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    The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship
    The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship
    The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship

    Written by Jeffrey Zaslow

    Narrated by Andrea Gallo

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Best-selling author Jeffrey Zaslow is a Will Rogers Humanitarian Award winner and was the replacement advice columnist for Ann Landers in the Chicago Sun-Times. Here he turns his eye to a group of 11 friends who grew up in Ames, Iowa, during the 1960s, a period of unprecedented opportunity for women. What emerges is an inspiring look at the power of friendship to overcome challenges.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 29, 2009
    ISBN9781440718229
    The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship
    Author

    Jeffrey Zaslow

    Jeffrey Zaslow was a Wall Street Journal columnist, and, with Randy Pausch, coauthor of The Last Lecture, and the author of The Girls from Ames. Zaslow died in 2012 at the age of 53.

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    Reviews for The Girls from Ames

    3.5/5

    34 ratings33 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      Like the other reviews, I was disappointed in this book. It's a predictable story about 11 women whose friendship has spanned a lifetime. Having a similar group of friends, I was drawn to the book. I thought it would be full of funny stories about their interactions and maybe a few about how they helped each other through the tragedies of life. But I found the book to be disjointed; it mostly spoke about the women individually.
    • 1/5
      okay but not great. too much info/background on the gals. i listened on cd and not the greatest voice to listen to either - rather boring voice so this might have affected my overall thoughts about the bk
    • 4/5
      So how could I like this book when I grew up outside of a clique in junior high? I could easily understand the pain of rejection and the meanness of the rejecters as in the chapter titled” Intervention”. To me this book is a window into what was happening inside a closed circle of girls. This group of girls met in kindergarten and before the same as the group I knew in junior high. They developed ties that were like invisible glue that sealed them together and cut others off. Even though I was angry at the first fourth of the book, especially when they had a meeting to tell one of the girls that she did not fit in, I stuck with it and did learn from the book. When grief struck the group they bore it together. They learned from each other on how to deal with life’s worst events. When cancer struck the daughter of one of them, it was as though she was everyone’s daughter, when breast cancer struck one of them and later another, they developed rituals to bring the relief of laughter to give them respite from the horrible situation. They learned to deal with overpowering emotions with courage and ingenuity. The author emphasizes the differences between men and women when it comes to friendships. Women share feelings, family problems, inadequacies but men stick to topics outside of their personal selves, to sports, car and tangible objects. This may be a handicap that men have to deal with. The sharing and caring that exists in women’s groups does not seem thrive in men’s groups. That to me was not new or surprising. What was more interesting to me was that the group of 11 women grew emotionally and became more nurturing to each other and to other people. They learned to be a positive force in life and to be more accepting of others. They learned to be more forgiving, accepting of differences and even how to love their own children more. To me, that is reason to read this book. I recommend this book to all those who been those who have been in cliques and those who were always left out. Don’t get discouraged by the references to studies about the differences between men and women. Keep on reading until you find the gold of friendships and their endurance.
    • 4/5
      The books follows the lives and friendships of 11 girlhood friends who grew up in Ames Iowa. In their mid forties they explore how their friendship survived college, careers, marriage, divorce, children death and illness.
    • 2/5
      There wasn't enough focus in this book for my taste. It just seemed like random bits of these women's lives, with no ultimate purpose or point. The book was supposedly about the friendships shared between the eleven women over 40 years. It was difficult to keep the women distinguished from each other, because none of them really stood out separately from the group.
    • 3/5
      perhaps too many memoirs lately, found the stories just okay and not enough time or enthusiasm to finish
    • 4/5
      Follows 11 girls thru 60's, 40 years of friendship. Very interesting, covered the gamult. Not all sunshine and roses, but still friends.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely loved this book. I finished it in one sitting. I was fastinated by the 11(10) women and how they have remained friends for over 40 years. Their stories amazed me and made me realise about my own friendships and parenting skills.
    • 4/5
