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Local Girls
The first person to break your heart isn’t always your boyfriend. Sometimes it’s your best friend.
Maggie, Lindsey, and Nina have been friends for most of their lives. The girls grew up together in a dead-end Florida town on the outskirts of Orlando, and the love and loyalty they have for one another have been their only constants. Now nineteen and restless, the girls spend empty summer days bouncing between unfulfilling jobs, the beach, and their favorite local bar, The Shamrock. It’s there that a chance encounter with a movie star on the last night of his life changes everything.
Passing through Orlando, Sam Decker comes to The Shamrock seeking anonymity, but finds Maggie, Lindsey, and Nina instead. Obsessed with celebrity magazines that allow them a taste of the better lives they might have had, the girls revel in his company. But the appearance of Lila, the estranged former member of the girls’ group, turns the focus to their shared history, bringing all their old antagonisms to the surface—Lila’s defection to Orlando’s country club school when her father came into some money, and the strange, enchanting boy she brought into their circle, who fundamentally altered dynamics that had been in play for years. By the night’s end, the escalation of these long-buried issues forces them to see one another as the women they are now instead of the girls they used to be.
With an uncanny eye for the raw edges of what it means to be a girl and a heartfelt sense of the intensity of early friendship, Local Girls is a look at both the profound role celebrity plays in our culture, and how the people we know as girls end up changing the course of our lives.
Maggie, Lindsey, and Nina have been friends for most of their lives. The girls grew up together in a dead-end Florida town on the outskirts of Orlando, and the love and loyalty they have for one another have been their only constants. Now nineteen and restless, the girls spend empty summer days bouncing between unfulfilling jobs, the beach, and their favorite local bar, The Shamrock. It’s there that a chance encounter with a movie star on the last night of his life changes everything.
Passing through Orlando, Sam Decker comes to The Shamrock seeking anonymity, but finds Maggie, Lindsey, and Nina instead. Obsessed with celebrity magazines that allow them a taste of the better lives they might have had, the girls revel in his company. But the appearance of Lila, the estranged former member of the girls’ group, turns the focus to their shared history, bringing all their old antagonisms to the surface—Lila’s defection to Orlando’s country club school when her father came into some money, and the strange, enchanting boy she brought into their circle, who fundamentally altered dynamics that had been in play for years. By the night’s end, the escalation of these long-buried issues forces them to see one another as the women they are now instead of the girls they used to be.
With an uncanny eye for the raw edges of what it means to be a girl and a heartfelt sense of the intensity of early friendship, Local Girls is a look at both the profound role celebrity plays in our culture, and how the people we know as girls end up changing the course of our lives.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 30, 2015
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May 5, 2019
We were burnouts in a burnout town. It took half the length of a Sam Decker movie to get to Orlando from where we lived, and even the city was a four-year-old's dream, not a nineteen-year-old's. The high school that we had gone to was not the type whose graduates went on to Ivy Leagues, or first- or second- or even third-tier liberal arts colleges. There was a community college in town where some of our classmates floundered and delayed having to look for jobs that paid by the hour, and the valedictorians usually made it to Florida State or the University of, but that was about it. By not bothering with these consolation prizes, we felt like we were making a point, though I'm not sure we could've told you what it was.
i'm kind of a sucker for bad girls. i have a "girls gone wild" shelf on here for a reason.
for me, megan abbott is the one who writes these kinds of stories best. even in her arguably less-successful books like The Fever, there's still something so darkly glimmering in the way she writes about the underbelly of teenaged female friendships, it gives me thrills.
this book is fine, but it didn't give me the abbott-thrills.
which is surprising, considering its components and how they are all so much in keeping with my tastes: the narrative foundation is of a group of four teenage girls: maggie, nina, lindsey, and lila, who are a little wild and tighter than tight until a tragic EVENT drives them apart. years later, now nineteen, they are still living outside of orlando - stuck in the wake of a tourist town with no real prospects in love or work, returning to the same dive bar every night and going in sluggish circles, exhaustedly bitchy and directionless as they obsess over celebrity magazines and dream about getting out of their hometown.
bad(ish) girls! smalltown(ish) blues! this is usually my JAM!
