Friends Along the Way

by Julia Markus

Torn between her loyalty to her close friend Alice Blanders Russo and her attraction to Leo, Alice's live-in lover, Betsy Lewis flees her Rome household and reassesses her life by confronting her past

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Q · Rating 3 out of 5]

Usually I rate up if my rating is in the .5 range, and I rated this one 3.5, but it just didn't feel like a 4.
There was a really beautiful story underneath the complications. What I didn't like was how needlessly wordy it felt. The book is only 317 pages, but it felt like I was reading something twice as long.
I did definitely appreciate the humor and cleverness that was interspersed throughout. I just wish it had felt more cohesive as a whole. I enjoyed the sapphic undertones (and overtones) and loved the love story between the women. But the fact that most of them were motivated by the men in their lives irked me.
Also didn't appreciate the use of the n word so freely in so many places. I understand that the writer was conveying racism on purpose, but it made me deeply uncomfortable to see it so many times in such a short space.