Vegas Girls: A Novel

by Heather Skyler

"For Fans of Julia Glass and Ann Hood, a Novel about How the Choices We Make Last a Lifetime. Vegas Girls begins when three former high school friends, now in their mid-thirties, reunite in their hometown of Las Vegas-a city they vowed to escape as soon as they could-to celebrate their new lives and revisit old haunts. But what starts out as a week-long, sun-kissed reunion takes a strange turn as mysterious gifts appear, familiar faces pop up in unexpected places, and each woman reveals a secret, private quest. Ramona is searching for a son she gave up for adoption before their high-school graduation. Jane is trying to leave her husband of eleven years, even with her two kids in tow. And Ivy, who has a new baby, is haunted by the memory of her mother abandoning her twenty years ago-and she has begun spotting her everywhere. Add to this a darkly charismatic ex-boyfriend of Ivy's who won't give up hope of rekindling their romance, and a strange, new friend of Jane's in need of help, and the week quickly begins to unravel. Set against desert heat, swimming pools, and casino lights, and told masterfully through five different points of view, Vegas Girls is about how we navigate the present while carrying the ghosts of our past; about growing up with one eye glued to the rearview mirror; and about what happens when the past you thought you left behind turns out to have been with you all along."--

Genres: Fiction, Chick Lit, Contemporary, Womens Fiction, Audiobook

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2012

About the author

Heather Skyler was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her first novel, "The Perfect Age," was published by W.W. Norton in the U.S. and Penguin in the U.K. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek.com, and GOOD magazine, among other publications. Her second novel, "Vegas Girls," was published October 2016 by Skyhorse Publishing. She lives in Athens, Georgia with her son, Malcolm and daughter, Lux.

Reviews

[Chelsea Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a fun girly read! Great characters who were relatable and interesting; I loved the large contrast shown between friends of the same age at totally different stages of life. Full review to come.

Thanks Goodreads Giveaway for my copy!

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This got a 4 star rating from me for the nostalgia alone. This book brought me back to my high school years growing up in Las Vegas. I was invested in the characters. I was all about the drama that each woman had.

Just a warning there was a cheating scene. I'm not 100% sure if you can all it cheating. One of the women slept with a man but she's separated. Does that mean she cheated to you? I'm on the fence. I think if you're divorced then yes you're a free agent but separated to me means you need a break but you're still very much married. Can't fix things if you're sleeping around and using that time to full around with whoever they want.

Jane does find closure with her husband and is going to go her own way. Another of the girls, Ramona, is trying to find the baby she gave away when she was in her teens and the other lady, Ivy, has a baby but an ex boyfriend pops up and makes her question life and remember a time when her mother abandoned her as a teen.

I loved all the Vegas landmarks that to the average person wouldn't be anything but to a native Vegas girl I knew every single place that was referenced and loved every second of reading this book.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's about 3 high school friends meeting again in their hometown of Las Vegas and there's all kind of interesting plottiness and cool story lines, but what I loved this book was already full-on happening in the first chapter. Skyler sticks all these spot on observations or delightful turns of phrases in her sentences--they almost felt like secret little gifts for the reader.

Here, I'll just tell you one: Jane and Adam are an estranged married couple at the same party, neither of them quite sure of their exact status. Jane expects her husband to talk her into the joining the others on the dance floor.

"Then he would pull her close, into their own separate dance, and the decade they had shared would flare into something bright and intangible, hovering around their swaying forms, and then all thoughts of leaving might just dissipate into the evening air, absorbed by other partygoers, others couples who would later sour and curdle, turning away from each other in bed."

C'mon! Love. It.

[Eva • All Books Considered · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review originally posted at All Books Considered: 3.5 STARS

I was immediately drawn to reading this one because I, too, grew up in Las Vegas and the three friends in this book are less than ten years older than me. While their experience is not necessarily my own, this did make me feel nostalgic in its descriptions of the desert. Places, past and present, were referenced that I could see so vividly and I really appreciated the authenticity of this book. I liked it more than I had probably anticipated because I really liked each of the MCs -- Ivy, Jane and Ramona. They were all working something out in this weekend that brought them together, back to Las Vegas, and it felt very real to me. I also really liked all five POV in this book -- without giving anything away, they all fit and worked together. Scenes weren't re-told but the entire trip flowed through these POVs, which doesn't always work out. The tone and feeling of this book ended up a bit melancholy but I still enjoyed this a lot.