It felt like everyone was only ever one eye blink away from being somewhere else - somewhere even more glamorous and charming, where they would smile even wider. It felt like we were all one reality show or contest away from joining the faces on these pages, and this made us wish for things it might never have occurred to us to want, otherwise.
three of the girls are still friends, but it's a tainted friendship, compromised by that shattering EVENT in their shared past and lila's subsequent splintering off into enemy territory - a group of bitchy rich girls. they're all a bit more cynical now, bored with their lives and with each other, just kind of going through the motions of friendship. until the night both lila and, separately, one of their beloved dreamy celebrities walk into "their" bar and *gasp* sam decker chooses to spend the evening drinking with the three of them. he's hunky and charming, and it ends up becoming like some kind of live-action reality show where he is given a glimpse into the lives of regular folk as they flirt outrageously and competitively; dishing about themselves and each other and their former friend while they ply him for celebrity gossip and see what they can get away with.
he will be dead the next day.
the premise is good, but it's the execution that flounders a little. the problem for me was mostly with the voice. the story is told from the perspective of maggie, as an adult, looking back on this night when she was nineteen, which night is largely spent looking back on their earlier adolescence. so, although it is an adult voice telling the story, there are too many instances where thoughts are presented as occurring in the brain of a teenager that do not ring true. for example, this, which occurs at halloween when maggie is still in high school, just after her little group has been scattered post-EVENT:
That year, I had eyed the slutty nurse and bunny and maid costumes at the 99-cent store, but I couldn't think of anything sadder than a girl with no friends trading on the appeal of a body not quite finished yet.
that is the observation of an adult woman, but it is written as though maggie is thinking this in high school. no teenage girl has ever considered her body as "unfinished" - high school is when a girl's sexual currency is being acknowledged and appraised constantly by horny teenage boys (or horny teenage girls, but less clumsily), and when a girl is beginning to learn her body's power and how to wield and deploy it. the reflection of "unfinished" suggests appraisal at a distance of years and comes off as awkward voice.
and there are more examples of this :
I remember feeling, when I saw them, the full weight of how young we were, and that we wouldn't always be. It was one of those rare moments when you're not sitting around waiting for something to happen or reflecting back on something that already did, but simply marveling at what is. When the present, the middle child of tenses, swallows the ever-dominant past and future, and your entire life floats within a single moment. I remember thinking, This is what it is to be young. You will tell this story later.
now, if she hadn't said "I remember feeling" and then threw on an "I remember thinking" on TOP of that, i could have written this off as 'emotion recollected in tranquility;' an adult articulating the youthful moment with adult perspective. but, no. and so it comes across as inauthentic, overexplicated; these lofty and measured thoughts that don't mesh with a teenager in the middle of pranking a boy. you don't really feel this kind of bittersweet and grasping nostalgia in the frenzy of a careless and immortal teenage life. unless you have benjamin button disease.
so it just comes off a little graceless and contrived, which spoiled my reading experience by bringing me out of the story to question the narrator's reliability. not in a good patrick mccabe way; in a way that brought out my inner editor.
and what teenage girl can drink SEVEN beers before she has to pee? and where can i learn that trick?
i'm being unnecessarily catty, so these girls would probably dig me. it's far from hopeless - there are some really lovely parts, especially those that describe that restlessness to leave the place of one's birth, and the lack of resources limiting options:
…I suddenly wanted everything to match the electric buzz that Decker's presence had created at our table, and in our lives. The friendly, chatty exchange of information that our conversation had been up until that point suddenly felt like a waste of the opportunity we had been presented with*. Maybe I had reached the point of drunkenness where you talk just to hear yourself and reckless ideas take shape, but it suddenly occurred to me that if even a movie star joining our table couldn’t change the routines and settings of our Saturday night, maybe we were doomed to a life where nothing ever changes. Not the scenery or the seasons or the things you did to pass the time, no matter who** you passed them with.
it's mostly entertaining, if a little overworked. you get two "mysteries" for the price of one: what the EVENT was that drove the girls apart, and how decker dies. although the EVENT was less shocking than i had hoped. wow, i am stuck in a negative spiral today! i gotta get out of this review while i still can.
tl:dr - an entertaining book, but not the best of its kind.
* with which we had been presented
** whom
i KNOW, this character would never say "whom," but once you unleash the inner editor, there's no stopping it...
come to my blog!
i'm kind of a sucker for bad girls. i have a "girls gone wild" shelf on here for a reason.
for me, megan abbott is the one who writes these kinds of stories best. even in her arguably less-successful books like The Fever, there's still something so darkly glimmering in the way she writes about the underbelly of teenaged female friendships, it gives me thrills.
this book is fine, but it didn't give me the abbott-thrills.
which is surprising, considering its components and how they are all so much in keeping with my tastes: the narrative foundation is of a group of four teenage girls: maggie, nina, lindsey, and lila, who are a little wild and tighter than tight until a tragic EVENT drives them apart. years later, now nineteen, they are still living outside of orlando - stuck in the wake of a tourist town with no real prospects in love or work, returning to the same dive bar every night and going in sluggish circles, exhaustedly bitchy and directionless as they obsess over celebrity magazines and dream about getting out of their hometown.
bad(ish) girls! smalltown(ish) blues! this is usually my JAM!
