Best Friends Forever – Jennifer Weiner
Title: Best Friends Forever
Author: Jennifer Weiner
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This copy was provided by the publisher for me to review.
Addie Downs and Valerie Adler will be best friends forever. That’s what Addie believes after Valerie moves across the street when they’re both nine years old. But in the wake of betrayal during their teenage years, Val is swept into the popular crowd, while mousy, sullen Addie becomes her school’s scapegoat.Flash-forward fifteen years. Valerie Adler has found a measure of fame and fortune working as the weathergirl at the local TV station. Addie Downs lives alone in her parents’ house in their small hometown of Pleasant Ridge, Illinois, caring for a troubled brother and trying to meet Prince Charming on the Internet. She’s just returned from Bad Date #6 when she opens her door to find her long-gone best friend standing there, a terrified look on her face and blood on the sleeve of her coat. “Something horrible has happened,” Val tells Addie, “and you’re the only one who can help.”
I’ve been in book heaven lately, starting with Sookie Stackhouse books, moving on to the newest Sophie Kinsella, and now the newest Jennifer Weiner. I was literally jumping around my house when I got this in the mail (can you tell I’m a Jennifer Weiner fan?).
What perhaps amazed me most about this book was that it felt very much like a memoir for a great majority, which attests to Weiner’s writing style. The thoughts, feelings, and actions of Addie reflecting on her childhood had me enthralled.
When Addie originally got herself into the ‘situation’ of the book (helping Val), I was initially very upset at her making that decision, but it did cause some self reflection – would I do what Addie had done? I almost certainly would have. My willingness to accept a character through their flaws and embrace them as they are made this a truly wonderful novel for me to read.
At the time of this review, Best Friends Forever is #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List, and for this I’m not surprised. It’s not every day you read a book with such complexity, emotion, and feeling – and I certainly don’t always yearn for a sequel like I did in the closing chapters of this book. Don’t let the classification of chick lit scare you off (if you’re one that’s easily scared) – this isn’t the normal kind of plot that many expect when reading that genre. If you don’t have a copy yet, get it. Really. Then come back and tell me how right I am (I’ll allow it, just this once).
thanks for the review …I hope to be reading her book soon. I'm also a fan of hers too since the beginning.