Vegas Girls came out earlier this week on October 4, 2016 and you can purchase HERE. I definitely recommend this one if you're looking for a realistic portrayal of the existential crisis we all face and feel if we move away from our hometown or even if we stay.

There was nothing wrong, Jane knew, with being a good person, but this past year she could feel a rising craving inside of her to do something bad. It had begun with the editor at work and reached some sort of height today on that sunny bed with Rex. It may have something to do, she thought, with not getting enough wickedness out of her system in high school or college, but there was more to it than that. It was the mere act of being a mother that sometimes made her want to rebel against her better judgment.

[Sherri Thacker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This did keep my interest but just ok for me.

[Barbara Berry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Living in Las Vegas, I enjoyed all the local references. I didn’t particularly like any of the main characters. It was difficult to understand why they remained friends; they were awfully mean to each other …

[Cat Jenkins · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't finish this. One hundred pages in and I'm still waiting for something to catch my interest. The boring, partially-drawn characters...the lack of anything intriguing plot-wise...a waste of my time. Add to that the excruciating minutia of encounters with annoying toddlers and babies, and this is possibly one of the most pedestrian pretenders to literature that I've ever encountered.

If the title's inclusion of the word 'Vegas' lures you into thinking there might be something glittery or forbidden or salacious... forget it. It's more about walking your baby around and then breastfeeding him while you talk about your high school crushes. Yeck.

[Samantha Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many novels I read feel to me as if the plot is engineered, rather than arising naturally out of the complications of the characters' personalities. This quiet novel about four friends, their wounds and their wantings, feels so emotionally authentic, and I found it superbly satisfying. I also appreciated that while it was set in Las Vegas, it was a book that didn't leverage the Sin City glamour, but rather focused on the lives of those who live in the shadow of all that fakery, trying for happiness as best they can.

[Connie French · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an older woman, mother and grandmother, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I could readily identify with several of the same issues I had as a young wife and mother. Heather is able to evoke the emotions that make her characters believable. She weaves the plots so that I had to keep reading - rooting for some characters, imagining solutions for others, wondering what the outcome of choices made would be. A great read till the end - for women of all ages.

[✭Sunshine✭ · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great book! This was my first read by Heather Skyler and I'll certainly be reading more in the future. This was an engaging story about 3 former high school friends that meet up in their hometown of Las Vegas. I found the women to be interesting and could identify with them. I loved reading about these women and their friendship. Definitely a read I would recommend.

[Lauren Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A expertly woven tale, rich with three-dimensional characters and vivid scene setting, "Vegas Girls" is an immersive read.

[Chris F · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent palate cleanser if you’re looking for a light weekend read.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe I got this book via a Goodreads deal. I ended up liking this book more than I anticipated and I’d recommend it to anyone who is struggling with their marriage, someone coming back home for the first time in a long time, and anyone who has been abandoned (or feels abandoned) by a parent. I thought Las Vegas was an interesting choice as a setting considering its reputation as “Sin City”, but that really did make a lot of sense to me in the end. I’ve already recommended this book to someone, but I’ll recommend it to anyone else too. I liked the characters and could easily identify with any of them. It’s also a quick read.

[Erica Bridwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the dynamic between the women in this book. It was loving and friendly yet had a thread of irritation that was so relatable when it comes to friends you've known for a long time. Isn't there always some baggage? Hurt feelings?
Heather Skyler's books always leave me feeling like I've become part of a family's (or friend's) hushed secrets, like I've been let in, and I enjoy it every time. Another great work I'd highly recommend.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

Vegas Girls by Heather Skyler is a lovely novel of friendship that will resonate with readers of contemporary women's fiction. This poignant story spans a weeklong reunion between three childhood friends who are at a crossroads in their respective lives.

Ivy Jacobsen and her husband Frank have recently returned to Las Vegas and she is playing host to her childhood friends Ramona and Jane in the week leading up to her son's first birthday. A chance encounter with her former boyfriend Jeremy Burnham resurrects both bittersweet and painful memories from a tumultuous time during her teenage years. While their romance was somewhat rocky, Ivy cannot forget how he thoughtful and sweet he was during a painful period in her life. Seeing him again stirs up her unresolved issues and raises fears that history will eventually repeat itself now that Ivy is a mom.

