Helpful Score: 6
This book was excellent, a sweet story about the long lasting friendship between six southern women who first met in college at The W, Corrine, Lanier, Julia, Byrd, Rosanelle, and Astor, better know as the SSG's. In their late forties now, they all get together twice a year, in the summer at Lanier's place on Dauphin Island, and in the Fall at Corrine's place on Blue Mountain. The story focuses on Corrine, Lanier, and Julia - Corrine with her controlling ex husband Miles, their son Culley, and Cal, a new friend and fan of her art work; Lanier with her husband 'Saint' Paul, from whom she is separated, their two children Christopher and Lindy, and Jesse Phoenix, her childhood love; and Julia with her husband Joe Ed, and their disabled daughter Bethany. I guess you could say these women suffer a midlife crises together. Corrine becomes terminally ill and wishes to reconcile with her son before it is too late, Lanier is in love with two men and her children have distanced themselves from her for hurting their father, and Julia is tormented by the memory of a former love and the child she never claimed. I highly recommend this book, a heartwarming story that had me laughing and crying, one that will stay with me for a long time.
Helpful Score: 5
A definite "Chick's Book" as my husband would call it! ;-)
It took a while for me to get into the story, but once I did, I had a hard time putting it down. The story will make you laugh and cry!
All the women in the story have been through so much, but that is what makes it believable. The women are "sweet" but they are not saints. They are real women with real issues.
I would recommend this book to my friends!
It took a while for me to get into the story, but once I did, I had a hard time putting it down. The story will make you laugh and cry!
All the women in the story have been through so much, but that is what makes it believable. The women are "sweet" but they are not saints. They are real women with real issues.
I would recommend this book to my friends!
Helpful Score: 4
This was a fantastic story of friendship. Being a sorority girl from Alabama and having a mom who is the age of these women, I really enjoyed these characters. I could see myself being like this in 30 years!
Helpful Score: 3
I loved this story of a group of Alabama women who became friends in college who have continued their close group until their late 40's. As an Alabama woman of the same age, it rang true for me on so many levels. The story closely follows three of the women as they go through life changes. A wonderful celebration of friendship and self-discovery.
Helpful Score: 2
Delightful fun read. Not too deep but with wonderful character development. True to life situations - very Southern.
Helpful Score: 2
I have read other books by this author & I really did not care for them but...this one I loved!
Helpful Score: 2
Same sweet girls? Any southern girl should recognize the implication of the title. This is a genuine and powerful story of women's friendship revealed through the eyes of southern born and bred women. The characters are funny, opinionated, sassy and complex. The story takes you through their hilarious rituals, their friendships and courtships, their heartbreaks and pleasures. I couldn't put this book down.
Helpful Score: 1
This was my first read by Cassandra King and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I felt I could relate to many aspects of the main character. One drawback was I thought the author foreshadowed too often and sometimes it distracted from the story. I would definitely recommend it.
Helpful Score: 1
The Same Sweet Girls is the story of a group of friends who met in college. They get together with each other twice a year to catch up and do their silly traditions. The story is told from different points of view. It is hard to imagine such different people actually getting together and being friends. They have cliques within the group, but all come together when there is a crisis in the group. Each same sweet girl is having some kind of crisis. This is a good story about friends being a family when it matters the most.
Helpful Score: 1
This is Pat Conroy's wife. If you like Southern Writing, this is just that! I really enjoyed it.
Helpful Score: 1
Surprising, thought it would be a fluffy book but some of the content was real and ugly, really enjoyed it.
Helpful Score: 1
This book is over 500 pages long. It is worth your time. At the beginning each character is introduced and their stories meld together. It wont take long to keep the characters and their lives straight. You will love the story. Find time to read this one.
Helpful Score: 1
Hilarious and fun.
Life at middle age from women who have been together since college.
Helpful Score: 1
I laughed and I cried.
This is a good book, but a sad book.
A nice, light read.
A great book that looks at the bonds that female friends have. A tear-jerker of a book, but a wonderful way to remember all of the female friends in your life.
If you liked the ya ya sisterhood book you'd probbaly like this book. Cute read, and not to heavy
Southern Chic Lit....loved it. Characters were easy to like, quick read.