It felt like everyone was only ever one eye blink away from being somewhere else - somewhere even more glamorous and charming, where they would smile even wider. It felt like we were all one reality show or contest away from joining the faces on these pages, and this made us wish for things it might never have occurred to us to want, otherwise.
three of the girls are still friends, but it's a tainted friendship, compromised by that shattering EVENT in their shared past and lila's subsequent splintering off into enemy territory - a group of bitchy rich girls. they're all a bit more cynical now, bored with their lives and with each other, just kind of going through the motions of friendship. until the night both lila and, separately, one of their beloved dreamy celebrities walk into "their" bar and *gasp* sam decker chooses to spend the evening drinking with the three of them. he's hunky and charming, and it ends up becoming like some kind of live-action reality show where he is given a glimpse into the lives of regular folk as they flirt outrageously and competitively; dishing about themselves and each other and their former friend while they ply him for celebrity gossip and see what they can get away with.
he will be dead the next day.
the premise is good, but it's the execution that flounders a little. the problem for me was mostly with the voice. the story is told from the perspective of maggie, as an adult, looking back on this night when she was nineteen, which night is largely spent looking back on their earlier adolescence. so, although it is an adult voice telling the story, there are too many instances where thoughts are presented as occurring in the brain of a teenager that do not ring true. for example, this, which occurs at halloween when maggie is still in high school, just after her little group has been scattered post-EVENT:
That year, I had eyed the slutty nurse and bunny and maid costumes at the 99-cent store, but I couldn't think of anything sadder than a girl with no friends trading on the appeal of a body not quite finished yet.
that is the observation of an adult woman, but it is written as though maggie is thinking this in high school. no teenage girl has ever considered her body as "unfinished" - high school is when a girl's sexual currency is being acknowledged and appraised constantly by horny teenage boys (or horny teenage girls, but less clumsily), and when a girl is beginning to learn her body's power and how to wield and deploy it. the reflection of "unfinished" suggests appraisal at a distance of years and comes off as awkward voice.
and there are more examples of this :
I remember feeling, when I saw them, the full weight of how young we were, and that we wouldn't always be. It was one of those rare moments when you're not sitting around waiting for something to happen or reflecting back on something that already did, but simply marveling at what is. When the present, the middle child of tenses, swallows the ever-dominant past and future, and your entire life floats within a single moment. I remember thinking, This is what it is to be young. You will tell this story later.
now, if she hadn't said "I remember feeling" and then threw on an "I remember thinking" on TOP of that, i could have written this off as 'emotion recollected in tranquility;' an adult articulating the youthful moment with adult perspective. but, no. and so it comes across as inauthentic, overexplicated; these lofty and measured thoughts that don't mesh with a teenager in the middle of pranking a boy. you don't really feel this kind of bittersweet and grasping nostalgia in the frenzy of a careless and immortal teenage life. unless you have benjamin button disease.
so it just comes off a little graceless and contrived, which spoiled my reading experience by bringing me out of the story to question the narrator's reliability. not in a good patrick mccabe way; in a way that brought out my inner editor.
and what teenage girl can drink SEVEN beers before she has to pee? and where can i learn that trick?
i'm being unnecessarily catty, so these girls would probably dig me. it's far from hopeless - there are some really lovely parts, especially those that describe that restlessness to leave the place of one's birth, and the lack of resources limiting options:
…I suddenly wanted everything to match the electric buzz that Decker's presence had created at our table, and in our lives. The friendly, chatty exchange of information that our conversation had been up until that point suddenly felt like a waste of the opportunity we had been presented with*. Maybe I had reached the point of drunkenness where you talk just to hear yourself and reckless ideas take shape, but it suddenly occurred to me that if even a movie star joining our table couldn’t change the routines and settings of our Saturday night, maybe we were doomed to a life where nothing ever changes. Not the scenery or the seasons or the things you did to pass the time, no matter who** you passed them with.
it's mostly entertaining, if a little overworked. you get two "mysteries" for the price of one: what the EVENT was that drove the girls apart, and how decker dies. although the EVENT was less shocking than i had hoped. wow, i am stuck in a negative spiral today! i gotta get out of this review while i still can.
tl:dr - an entertaining book, but not the best of its kind.
* with which we had been presented
** whom
i KNOW, this character would never say "whom," but once you unleash the inner editor, there's no stopping it...
come to my blog!