Jane now lives in Wisconsin with her husband Adam and their two young children. Depressed after recently losing her job, she is growing increasingly dissatisfied with her marriage and she is seriously considering a divorce. Hoping the week with her friends will provide her with some much needed clarity, Jane keeps her problems to herself as she grows frustrated with the demands of parenting two young kids. She is attracted to a newly divorced father of two in Ivy's neighborhood but will Jane act on her feelings for the handsome stranger?

Both Jane and Ivy wonder if their never married friend Ramona will bail on the reunion so they are pleasantly surprised by her arrival. A successful musician, she is still playing in local venues while her band regroups after losing some of their members. While she is looking forward to reconnecting with her friends, Ramona is secretly searching for the son she gave up for adoption years earlier. Haunted by regrets, will finding her son help Ramona come to terms with the events that are occurring in the present?

With the non-glamorous side of Las Vegas serving as a backdrop, Vegas Girls by Heather Skyler is a beautifully rendered novel of friendship. The characters are multi-faceted with relatable struggles and issues to overcome. The storyline is well-developed and quite riveting with the chapters alternating between each of the various characters' perspectives. I greatly enjoyed and highly recommend this compelling story that perfectly captures the complexities of friendship, the regret for past choices and the hope for a happy future.

[Susan Roberts · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was struggling with giving this book 2 or 3 stars. I gave it 2 because I saw a lot of potential, but it didn't really follow through. However, it was a very engaging book, and I also live in Las Vegas, so it was kind of cool to know exactly what areas of town the story took place in.

What I didn't like was the lack of character development. I like books about relationships being repaired an/or strengthened. There wasn't a whole lot of that going on. I felt like every character was in the exact same position/view of life at the end of the book as they were at the beginning. That was kind of a let down, because there were plenty of opportunities for mended and strengthened relationships, but I didn't really feel like it followed through.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was already a fan of Skyler after reading her novel, "The Perfect Age". Her newest book does not disappoint! The characters were compelling and the descriptions of the Las Vegas area made me want to visit as soon as possible. The story follows 3 former high school friends who meet up in their hometown of Las Vegas for a week-long reunion. There's a charming chef/ex-boyfriend, a quirky and mysterious neighbor, and a search for a son given up for adoption. I loved how the setting vacillated between the glitziness of the Vegas strip and the beauty of the surrounding mountains and neighborhoods. This is a fun to read and moving book about women and friendship.

[Jenilee Houghtailing · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am happy to have stumbled across this on scribd one day. It is a well written novel that will have you thinking about your life and how you are going through it. I fell in love with these characters and I want more, so much more. Every woman in this book is facing a tough spot in their life. They are there to help each other and work through it and I am happy to report that each of these women gets what they need to move on with their lives. The only blah thing is the ending of the book, it was anti-climactic and didn't give you the closure you are looking for.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Las Vegas native, I read this book excited to revisit a place I left so long ago. Skyler perfectly captures the real Vegas of my youth, the many lives that play out far from the glamour and perfect fakeness of the Strip, yet are still connected to it somehow. The beautiful writing and engaging storytelling kept me captivated for hours on end, as I got lost in the characters and their Vegas.
I highly recommend this fantastic novel.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of Vegas Girls via a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed this book about three high school friends who reunite for a week in their hometown of Las Vegas, each carrying past and present baggage that they grapple with over the course of the week. I liked the way the author alternated voices by chapter, and the way she weaved underlying emotions into her work. Well done!