I loved this book from the first paragraph. It was so easy to identify with the characters and see the world thru their eyes.
This is a good girlfriend book! If your missing your girlfriends it's the book to read.
This is a novel of women's friendships that is funny, touching, heartbreaking, yet not sentimental. This is a group of colorful, funny, opinionated and definetly real Southern women sharing their loves, lives, and emotions.
This was a great story in the spirit of the Ya Ya series.
Sweet and sometimes heartbreaking story of six southern ladies who met in college and are now approaching 50 years old, reuniting thier group "The Same Sweet Girls" every year.
I liked how the author told the story from three different perspectives, but I didn't like the ending!
I liked how the author told the story from three different perspectives, but I didn't like the ending!
Great book about friends.
A beautiful story of friendships. One of the best books that I have ever read.
wonderful, funny, romantic, tear jerking...get a box of kleenex, you'll laugh & cry
great read!! very enjoyable!!
A fantastic story of women who become friends in college and continue their friendship. I laughed, I cried and I even sobbed.
Caution, get a fresh box of tissues
Caution, get a fresh box of tissues
Wonderful book about a group of best friends. The story goes back to when they were teenagers to their lives now. Great read!
This was a great read..........
a good read....female freindships
A great girl group book
By the author of The Sunday Wife. This is one of those wonderful books that are about women's friendships. The gals in this novel are a diverse group. Plenty of humor and inspiration
Beautifully written by the wife of "Prince of Tides" author Pat Conroy. Set in the South, and chronicles about a year in the life of a group of strong Southern women who have been friends since their college days; focuses primarily on three of the six women. If you like Anne Rivers Siddons and Sue Monk Kidd, this is one for you!
"If anybody has written a better book about the power of women's friendships, I haven't read it. The Same Sweet Girls is tender, funny, heartbreaking, and astoundingly unsentimental. I really, truly love this book." Anne Rivers Siddons
Anne Rivers Siddons, my second favorite modern author, says of this incredible novel: "If anybody has written a better book about the power of women's friendships, I haven't read it. The Same Sweet Girls is tender, funny, heartbreaking, and astoundingly unsentimental. I really, truly, love this book." This is EXACTLY how I feel about this novel, and I am absolutely thrilled to share this, the best "chick flick in print" that I have EVER read, with other PBS'ers. Enjoy!
Great book, hard to put down.
A wonderful story about friendships over 30 years. What binds these women together and how they work through differing opinions id a great focus for the story.
Six southern women have been holding biannual reunions ever since college. Life chnges will touch, move and inspire you to cherish lifelong friendships
This one really had me crying! Good book!
i had to stop reading on page 144; their lives had so much past pain, i could not hold any more. but it was such a struggle to say goodbye, i loved some of them so!
Interesting quick read!
Good Book - very enjoyable
The book is about 6 women who attended the same college and still meeting twice a year. They are not sweet nor are they the same any more particularly as they approach middle age. Intense friendships and rivalries; interesting men that you either love or hate. A fairly long book but well worth the read...I had a hard time staying with it until about the middle of the book.
"Although we call ourselves the Same Sweet Girls, none of us are girls anymore. And Im not sure that any of us are now, or ever have been, sweet...The illusion of sweetness, thats all that counts. We dont have to be sincerely sweet, but by God we have to be good at faking it."
And so begins the amusing and honest introduction to Cassandra King's cast of friends, "the same complicated, screwy, mixed-up, love-each-other-one-minute and hate-each-other-the-next group of women [they] were when [they] met 30 years ago." The wife of acclaimed author Pat Conroy, King's own literary talent shines through in "The Same Sweet Girls" with candid witticisms and sincere characters that deliver a slice-of-life look at the complex relationship between female companions in the South.