September 3, 2015
Chosen from Book of the Month club.
To me, this was a clear case of story not matching style. Zancan's prose is lyrical, long, and meditative. But the story of Maggie, Lindsey, and Nina isn't like that at all. Sure, a few small town girls deserve to have their story told, but there's such a disconnect between their story and the way they talk and act. It just feels like the wrong person is telling it.
At times, Zancan makes you breathless with her narrative, which is pretty amazing. And the looks back at the teenage antics of the three girls is absolutely the best part of the book. But the story continues to bounce around that lost time, the night the girls meet a movie star in a bar, and all sorts of other times in their lives. This is a structure that can work really well, but that left me struggling to get through the book a lot of the time.
Ultimately, I just didn't connect with the night the girls meet Sam Decker in a bar. It certainly has its moments, but it comes back over and over, to a drunken conversation that sometimes seems far too philosophical for these characters. It is supposed to be the pivotal turning point for the narrator, but I feel like too much is made of it. It's very hard to make fictional movie stars interesting.
It was hard to not love this book, because the character of Nina is so intense and amazing and I wanted the book to fit her better than it did.
To me, this was a clear case of story not matching style. Zancan's prose is lyrical, long, and meditative. But the story of Maggie, Lindsey, and Nina isn't like that at all. Sure, a few small town girls deserve to have their story told, but there's such a disconnect between their story and the way they talk and act. It just feels like the wrong person is telling it.
At times, Zancan makes you breathless with her narrative, which is pretty amazing. And the looks back at the teenage antics of the three girls is absolutely the best part of the book. But the story continues to bounce around that lost time, the night the girls meet a movie star in a bar, and all sorts of other times in their lives. This is a structure that can work really well, but that left me struggling to get through the book a lot of the time.
Ultimately, I just didn't connect with the night the girls meet Sam Decker in a bar. It certainly has its moments, but it comes back over and over, to a drunken conversation that sometimes seems far too philosophical for these characters. It is supposed to be the pivotal turning point for the narrator, but I feel like too much is made of it. It's very hard to make fictional movie stars interesting.
It was hard to not love this book, because the character of Nina is so intense and amazing and I wanted the book to fit her better than it did.
July 10, 2017
‘We loved one another purely, without the complications teenage girls so often bring to everything. But I wouldn’t be telling it right if I didn’t also tell you that it felt, by that night, that a sense of uneasy anticipation filled any room the three of us were in.’
Local Girls centers around the lives of three girls that have become reluctantly resigned to a monotonous life in their small hometown that sits on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida. Their jobs are ultimately unsatisfying and are only kept as a necessity since the majority of their time is spent at the local bar named The Shamrock. When they walked into the bar Saturday night, a bar that smelled of cheap beer and salty ocean air, the last person they ever would have expected to see sitting at the bar was an actual celebrity by the name of Sam Decker. Sam Decker, a celebrity the trio knew everything about him there was to know from celebrity magazines, changed their perception of everything and they saw the life they had already resigned themselves to from a fresh set of eyes. His presence changed everything.
Zancan creates an impressive analysis of multiple characters, the intricacies of friendship and ultimately the void left when those friendships unravel. Maggie, Lindsey, and Nina have been best friends for as long as they can remember. They weren’t always just a trio; their group used to number five. The presence of celebrity Sam Decker and his awareness of the animosity between the trio and a new girl that arrived at the bar that Saturday night stirred up questions of the past and what ultimately caused the rift. As the girls begin to share bits and pieces of their story with him, they begin to reevaluate how the simplest of actions caused them to get to where they are now and as the story progresses they begin to realize that maybe they aren’t quite as resigned to how their lives ended up as they once thought they were.
‘Maybe I had reached the point of drunkenness where you talk just to hear yourself and reckless ideas take shape, but it suddenly occurred to me that if even a movie star joining our table couldn’t change the routines and settings of our Saturday night, maybe we were doomed to a life where nothing ever changes.’
The addition of the celebrity character, which ultimately caused them to dredge up their full story initially, still managed to feel like an irrelevant inclusion since I felt these characters were already on the path of self-reflection. And while I loved how crass and unrepentant the trio was, the story coalesced into something much less intense than I had foreseen. I hoped for more for these characters; that they would overcome their small-town mentality and their complete acceptance of what they saw as their fate. This story will leave you only a twinkle of hope for these girls but it seems as if that’s the best we can hope for.
