Beautiful Bodies

by Laura Shaine Cunningham

Manhattan, the coldest night of the year -- six best friends rush to attend a celebration. Blown by wind and snow, the women arrive flushed, each caught in midadventure...

Tonight's the night of nights -- to rejoice in a new lover, leave an unfaithful husband, or decide to have a baby on one's own. These "six in the city" profes-sional women fight for their female choices. Sparks and zingers fly across the table... Love lives, secrets, and friendships go up in candle flame.
Who will win -- the romantics or the realists? How can working women triumph in such trying times? While the cell phones chime and the biological clocks rewind, the friends enact a timeless ceremony. Here is our urban "friends-as-family" generation -- Beautiful Bodies is a dazzling comedy of manners in the grand tradition of Dorothy Parker and Mary McCarthy.

Genres: Fiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Kari · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book chosen for "book club". I thought it was the perfect choice, especially given the winter we've had in chicago this year.

A great dissection of six friends in their late 30's living in New York.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a horrible book.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A more realistic, intelligent "Sex and the City": 6 long-time female friends at a dinner party.

[Kaitlyn (ktxx22) Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not going to lie after a dismally slow start I actually enjoyed the last third of this book a lot!! Women, of different lifestyles, backgrounds, but friends for nearly 20 years. It was an excellent depiction of the various characters that inhabit friendship circles.

[Amber Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book about a bunch of friends..their relationships with people in their lives, with themselves & each other.

[Yankel Gofshteyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ony of my favourite books, so in style of " The Hours" by Michael Cunnigham

[Marika · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful story about 6 female friends: Jessie, Nina, Lisbeth, Sue Carol, Claire and Martha. You can see a little bit of yourself in each and every one of these 36 to 40 year old ladies.

[Riley Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it, it’s very funny, but it’s like a more depressing Sex and the City. Certainly doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test but the overall message is optimistic.

Very 80s feminism. If you don’t want to see that, you won’t like it, but I still enjoyed it because it’s not like we’re passed all the problems these ladies have. I still have friends wondering frantically if they ought to just get married instead of pursue creative careers, for example.

It’s very fast paced, which I like, but if you’re not sympathetic to women complaining about men you will not enjoy it.

[msjoonee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this years ago. I didn't hate it and i remember the characters well enough. Then again, i never reread it either. If you file it under chick-lit it falls under the less-fluffy variety, meaning you can read it in public and still respect yourself in the morning. The blurb compares it to Dorothy Parker. Er...no. Just no.

[Katlyn Webb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't have much to say about this book, good or bad. I don't know what that means but I guess that means that it was just ok and not that memorable.

I liked the structure and writing style of the book. I liked the structure because before all of the characters got together, the author devoted a chapter to each character which I loved because it gave me a chance to really get to know the characters and emotionally connect with each one (except Martha, that bitch!). I thought the writing style was unique because it was humorous and poetic at e same time. That is a combination I can't easily recall of any book I've read.

There were only a few things that bothered me but that might not bother anyone else. The main thing I didn't like was how detailed the sex scenes were but that's just how I am. Another thing I didn't like was that even though the book had a happy ending, it still left me wondering what happened to the characters after that night. On a random note, I was confused and wondered about why the title was chosen for this book.

I think it would make a good beach read.

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Published in 2002 this feels very "Sex and the City". Six late-30-something women of NYC get together for dinner and a baby shower and share their life-, love-, and sexual-disasters.
References to Trump as a NY real estate guy, early flip phones, and palm pilots make this feel somewhat dated. And these women are disasters. It's like the 6 dwarves of stereotypical women.
There is:
Lisbeth - the ditzy model who believes she's still in a relationship with a married man who ghosted her a year ago.
Sue Carol - aging actress (drama queen) who can't decide if she's going to leave her cheating husband.
Claire - pregnant hippie chick, alone after a one night stand.
Jessie - waiting for a man to call her after a weekend in bed.
Nina - oversexed and "chubby" (um 5'8" and 148 pounds is NOT chubby.)
Martha- successful in her career and using her INTENSE willpower to try to force the rest of her world (including her friends, her fiance, and her reproductive system) to align themselves with her desired world view. Also a bit socially clueless.

[Gribblet · Rating 1 out of 5]

A novel written for women who need the fundamentals of feminism explained to them in a little baby talk voice and small, mono-syllabic words.