From the outside looking in, this unlikely sextet has very little in common: Corrine is an eccentric gourd artist from rural, underprivileged Alabama; Lanier is a nurse who would be a doctor if not for her keen ability to screw up; Julia is the group's classic beauty, a girl from old money and current first lady of Alabama; flirtatious Astor is a former Broadway showgirl with exotic looks and cunning ways; Byrd is the maternal and loveable one, albeit a bit plain and simple; and Rosanelle, the Southern Belle archetype, still clings to her debutante days. But with a nickname they coined after their first encounter in college - a mischievous incident that immediately lends irony to the idea of the girls as "sweet" - the Same Sweet Girls have stuck it out through love and loss, keeping in touch through bi-annual reunions in the years following graduation.
Not since the Ya-Yas have we met such an endearingly quirky group of Southern women whose friendship stands the test of time. Rather than "divine secrets," the Same Sweet Girls have their own set of kooky traditions that allow them to maintain a perception of youth while poking good-natured fun at that required illusion of sweetness in the South. In fact, each year the group crowns a "queen," selecting by secret ballot the girl who has proved herself to be the sweetest of all through a blatant, year-long campaign. "Naturally, the first year everyone voted for herself, so we had to change the rules. Its not considered a sweet thing to do, to vote for yourself, and if you do so, you're disqualified."
Yet while most of the girls are friends by circumstance, linked however inextricably by the mere shared experience of college and the traditions they have since kept, three of the women share a bond that runs deeper than any ritual or habit. As the story alternates between the perspectives of Corrine, Lanier and Julia, King reveals the heart of a true friendship that only gets stronger in the midst of middle age and major life change. But the novel does not become a chick lit cliché with females gabbing daily over coffee or cocktails; rather, these women maintain a high level of independence, bearing their burdens separately in a way that is surprisingly refreshing and authentic.
As Corrine attempts to reconnect with her son and free herself from the power of an abusive ex-husband in the mountains of North Georgia, Lanier nurses a broken heart over a failed marriage at her childhood home on the Alabama coast, and Julia tries to find her true self among a façade of perfection and a haunted past at a remote lake house in the heart of the state, it is not physical proximity that ties them together but the assurance that a confidante is only a phone call away. But when illness threatens the life of one of their own, the fear of loss ripples through their core, prompting them to abandon their isolation to be together and forcing them to evaluate just how far they would go for a friend in need.
With a strong dose of humor interlaced with pangs of tragedy and heartbreak, "The Same Sweet Girls" evokes both laughter and tears in the way that is reminiscent of great Southern predecessors like "Steel Magnolias" or "Fried Green Tomatoes." As their relationships with men and family members waver, these women remain the one constant in each others lives, giving us a glimpse at friendship in its purest form.
And so begins the amusing and honest introduction to Cassandra King's cast of friends, "the same complicated, screwy, mixed-up, love-each-other-one-minute and hate-each-other-the-next group of women [they] were when [they] met 30 years ago." The wife of acclaimed author Pat Conroy, King's own literary talent shines through in "The Same Sweet Girls" with candid witticisms and sincere characters that deliver a slice-of-life look at the complex relationship between female companions in the South.
From the outside looking in, this unlikely sextet has very little in common: Corrine is an eccentric gourd artist from rural, underprivileged Alabama; Lanier is a nurse who would be a doctor if not for her keen ability to screw up; Julia is the group's classic beauty, a girl from old money and current first lady of Alabama; flirtatious Astor is a former Broadway showgirl with exotic looks and cunning ways; Byrd is the maternal and loveable one, albeit a bit plain and simple; and Rosanelle, the Southern Belle archetype, still clings to her debutante days. But with a nickname they coined after their first encounter in college - a mischievous incident that immediately lends irony to the idea of the girls as "sweet" - the Same Sweet Girls have stuck it out through love and loss, keeping in touch through bi-annual reunions in the years following graduation.
Not since the Ya-Yas have we met such an endearingly quirky group of Southern women whose friendship stands the test of time. Rather than "divine secrets," the Same Sweet Girls have their own set of kooky traditions that allow them to maintain a perception of youth while poking good-natured fun at that required illusion of sweetness in the South. In fact, each year the group crowns a "queen," selecting by secret ballot the girl who has proved herself to be the sweetest of all through a blatant, year-long campaign. "Naturally, the first year everyone voted for herself, so we had to change the rules. Its not considered a sweet thing to do, to vote for yourself, and if you do so, you're disqualified."