      I love fictional accounts of female friendships, so it's pretty much a given that I would love this book. The story of these women is inspiring. More than anything it makes me want to call all of my girlfriends and tell them how much I love them and appreciate them. Whether I talk to them everyday, once a week, once a month, or once a year, they are the women that have gotten me through tough times. I love my friends.
    • 2/5
      The author chronicled this group of 11 (10 surviving) friends from Ames, Iowa from adolescence into their 40s. I had a hard time remembering who was who, and even moving stories like the death of a child got buried in the shuffle.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to like this one more... I'm fascinated by the dynamics of female friendships- especially the longevity. Unfortunately, though the book SEEMED long, there wasn't enough detail to keep me interested. I alwo had a hard time with the girls being so quick to justify their actions with "we were only 15" or "we were only 18" or "we were only 22"... I wonder if 20 years from now they'll be saying, "but we were only 45"...
    • 3/5
      Overly long tale of some girlfriends and their lives and interactions. Mildly interesting in parts. Something to read if you are obsessively interested in what happens to a high school clique after high school.
    • 1/5
      I had high hopes for this book...thought it would be an interesting study/story of the dynamics of a longterm group friendship. The characters were extremely hard to keep track of. By the end, I had only a clear grasp of half of them. The "unknown" half, the characters that I had to page backwards to consult a summary list to identify, did not add anything, only detracted from the read. The book was written in book report form...it felt like a ninth grader summarizing ten( pretty mundane) life stories. If the author hadn't gained fame through The Last Lecture, I can't imagine any literary agent getting past the second page. The most compelling part of the book dealt with the loss of one character's child to cancer. That section was well written and authentic. The rest gave a too rosy perspective...a shined up 20/20 version of this friendship experience. More focus on conflicts in the group would have made for a more genuine and insightful read.
    • 3/5
      could have been better written and more interesting
    • 5/5
      This was such a joy to read. These 11 women are such a rarity in our world. Their story made me laugh out loud on one page and the next I was reading through tears. It made me reflect on my relationships with girlfriends from my past and present. It made me think about my life as a wife and a mom. I have so many pages turned over so I could go back to them as I am struggling with my parents, with my husband, with my children. There were pages and pages of wisdom and things I want to remember. I loved how Marilyn's dad told her when she left for college, "Here's what we'll do. We are going to keep you at the end of our fishing line. And if you ever need anything, you just give a little tug and we'll reel you back in." I also loved the part about Sally's intervention and how her mom handled the situation. Sally said, "This was a great lesson in parenting for me. It is not our job, as parents, to go to coaches, teachers, other parents and try to make everything run smoothly for our kids. But I've come to see that our job is to help our kids become people who are capable and believe in themselves enough to deal with the world." The fact that there was such joy in this book right next to the sadness that also happened made this so heartwarming and helped me appreciate each and every girlfriend I have ever had.
    • 4/5
      So how could I like this book when I grew up outside of a clique in junior high? I could easily understand the pain of rejection and the meanness of the rejecters as in the chapter titled” Intervention”. To me this book is a window into what was happening inside a closed circle of girls. This group of girls met in kindergarten and before the same as the group I knew in junior high. They developed ties that were like invisible glue that sealed them together and cut others off. Eve...more So how could I like this book when I grew up outside of a clique in junior high? I could easily understand the pain of rejection and the meanness of the rejecters as in the chapter titled” Intervention”. To me this book is a window into what was happening inside a closed circle of girls. This group of girls met in kindergarten and before the same as the group I knew in junior high. They developed ties that were like invisible glue that sealed them together and cut others off. Even though I was angry at the first fourth of the book, especially when they had a meeting to tell one of the girls that she did not fit in, I stuck with it and did learn from the book. When grief struck the group they bore it together. They learned from each other on how to deal with life’s worst events. When cancer struck the daughter of one of them, it was as though she was everyone’s daughter, when breast cancer struck one of them and later another, they developed rituals to bring the relief of laughter to give them respite from the horrible situation. They learned to deal with overpowering emotions with courage and ingenuity. The author emphasizes the differences between men and women when it comes to friendships. Women share feelings, family problems, inadequacies but men stick to