I received this book free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Local Girls centers around the lives of three girls that have become reluctantly resigned to a monotonous life in their small hometown that sits on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida. Their jobs are ultimately unsatisfying and are only kept as a necessity since the majority of their time is spent at the local bar named The Shamrock. When they walked into the bar Saturday night, a bar that smelled of cheap beer and salty ocean air, the last person they ever would have expected to see sitting at the bar was an actual celebrity by the name of Sam Decker. Sam Decker, a celebrity the trio knew everything about him there was to know from celebrity magazines, changed their perception of everything and they saw the life they had already resigned themselves to from a fresh set of eyes. His presence changed everything.
Zancan creates an impressive analysis of multiple characters, the intricacies of friendship and ultimately the void left when those friendships unravel. Maggie, Lindsey, and Nina have been best friends for as long as they can remember. They weren’t always just a trio; their group used to number five. The presence of celebrity Sam Decker and his awareness of the animosity between the trio and a new girl that arrived at the bar that Saturday night stirred up questions of the past and what ultimately caused the rift. As the girls begin to share bits and pieces of their story with him, they begin to reevaluate how the simplest of actions caused them to get to where they are now and as the story progresses they begin to realize that maybe they aren’t quite as resigned to how their lives ended up as they once thought they were.
‘Maybe I had reached the point of drunkenness where you talk just to hear yourself and reckless ideas take shape, but it suddenly occurred to me that if even a movie star joining our table couldn’t change the routines and settings of our Saturday night, maybe we were doomed to a life where nothing ever changes.’
The addition of the celebrity character, which ultimately caused them to dredge up their full story initially, still managed to feel like an irrelevant inclusion since I felt these characters were already on the path of self-reflection. And while I loved how crass and unrepentant the trio was, the story coalesced into something much less intense than I had foreseen. I hoped for more for these characters; that they would overcome their small-town mentality and their complete acceptance of what they saw as their fate. This story will leave you only a twinkle of hope for these girls but it seems as if that’s the best we can hope for.
I received this book free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
October 31, 2016
An interesting premise: 3 friends - 19 year old girls hanging out in a bar in the outskirts of Orlando meet a celebrity, Sam Decker, who has come to Orlando and just happened into this dumpy bar. Every girl's dream come true. Which of these "facts" do you find too hard to swallow: that the owner cares so little about his livelihood that he always serves these girls alcohol, knowing full well that they are 2 years under the legal limit; that a movie star comes into a dumpy little hole in the wall by himself; that this bar has no air-conditioning---remember, this is inland, not on the water, in AUGUST in Florida; that the movie star is wearing a bomber jacket. If you can get past all that, you've never been to Florida in August.
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July 1, 2015Ah, best friends. Best friends can talk without talking, they've got your back, and they really get you. That's why they're also the ones that can hurt you the most. Maggie, Lindsey, and Nina are the best of friends, spending their summer after graduation using their fake IDs to drink at the local dive bar. A random encounter with a celebrity and the return of a former friend over the course of an evening will kick their friendship out of its planned trajectory, and test the limits of loyalty. Local Girls is a heart-aching debut, a wonderful, stinging look at the point in which teens start making their move into adulthood, and the discovery that their best friends might not be there for them always. (PS - The internet has no images capturing just how truly bright and lovely the cover is. It's an amazing Play-doh fluorescent red!)
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August 21, 2015
tedious, one-dimensional, unlikeable characters. AND: orlando is not a beach town. nor is it 20 minutes from Florida State Univ.
January 26, 2018
The girls in this book, aside from Nina, were often hard for me to distinguish between. I think sometimes the author tried too hard to sound "cool" and it ended up taking away from the individual voices of her characters because they ended up all sounding exactly the same. Overall though, it was a somewhat enjoyable read and glimpse into young female friendship and what it's like for us girls when we find ourselves at the crossroads of being little girls and diving headfirst into womanhood.
June 23, 2016
Horrible book in my opinion. Absolutely nothing happens in this story. I kept reading hoping that something was going to make sense. It didn't.
May 27, 2015
This book centers around three girls on their usual hang out during a Saturday night at a bar, except that night happens to outweigh the others in particular, due to the fact that they bumped into their all-time favorite celebrity Sam Decker, changing their lives completely.
-
I went into this book blind despite knowing that the book follows three girls and their lives during the summer, and it was quite a delight. It took a twist on my expectations (which is a good thing) and I flew through the book in one sitting. Zancan's writing was eloquent. Flawless with a dash of humor. The plot wasn't anything intense at all, but the speech style and kept me at the verge of my seat through it all.