[Arnela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this book didn’t really go anywhere. There were a lot of things happening - Ivy’s trauma from being abandoned, Jane’s marriage falling apart and the confusion and sadness she experienced at every turn, Ramona’s complicated feelings about the child she gave up for adoption and the child she’s pregnant with… all interesting themes to explore but I just feel like they all fell short. Everyone just kept going round in circles and it just became a bit bland and predictable. I guess it’s meant to be a representation of real life and how our choices don’t always lead to the desired outcome? It shows how actions and emotions don’t always go hand in hand and how life experiences really shape your perspective and define your choices.
I liked how realistic this book was I guess and that it didn’t try too hard to come up with some dramatic backstory for all the characters. It was just a bunch of regular people living their life, struggling to make the right decisions, dealing with the experiences of their past. Unfortunately, this is also the part I didn’t like. It was realistic, yes, but this also made it kind of bland. Maybe it’s bc I really struggled to form any kind of emotional connection with the characters? Maybe this is bc I’m not a woman in my 30’s struggling with marriage or baby difficulties… but I also feel like it’s bc the story didn’t flow very well. It didn’t feel very cohesive to me - jumping from one character to another without enough time to really connect with them. It was kind of like missing a chunk of a characters thought process whilst you were in the brain of one of the other characters and then coming back and not being given this chunk of brain processing that just occurred and being expected to understand why the character is now behaving a certain way. I don’t know if that makes sense but that’s just the way I felt almost the whole way through.
I also didn’t feel like the 3 women were very good friends or even nice to each other at times? Some of the things they would say to one another just didn’t make sense for people claiming to be best friends. They were all constantly bitchy for no reason and very bitter either behind the others’ back or just in their head. It was kind of like being in school - two friends go off together, bond over something, decide not to include the other friend. Then, suddenly, the friend that was kept out of the loop is now in the loop with only one of the other friends and now the other friend is being talked about and not having a clue what’s going on; very weird dynamic. Ivy playing the victim card at every opportunity also got annoying very quickly. She definitely had a victim complex “no one understands me.” “My friends just don’t understand my trauma.” “I’m going to hang out with my ex-boyfriend I still low-key have feelings for 20 years later but how dare anyone question my motives, I’m just so traumatised and he gets me.” Ugh.
There was definitely a lack of character development as well. I felt like everyone had the same mentality as they did at the start which was very disappointing. Oh no wait… Jeremy seemed to be different at the end… but it didn’t feel like character development… it felt like the author got kind of bored with his obsession with Ivy and made him realise that he didn’t actually want her anymore one sunny Saturday afternoon.
Also the ending… it felt really rushed and it was like things the characters were worrying over the entire book suddenly all made sense and everyone suddenly had a lightbulb moment of exactly what they should do.
Overall, I think it would’ve been better off as a short story and also with not as many points of view as this took away from the cohesiveness of the book and prevented emotional connections with the characters.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those of you who may or may not know, I live in Las Vegas. Obviously I was attracted to a book called Vegas Girls. This story is about three best friends who come back together in their hometown, Las Vegas.

Quick personal note. Dear Heather Skyler, Thank you for portraying Vegas as…Vegas. The Vegas as locals see it, breathe it, and feel it. I love it. Love, Me. Ok, now for the rest of you who may not be from Las Vegas PLEASE read this. Especially if you think everyone who lives here lives on the Strip. I appreciated every detail in this book because it was ALL real! Now I must eat at the Mexican restaurant mentioned in the book (Ricardo’s) because I’m intrigued.

So the story. Ivy is married and moved back to Las Vegas with her husband and son who is turning one. Ramona and Jane both live out of state now and come back to town to celebrate. It is the first time they have all been together in Vegas since they graduated high school.

Each woman is struggling with something in her life. Ivy just ran into her ex-boyfriend at the grocery store and started a friendship with him. She’s also worried to death that somehow she will just up and leave like her mother did to her when she was in high school. Ramona is a bit of a wild child whose career in music just never quite took off. She’s dealing with pain of the loss of her brother, mother, and a child she put up for adoption when she was in high school. Jane has two children in tow and wants to leave her husband of eleven years. She happens to meet a single neighbor while on her vacation and it helps her to see what she wants out of her relationship with her husband.

Every woman in this book is facing a tough spot in their life. They are there to help each other and work through it and I am happy to report that each of these women gets what they need to move on with their lives. The ending is very anti-climactic although someone does get shoved into a pool. At first this disappointed me but after thinking about it, this book ended perfectly. This felt like a real story with real people and this is how I would hope it would end for them.

I fell in love with these characters and I want more, so much more. I will say it was a bit odd that the friends would just take off and leave without saying anything to anyone, but, I guess some friendships work like that.

I am giving this book 4 stars. I am happy to have stumbled across the ad for this book on Facebook one day and bite the bullet and bought it. It is a well written novel that will have you thinking about your life and how you are going through it.