topics outside of their personal selves, to sports, car and tangible objects. This may be a handicap that men have to deal with. The sharing and caring that exists in women’s groups does not seem thrive in men’s groups. That to me was not new or surprising. What was more interesting to me was that the group of 11 women grew emotionally and became more nurturing to each other and to other people. They learned to be a positive force in life and to be more accepting of others. They learned to be more forgiving, accepting of differences and even how to love their own children more. To me, that is reason to read this book. I recommend this book to all those who been those who have been in cliques and those who were always left out. Don’t get discouraged by the references to studies about the differences between men and women. Keep on reading until you find the gold of friendships and their endurance.
    • 4/5
      This was a book different from any I have read before. It is written by columnist Jeffrey Zaslov, with the assistance of Randy Pausch , coauthor of the last lecture. It grew out of one of his columns and is the story of eleven women and their lasting friendshp over a period of forty years. It was an interesting read. However I felt at times that it lacked a continuous narrative and I wanted to get away from the "stats" and find out more about their lives. The parts where it did concentrate on one character and tell in depth what was happening were the best eg Sally and her relationship with the group, and Karla's story. These parts were very moving. I found myself with a finger on the photo pages too as I read of individual girls as I wanted to see the face of the girl I was reading about. At times too I did find it hard to keep track of them all unless something important had happenend in their lives But I admire the way they have kept in contact over such a long period of time, and how they have and will continue to be there for each other through the good times and the bad. I found my self checking on the Internet to see how those who were sick at the end of the book were doing.
    • 1/5
      I had high expectations for this book but was disappointed at the plodding narrative, which hopped around without any clear direction or purpose. The story purports to be about the enduring ties of female friendship and tells the tale of 11 women whose relationships have endured for more than 40 years. However, the women appear to be shallow and uninspiring, and the parts of the book that review their lives during high school portray them as cliquish and exclusive. There are even sections of the story that talk about other girls in the school as "nerdier" or "desperate for friends," which is what you expect from teenagers but not from adults who are going back to tell their stories from a more mature vantage point. Very disappointing.
    • 4/5
      Since I have a group of friends that I've known since 8th grade, I was interested to read this book. The women in the book are both more numerous and younger than my friends and I, and were a lot more -- I don't know -- "normal" as teenagers than we were. But there are a lot of similarities in how their friendship has lasted, changed and grown over the years. Other women who have a long-time close group of friends will probably enjoy this book. In Zaslow's introduction, he points out many of the differences between men's and women's friendships; I'm not sure how many men would be interested in this book. Still, it would be fun to see what other men thought of it.
    • 3/5
      I lived in Ames for 2 years as a grad student, so I mostly liked this book because of the references to places and events I knew about. This book was definitely sadder than I expected it to be. It seems appropriate based on the fact that Zaslow also worked with Randy Pausch on his book. If you were a fan of The Last Lecture, I don't recommend this book. If you are from Iowa or even elsewhere in the Midwest or also had a large group of friends growing up, this book might be for you.
    • 3/5
      I really wanted to love this book. It's about a group of women who grew up together in a small Midwestern city in the 1960s and 1970s, and the ways in which their friendships have endured and changed through the years. In other words, it's about me — well, not me but my generation, the women who surrounded me throughout my own coming-of-age in a small Midwestern city.Here's the thing, though: What I said about it not being about me? That's all too true. The girls from Ames are a group of 11 girls/women who were pretty popular, pretty wild, and pretty clannish about letting outsiders into the golden circle. They even turn on their own occasionally, as when a subset of the girls gets together one night in high school to carefully enumerate to one of the others all the ways in which she is simply not smart enough, pretty enough, or cool enough to be part of their group without making some drastic changes. It read like a scene out of a horror novel to me, which made it all the more dumbfounding to learn that the girl who was the center of all that vitriol still hangs out with all of them! Nothing about staying friends with people who treated you so cruelly makes sense to me.I enjoyed the nostalgia of the pop-culture touchstones sprinkled throughout the The Girls from Ames. But to be honest, I kind of hated the girls from Ames themselves. And after reading about what they were like in high school and beyond, I'm pretty sure they would have hated me, too.