-
One thing I personally dislike about the book was how the story was executed from both the past and present. I appreciate how the retelling of the past helps fill in the gaps of each girl's vague memory, but i felt it was a bit redundant. It has that 'We Were Liars' vibe to it where everything was scattered for a moment and then the truth reveals at the very end, which can be irritating to readers who expected way more after having to drag themselves up until the end.
-
The ending was quite confusing to me but it did show great character development overall. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a quick and light read, which is also perfect for summer!
*Was provided an ARC from the publisher themselves in exchange for an honest review. This book comes out on 30th of June.*
-
I went into this book blind despite knowing that the book follows three girls and their lives during the summer, and it was quite a delight. It took a twist on my expectations (which is a good thing) and I flew through the book in one sitting. Zancan's writing was eloquent. Flawless with a dash of humor. The plot wasn't anything intense at all, but the speech style and kept me at the verge of my seat through it all.
-
One thing I personally dislike about the book was how the story was executed from both the past and present. I appreciate how the retelling of the past helps fill in the gaps of each girl's vague memory, but i felt it was a bit redundant. It has that 'We Were Liars' vibe to it where everything was scattered for a moment and then the truth reveals at the very end, which can be irritating to readers who expected way more after having to drag themselves up until the end.
-
The ending was quite confusing to me but it did show great character development overall. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a quick and light read, which is also perfect for summer!
*Was provided an ARC from the publisher themselves in exchange for an honest review. This book comes out on 30th of June.*
May 20, 2015
This book is a bit of a slow burn. We know something bad happens and that something bad HAS happened, but a lot of those things---as well as why---are kept secret from the reader for most of the book.
The book goes back and forth between the girls' night with movie star Sam Decker and to sometime in the past, explaining why there are only three friends now instead of four. (Note: most of the book is in the past.)
The pacing is very deliberate (some would stay slow) and readers should stay patient. Once I got the answers, I actually gasped; it felt like I had been punched in the stomach.
This is a book that will stay with me for a while, but I didn't really connect with the characters. I felt like if the book had been longer, that would've helped. Even so, the plot carries the day here and patient readers will be rewarded.
The book goes back and forth between the girls' night with movie star Sam Decker and to sometime in the past, explaining why there are only three friends now instead of four. (Note: most of the book is in the past.)
The pacing is very deliberate (some would stay slow) and readers should stay patient. Once I got the answers, I actually gasped; it felt like I had been punched in the stomach.
This is a book that will stay with me for a while, but I didn't really connect with the characters. I felt like if the book had been longer, that would've helped. Even so, the plot carries the day here and patient readers will be rewarded.
August 12, 2017
Literary New Adult fiction about a group of girls in a working-class Florida neighborhood. It takes place the year after they graduate high school - none of them have gone to college, and they are stuck in their town and defiant about it, gathering at a favorite local bar most nights. Written in second person, this book is mostly about small group friendship dynamics and moving on as you become an adult. The structure is interesting - taking place over a single night when a mega-celebrity actor happens to come into the nondescript local bar where they hang out. He sits and talks with them all night as they drink, and then the next day he's found dead in his hotel room from a drug overdose. But it's not about romance or mystery or figuring out why he died or why he appeared in the bar - it's about girls growing up and the changing nature of friendship as an adult versus in high school.
July 29, 2015
4.5, probably. I have a lot of really strong feelings about this book.
October 8, 2017
Mostly picked this up because of a main character's name and the setting (though nothing like what I experienced growing up in Orlando), and stayed because I'm fascinated by meditations on female friendships and their evolution. This book disappointed stayed pretty flat the whole way through, and nothing really exciting happens, even as it flashed back and forth to unravel the minor mysteries of (1) how Sam Decker died and (2) what happened to break the foursome apart. While unexciting, the characters did feel believable (despite some geographical implausibilities) and slightly tragic, and the book made me very grateful for my own female friendships and experiences.
September 10, 2017
It wasn't a bad book, and it was an interesting read. I picked it up as a why not? and it wasn't horrible. I couldn't identify with any of the characters and I had a hard time really liking the characters because of all the shit they did. I also had trouble fully believing they were all really friends. I could believe it but not the the extent that the book was trying to push on us.
3/5
3/5
November 27, 2017
This was one of my all time favourite styles of books - I just wish it was a more engaging plot
February 9, 2022
I thought the way this book was written was excellent. However, I would not recommend this book to someone who doesn’t like books where nothing really happened. Most of the book is Maggie reflecting on her friendship with Nina, Lindsey, Lila and Max.
September 23, 2015
I'm having trouble putting my finger on what I didn't like about this book. I liked the premise, but think it faltered a little in execution. I sometimes got lost in the bounces back and forth. I also liked the prose, but sometimes it was a little too much in terms of simple plot facilitation. Drawn out sentences that made me have to go back and re-read something to understand, placing more importance on events than what I was expecting (and thus having to re-read), etc.
