the loose ends are tied-up. She never gets to know her birth father, Church never grows up, her grandmother and mother do not make peace and Church's mother never gets her act together.

A welcome change from the usual neat and tidy package books.

[Kristal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lissy is 30, never married & just found out that she is pregnant by her married ex-lover. Wondering where her life is heading, she gets an unexpected knock on her door from a childhood friend who just happens to be the same boy she lost her virginity to the summer that she was fifteen. It was the same summer that her father ran off with a redheaded bank teller & her mother decided to share all of her secrets with Lissy while they were having their mother-daughter 'girl talks'. Unsure of what to do, Lissy's mother, Dotty, decides that the two of them will stay with friends until everything is worked out. So begins the adventures of "the summer that never happened" in which she met Church, the bot she lost her virginity to & possibly her heart.
With the news that she herself will soon be a mother, Lissy realizes that as much as she's tried not to be like her own mother & grandmother, she is exactly like them. And the hard lesson that she learned that summer from her mother, that sometimes a lie isn't a lie if there is some glimmer of truth to it, has been a lesson she has learned well.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fast paced book about a truly disfunctional family. Lissy is the main character who finds herself pregnant after breaking up with her married boyfriend. As she tells her story she inevitably tells the story of her mother, whose life she is destined to repeat whether she wants to or not. The summer that never happened is about her mother's great love that did not become happily ever after and how she settled for a version of love. Lissy finds that her mothers story defines who she is and who her mother really is. A quick summer read without too much to invest in.

[Heather Leipart · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only gave this book 2 stars and yet I was interested enough to see it all the way through. Everytime I kept feeling like being done with it and just setting it down I found I could not. I had to keep reading. Honestly, there was nothing particularly interesting within the storyline. The thing that kept me reading was her writing style and word choice. That is what I enjoyed. She had a lot of neat little quips that make ya go, "hmm" if you know what I mean. Forgetable, but not an entire waste of time.

[Kristyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reads like a writer learning how to write a novel, which it is. Ms. Baggott has written about how she tricked herself into writing this first novel of hers by telling herself it was just 50 pages. The second half of the book interested me more than the first--the 1960s, advertising, the idea of truth. I heard echoes of DeLillo, if not in style then in content. A decent attempt, but ultimately not what I'd expected.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. It's one to read and probably not re-read ever again though. One of those books that are good for passing time, but every once in awhile has something that will strike you and you can relate to it. It's very easy to start to really feel for Lissy and the uprooting situations her mother continually places her in.

[Melinda · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book about a girl who grows up to realize she is just like her mom. Except that her mom is boring and she is boring and I skimmed half the book because it was boring and I was tired of the F-bomb. Why did I continue reading? Because even when I hate a book I have to know how it ends.
Don't read it.

[Carol Luce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this debut novel by a new, sharp literary talent. The characters couldn't have been more real. Quirky, likeable and downright fun to be with. I especially loved Lissy's mother and delighted in the adventure she takes her daughter on during the summer that never happened. A must read! I look forward to Ms. Baggott's other novels.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't think much of this book.

I am not sure just what the point was. To entertain, to lecture or to reflect on the mother daughter relationship.

It felt sordid, directionless and envious of those who deserved kindness and compassion.
Too much of not enough in a try hard way. Perhaps the third or fourth novel will be awesome. Her first meh.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a really hard time getting into this book and I waited and waited for it to get better or more interesting and it never did. I finished it, but there were quite a few times that I almost gave up on it.

[Catfish · Rating 5 out of 5]

This 1st person account by a 15 yo girl of "the summer that never happened" is lol funny and omg smart.

Lissy Jablonski's trip to understanding her parents is bleeding hilarious and oddly realistic. Points for hitting on Catholicism, sex and Woodstock.

Cried at the end. (not a crier)

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

There really isn't much to say about this book...it was just alright. It jumped around a lot between time periods which wasn't so much confusing but annoying. The story was alright but nothing really jumped out to make it great.

[Marian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book the first time I read it, and I liked it again the second time. I guess it's "chick lit," but to me, of the very best kind. Sort of like Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, which SEEMS like it's going to be all chick litty, and then ends up being really good.

[Brittany Seyb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Girl Talk, it was darker than I originally expected considering I bought it for it being a pink book. Ten years after reading it, various bits from the book pop up in my memory. That's a good thing!

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've really enjoyed this book. I do like coming of age stories and the flashbacks to America circa 1980s have been fun. I also agree with another reader who thinks the characters are 'deliciously dysfunctional'!