In other words, I didn't like it much, though I did find that I wanted to find out what was going to happen. What happened is that everyone went to sleep. Um?

Ok, I'm probably being a little harsh here. Takes as an exploration of one character made of six women - the friendship, specifically, it's not all that bad. Especially if you entertain thoughts that this might be one woman with six different personalities. But here's the thing : only one of these women was at all happy, and she was newly in love too. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but actually exploring the complexities of adult womanhood in today's modern society does not have to be a post-feminist rhapsody about how nice it is to be able to throw a dinner party on short notice and end up with five perfectly cooked cornish game hens. Puh-lease.

[dani · Rating 3 out of 5]

off brand sex and the city but still fun

[Anita Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just finished this today... it was a pretty good book! A very fast read (I read it in five days). It reads like a play, almost- it takes place over one evening in a NYC loft with six main characters and a few minor ones, so it could easily be a theater production. Anyway, a very nice story about the complex relationships that go on between those friends you've been friends with forever, and the ups and downs that go along with that kind of friendship- where you've been friends forever, and that's kind of what keeps your friendship together sometimes, you know?

I do wish their back stories and history had been touched on a little more, and I kind of feel that the ending wrapped up too nicely and abruptly given all the drama that went on in the story, but that's also why it could be a decent play... it definitely left you thinking about these six women in the end.

It was kind of like a combination of Friends, Sex and the City, and Steel Magnolias. If you liked all three of those, you'd probably like this book. I bought it a few years ago off amazon, the sole reason being that it was a bargain book and it cost just enough for me to qualify for the free shipping for the books I actually wanted. This isn't a must-own for me- I probably would have been content borrowing this from the library- but for a bargain book from amazon, it was a nice read.

[Deidre · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have the sneaking suspicion I have read this book before. Was worth a second read. Though I found my self terribly annoyed with many one of main characters the book focuses on, I found it interesting to look at just WHY they annoyed me so. Does each woman act in ways that remind me of myself, or a friend who I put up with, or someone I wish I knew how to deal with? If you are not triggered by the circle of friends or at least recognize relationships within your own girlfriend circle, you are lucky.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I wasn't in love with this. I found the opening chapters following each woman's journey to the party to be overly long and drawn out, although I did enjoy the varied reactions to the flasher!

For me, the book got going once they were all together and I really really dislike Martha so the author is doing something right. As others have said, it's Sex & The City-esq but not a lot actually happens.......it would probably make a good stage play though!

[Karyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author is horribly obsessed with food and body weight; watching other women eat, monitoring her own eating, judging the weight of other women, ascribing stereotypes to women based on their body weight, etc. This comes through loud and clear in her writing. The sad thing is, overlooking all of the above, her actual writing is complex and well written--but it's completely overshadowed by her personal demons--and what one must assume--her eating disorders.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. Sort of like Sex in the City - which I didn't watch much of - but more realistic. In the beginning, each chapter introduces you to a woman from a circle of friends gathering together to celebrate a baby on the way. I don't know what I expected from the ending, but it was a little anti-climactic.

[Tanja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Total chick-lit (but one can tell that by the cover! ;)) Kind of Sex and the City-ish. A fun enough read and kept me entertained on the Eurostar and distracted while we were delayed at Lille for 30min because of people on the track (why did it take them half an hour to remove people from the track?! I still don't get it...)

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay... I found it on a table in the middle school book swap and I grabbed it because it certainly ISN'T a middle school book. I read it on a plane ride, and it passed the time. There were a couple of memorable scenes, but it was difficult to connect with the characters.

[Dena · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not sure this was ever published. I read an advanced copy. The whole book built up the characters and the issues going on their lives, but resolved nothing. Not a good book. I do not recommend.

[Hanny · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book tells the story of six women who come together for a non-traditional baby shower in New York. The entire story takes place in one
night. The author describes the complexities of each woman's life. It had a bit of a surreal feeling about it. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are characters that feel like SATC grown up.

[Laura Chancellor · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was okay. Kinda slow, but ended up good in the end.

[Jessica Grubb · Rating 2 out of 5]

dont remember when i read this or if i liked it but i did read it.

[Lauren]

i read about 70 pages and gave up. I just couldn't get into it... not sure why.

[Bibliodonna]

Beautiful Bodies
by Laura Shaine Cunningham

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring

[Casey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty boring. I wouldn't recommend it.

[Krista · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ech...shallow.