    • 4/5
      This is a book that I have passed along to as many people as I can get to read it. I grew up in a smaller town than Ames, and I share many of the experiences of long-lasting friendships. I think Jeffery Zaslow handled the story of the women's roles in the friendship well.
    • 4/5
      Made for a great book club discussion which surprised me.
    • 5/5
      Also being a girl from Iowa, this book brought back great memories of my childhood. This book made me reflect on my childhood friends and how I wished I had stayed in contact with them the way the women of Ames have. I really enjoyed reading this great story of an amazing friendship and I think I will get in touch with my childhood friends and see if we can get together to talk about the old days.
    • 1/5
      I had high hopes for this book. Jeffrey Zaslow co-authored The Last Lecture, which I loved! Alas. This book is the story of an amazing life-long friendships between a group of 11 women. I would love to meet these women, or perhaps see their relationships explored in a movie, but as a book, it just didn't cut it. I wasn't drawn into their lives and I didn't even finish the book. So sad.
    • 3/5
      I really enjoyed this book. With that said, I didn't really understand the point of it. Is Zaslow trying to tell a story about 11 girls and the 10 women they became, or is he trying to demonstrate the important role of friendship in women's lives? I wasn't sure if this was just a collection of anecdotes about these women's lives, together and apart, or if it was a sociological study of sorts about what holds women's relationships together and why they matter so much. The style of the book also contributed to my uncertainty - it's kind of written like a memoir or a group of stories, but in a more factual, straight to the point way. At times, I felt like I was reading a textbook. However, I'm glad I read this book. It made me laugh, cry (hard, several times), and most importantly, think about my own relationships with the women in my life. I guess I'm just not sure what makes this book different from any other book about friends.
    • 5/5
      A wonderful chronology of friendship of 10 girls from Ames, Iowa. This began for some of them as infants and for others in school. The fact that their friendships have survived is a miracle in this throwaway, transient culture. I am so envious!!!
    • 4/5
      A friend (of course) sent me this book after she read and LOVED it. She's going through a hard time in her life right and this book really brought her comfort and reminders that your old friends truly are always there for you. It's not a book I would have picked out for myself but I'm glad she shared it with me.I found this sort of a strange topic for a book as there wasn't really a story or even truly a point. It was rather kind of just sharing memories and lives with a group of friends. There has been some criticism about how the author wrote this and initially I too thought it was rather scattered...but then when you think about it, how would someone write about 11 different people, their families and memories over the past 40 years? Pretty difficult task and I give the author a lot of credit for getting the job done.Like I said, when I started the book I was thinking it was all a little disconnected...and it's a fairly good sized book so I was questioning if I really needed to read the whole thing after all....but, I pushed through because my friend sent it to me and I'm really glad I did. Once I got past the first several chapters everything settled in. I laughed, I cried, I was reminded of how lucky I also am to have old friends. This book was honest and touching and I think women like it because it brings them comfort. Safe and familiar-most of us can relate to several characters at different points in their lives. It also left me wanting to get all my friends together to tell them how much they mean to me. It was life changing in that I feel such a renewed sense of love for "my girls" as well as such joy that I've been lucky enough to have some good friends stick with me through the years. Women who see me for who I am, who know me when sometimes I don't know myself. So, if you are looking for something different, something genuine and down home to remind you of how great your friends really are--despite their faults, your faults, disagreements, changes in life and miles that separate I think you'll really like this one.And....some of the proceeds from the sale go to a girl's scholarship fund...so you can feel good about spending the money.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book about a friendship that has lasted 40 years with a group of 10 girls from Ames, Iowa. They were born in 1963, and the book chronicles their lives from grade school to present. It really is a snapshot of how America has changed in those 40 years also. Made me think about my friends and how important they are to me. Very good read.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book and could relate well to it as my daughter is of the age of the girls from Ames. Though a male author, Zaslow did a wonderful job bringing these girls to life. I want my 40-something daughter to read it. The pictures really added to the story. I referred to them often.