[Sasha Austin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me start this review by saying for some reason I thought I was reading a thriller. Once I adjusted to what I was actually reading, I was even more confused. The story is based on friends coming together to celebrate a one year olds birthday and told from five different perspectives. Your three main characters, Ivy, Jane and Ramona with the supporting characters, Jeremy and Rex. Ivy is the mother of the one year old, Lucas, who is having the birthday. But the party is really for adults. So, she asks her ex, Jeremy ,to cater it but they are both way too embarrassed to discuss price ( I'm sorry, what?). They have some really intimate and awkward encounters all while her husband just hangs out and observes, never questioning anything except why there isn't a birthday cake? Jane is in the middle of a mid life crisis and is leaving her husband because her life is too small. So she flies out to visit Ivy with her own kids, takes a walk around the block and sleeps with the neighbor. Why not? Ramona seems to dislike everyone including herself. She's pregnant and also looking for a kid she gave up for adoption 19 years earlier. She randomly runs away from her friends and never offers much explanation as to why. At one point she's having dinner with Jane and her family, she goes to the bathroom, steals Jane's keys, takes the car and leaves. There is very little conversation about this afterwards.
It was interesting that these three women seemed to behave so strangely. The book was filled with odd behavior. For example, Ivy and Jeremy taking a picnic behind the bleachers at their old high school to plan the menu for the party. They never really plan the menu, Ivy just tells him to do whatever he wants. Or Jane and her husband randomly laying on someone's lawn to discuss their marriage. I just can't wrap my mind around this. The book is set in Las Vegas, if it matters to you.

[Karen M · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book about three women who come together after not seeing each other for a while. They had been best friends in school and shared each others lives back then but now they don’t seem to be sharing anything. Each one is at a point in their lives when the past, the not so happy memories part of the past, comes back into their lives and they’re not talking.

The chapters alternate between the women and the book seemed rather disjointed to me. The women had shared all their dreams and lives when they were young but as adults they realize some things are better left unsaid. None of them is particularly happy. At the end, each comes to a sort of resolution of the past and present but don’t expect a conventional ending of “they lived happily ever after” because you won’t find that here.

I tried hard to like this book but I realized the way I was putting off reading it was a sure sign for me of not really liking the book. It was well written but I just couldn’t get any feel for these characters. For me this was a character driven book but it just didn’t work. The characters and I all seemed confused.

This book was won in a First Reads giveaway.

[Bob Bransdon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Light Reading.

Ivy lives a comfortable life in suburban Las Vegas with husband Frank and young son, Lucas. She had invited two friends from her school days, Jane who now lives in Wisconsin with husband Adam and two children, and Ramona who is single and lives in California, to spend a few days at her home to coincide with Lucas’ first birthday. Ivy bumps into an old boyfriend, Jeremy, who happens to be a caterer. Old feelings rekindle as Ivy asks Jeremy to cater the birthday party. Meanwhile Jane and Ramona reveal their current life situations which are not exactly peachy. Both have a tale to tell but are reluctant to reveal it. It all comes out in the end. It was a light read made a little more interesting by the fact i reside in Vegas and could relate to the street names and places.

[Erika Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very excited to read this book, but I found it to be extraordinarily average. I don't think that I cared about the characters returning to their hometown, where they got the chance to "grow up," to test the bonds of friendship and to learn about themselves and what they want to be in the next chapter of their lives. And I should have. The author did a great job of writing a story about just that. I just didn't connect with these characters.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though not the most exciting or revolutionary book of its time, Vegas Girls is an easy and fun adult-literature read. Three best friends, who grew up in Las Vegas, find themselves back in the town they grew up in to celebrate Ivy's son's 1st birthday. During this week away from their lives (Jane living in Wisconsin, Ramona in Los Angeles, and Ivy in Las Vegas,) the three women each cope with situations in their lives and things from their childhoods.

[Meaghan Hayes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn’t finish it - gave up on it. I struggle to read through the perspective of characters who are engaged infidelity so I struggled to get through some portions for that reason.
The characters were not done in a way that I could remember their names or characteristics for some reason. I’d start reading a chapter with X as the narrator and have to flip back or pause and think deeply about her backstory. It took too much work. I stopped 3/4 from the end after 2-3 months of trying.

[Jordyn The Library Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vegas Girls is a heartfelt exploration of friendship and the ties that bind us. Three childhood friends reunite in Las Vegas years after their lives have taken them in different directions. As they reconnect, old secrets resurface, and they face the weight of the choices they've made. A poignant story of self-discovery and loyalty, this book is perfect for fans of introspective contemporary fiction and stories about the complexities of growing up.

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

You will like this if you enjoy novels where old friends come together- and find that the changes in their lives hasn't changed their love for and interactions with each other. This is sort of a coming of age novel as all three women have grown into themselves, facing unique (but relatable) challenges. Liked that it was set in the real part of Vegas. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.