I also would've liked to hear the perspectives of Lindsey and Nina. Lindsey was probably my favorite of the three main girls. It was really hard to like Nina, and once the past is revealed, it was really hard for me to understand why Maggie and Lindsey had continued to be friends with her. I'm still not totally sold. But, I can get on board with this being a story of lifelong friendship and the ties that bind. When it comes to lifelong friends, you fight, make up and forgive past transgressions so much that in some ways the fight itself isn't important.
It was a quick enough read, and Zancan did a good job of building suspense. When it came time to reveal the girls' past, I was surprised at how things unfolded and satisfied with the plot turns.
It was also an interesting premise to intertwine all of the friendship and "growing up" angst into the chance encounter with a celebrity. To me, Sam Decker was just a device to mark time for the girls, whose lives would inevitably be changing. You could've swapped in another plot device to achieve the same result. I don't think he was crucial to the story. The girls needed to come to the decisions they made as a result of meeting Sam Decker in the bar no matter what. Because that's what growing up and moving on means. But using him as the catalyst for that discussion was an interesting way to facilitate the theme.
I also would've liked to hear the perspectives of Lindsey and Nina. Lindsey was probably my favorite of the three main girls. It was really hard to like Nina, and once the past is revealed, it was really hard for me to understand why Maggie and Lindsey had continued to be friends with her. I'm still not totally sold. But, I can get on board with this being a story of lifelong friendship and the ties that bind. When it comes to lifelong friends, you fight, make up and forgive past transgressions so much that in some ways the fight itself isn't important.
It was a quick enough read, and Zancan did a good job of building suspense. When it came time to reveal the girls' past, I was surprised at how things unfolded and satisfied with the plot turns.
It was also an interesting premise to intertwine all of the friendship and "growing up" angst into the chance encounter with a celebrity. To me, Sam Decker was just a device to mark time for the girls, whose lives would inevitably be changing. You could've swapped in another plot device to achieve the same result. I don't think he was crucial to the story. The girls needed to come to the decisions they made as a result of meeting Sam Decker in the bar no matter what. Because that's what growing up and moving on means. But using him as the catalyst for that discussion was an interesting way to facilitate the theme.
June 30, 2015
*I received this book from Goodreads First Reads Giveaways*
Such an interesting read following the story of four small town girls who are best friends, or at least that is what they call themselves. It starts with them in a local bar, when a big time celebrity heart throb comes in and shares a few drinks and stories with them. There are flashbacks to how the girl met and the experiences they have had that make them friends, as well as flash forwards to what happens after that night in the bar.
The realistic depiction of average girls and average friends was appealing. There is not enough novels written about normal girls, with normal lives, not written to revolve around a love interest or big life epiphany.
That being said, I felt like the girls lacked something. They were very dull and surprisingly melodramatic. I wanted more to the story instead of jumping all over the place to different stories and time frames that didn't seem to quite fit together. I didn't need all the details of Sam's death so early on either. I was left with nothing that kept me wanting to read it and not take a break. It may have been portrayed better as a screenplay or movie. Something felt incomplete after I was finished reading it.
What I liked most was that it was a indie type of novel, just telling a simple story. It was a nice read, I just don't see myself re-reading it.
Such an interesting read following the story of four small town girls who are best friends, or at least that is what they call themselves. It starts with them in a local bar, when a big time celebrity heart throb comes in and shares a few drinks and stories with them. There are flashbacks to how the girl met and the experiences they have had that make them friends, as well as flash forwards to what happens after that night in the bar.
The realistic depiction of average girls and average friends was appealing. There is not enough novels written about normal girls, with normal lives, not written to revolve around a love interest or big life epiphany.
That being said, I felt like the girls lacked something. They were very dull and surprisingly melodramatic. I wanted more to the story instead of jumping all over the place to different stories and time frames that didn't seem to quite fit together. I didn't need all the details of Sam's death so early on either. I was left with nothing that kept me wanting to read it and not take a break. It may have been portrayed better as a screenplay or movie. Something felt incomplete after I was finished reading it.
What I liked most was that it was a indie type of novel, just telling a simple story. It was a nice read, I just don't see myself re-reading it.
February 18, 2016
A pretty, reflective read that felt a little like home.
I was excited for this book because it's set in a town where I spent a good chunk of my life AND two of the characters share names with myself and a close friend.
This is probably the 10th non-linear narrative I've read recently, and probably my favorite. I really enjoyed Zancan's prose. It's beautiful, thoughtful, and poignant. I enjoyed the way she dissected these long standing female friendships/sisterhoods- in a way that made me feel so connected to the girls (especially since I have no sisters or childhood friends I am close to). But as someone else mentioned, Zancan's beautiful prose seems disconnected from the lives of her characters.
I was excited for this book because it's set in a town where I spent a good chunk of my life AND two of the characters share names with myself and a close friend.
This is probably the 10th non-linear narrative I've read recently, and probably my favorite. I really enjoyed Zancan's prose. It's beautiful, thoughtful, and poignant. I enjoyed the way she dissected these long standing female friendships/sisterhoods- in a way that made me feel so connected to the girls (especially since I have no sisters or childhood friends I am close to). But as someone else mentioned, Zancan's beautiful prose seems disconnected from the lives of her characters.
May 3, 2015
This is an uneven book: four childhood friends remain bound together until adolescence and then slowly their union falls apart. The author is able to set the scene, time and mood of their corner of Florida perfectly. Unfortunately the four girls remain difficult to distinguish for large portions of the story; our narrator is described more by omission than intention. This would make a great movie, because the story is so moody and evocative. And because the stories within stories are so well told. I just found myself jumping over sections that seemed to drag. I received my copy from Penguin's First to Read Program.
June 28, 2015
I was fortunate enough to receive early access to this title through the Penguin/Random House First to Read program--so thank you, PRH for that!
Unfortunately, though I'm thankful to have been selected, this one just wasn't for me. Though books that delve into the nature of female friendships (their evolution but also how they might fall apart) are usually titles that catch my interest, I couldn't bring myself to care about these characters, who seem somewhat one-dimensional and shallow. The subject matter seemed out of my realm of interest / seemed old hat, and thus it dragged from both a chapter-by-chapter level down to the sentence-level/language-level. Just not my cup of tea.
Unfortunately, though I'm thankful to have been selected, this one just wasn't for me. Though books that delve into the nature of female friendships (their evolution but also how they might fall apart) are usually titles that catch my interest, I couldn't bring myself to care about these characters, who seem somewhat one-dimensional and shallow. The subject matter seemed out of my realm of interest / seemed old hat, and thus it dragged from both a chapter-by-chapter level down to the sentence-level/language-level. Just not my cup of tea.
May 11, 2015
I did not like this book at all. I didn’t like any of the characters and it was poorly organized. I didn’t like the long rambling chapters that bounced from one story to another. I really didn’t enjoy the writing either. It mainly consisted of this mind-numbingly boring commentary that just went on and on. Even the active dialog was unremarkable. I’m sure there is an audience that will appreciate this book but I am not that audience.
I received an ARC of this book from Penguin’s First to Read program in exchange for an honest review.
I received an ARC of this book from Penguin’s First to Read program in exchange for an honest review.
November 8, 2015
This is the story of a group of girls who meet a movie star at a local hangout in their town. The author makes no secret that this is the last night in the star's life. Through the course of just one evening we learn about a series of ups and downs between the "local girls" through flashbacks telling about a series of practical jokes that leads to one girl's imprisonment. This is a neatly constructed book with with well developed characters and a fast pace. Very nice debut novel.
July 2, 2016
Really not for me. I kept waiting for some payoff to what seemed like buildup but it never came. I didn't understand or care about any of the girls and I was over halfway through before I even knew the name of the narrator. Everything was melodramatic and unrealistic to me and that's a massive turn off. There are some good ideas and thoughts, but those ended up being overexplained or overemphasized and took away any and all poignancy.
October 1, 2016
Some great writing, needed lots of editing - could have been a much tighter book. It was hard to distinguish the main characters from each other, more sketches than real people. The movie star, Decker, was a total stereotype. I think this author is worth keeping an eye on - in the midst of this lackluster story is some lovely turn of phrase.
April 29, 2015
I have no idea what it was about this book that I enjoyed as much as I did, but there was certainly something about Zancan's story that made it difficult to turn away.
August 7, 2015
I loved this. Soooo much. Really got to me in that way I loved and needed.
July 12, 2015
Dumb
Pretentious, unlikable characters. It reads like a preteen fantasy. Not sure why I finished it, except I kept waiting for something to happen.
Pretentious, unlikable characters. It reads like a preteen fantasy. Not sure why I finished it, except I kept waiting for something to happen.
October 2, 2015
I won't say it's a classic, but it was a nice little read about how a girl can love and hate her best friends. I also enjoyed the descriptions of my home state.
March 8, 2016
A story about white girls.
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