Yet while most of the girls are friends by circumstance, linked however inextricably by the mere shared experience of college and the traditions they have since kept, three of the women share a bond that runs deeper than any ritual or habit. As the story alternates between the perspectives of Corrine, Lanier and Julia, King reveals the heart of a true friendship that only gets stronger in the midst of middle age and major life change. But the novel does not become a chick lit cliché with females gabbing daily over coffee or cocktails; rather, these women maintain a high level of independence, bearing their burdens separately in a way that is surprisingly refreshing and authentic.
As Corrine attempts to reconnect with her son and free herself from the power of an abusive ex-husband in the mountains of North Georgia, Lanier nurses a broken heart over a failed marriage at her childhood home on the Alabama coast, and Julia tries to find her true self among a façade of perfection and a haunted past at a remote lake house in the heart of the state, it is not physical proximity that ties them together but the assurance that a confidante is only a phone call away. But when illness threatens the life of one of their own, the fear of loss ripples through their core, prompting them to abandon their isolation to be together and forcing them to evaluate just how far they would go for a friend in need.
With a strong dose of humor interlaced with pangs of tragedy and heartbreak, "The Same Sweet Girls" evokes both laughter and tears in the way that is reminiscent of great Southern predecessors like "Steel Magnolias" or "Fried Green Tomatoes." As their relationships with men and family members waver, these women remain the one constant in each others lives, giving us a glimpse at friendship in its purest form.
I finished the book, but it got off to a rough start. As a 30 year old, I was not that interested in hearing about 6 fifty year old women who dress up twice a year and are not getting along well. However, it did end up reminding me of Desparate Housewives, which I can get into, so I made it through. I plan to give it to a friend who can also enjoy it, but not a book for everyone.
I really enjoyed this book. It's about a group of women who've been friends since college and several of them are going through a crisis. This is not chick lit. It's not fluff. I think it goes a little deeper. I really got into each woman's story and liked getting the events from different perspectives. Even though I saw it coming, the bittersweet ending made me cry.
Sorry - not. At fifty-ish, these characters are not "girls". They're certainly not "sweet". And it's doubtful they are the "same" as they were when they met in college.
Some might find this a book about friendships that last through the decades; others will merely be annoyed at the sniping, back- biting treachery of the characters. (And yes, I realize that the name they adopted for themselves was created ironically. I still didn't like it. Your mileage may vary.)
Some might find this a book about friendships that last through the decades; others will merely be annoyed at the sniping, back- biting treachery of the characters. (And yes, I realize that the name they adopted for themselves was created ironically. I still didn't like it. Your mileage may vary.)
A very enjoyable read about friendship.
i really enjoyed this book. it was told from each of the girl's perspective which i liked.
This is a great read for fans of women's relationship stories. The book is told from the points of view of three of the women in a group of six friends. The only thing I had a problem with was the discrepancies of some of the descriptions of the Alabama locations I know very well. However, the average reader would not realize that Lake Martin is not two hours away from Montgomery and Dauphin Island is an island in the Gulf of Mexico not Mobile Bay. I still appreciate the author's details of places I know and love.
Similar to the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
This is a wonderful page turner, the reader feels like she's hanging with old friends. I really loved this book.
was ok - not the type of book that I usually read
None of the Same Sweet Girls are really girls anymore, and none of them have ever actualloy been that sweet. But the six southern women of this spirited group, who have been holding biannual reunions ever since they were together in college, are suddenly facing middle age and major life changes.
From Publishers Weekly: For 30 years, six Southern college friendsâthe Same Sweet Girlsâhave been gathering for a biannual reunion. As King's wry, touching novel begins, the girls are nearing 50 and coming to terms with the life decisions they've made. Corrine Cooper gains renown as a folk artist, but battles clinical depression with the help of a manipulative psychiatrist who later becomes her husband; Lanier Brewer is separated after a brief, ill-advised fling; exotic Astor Deveaux, a former Broadway dancer, flirts wildly with men but remains with her husband, a famous painter 33 years her senior; Julia Dupont is trapped in a passionless marriage and an overscheduled life as Alabama's first lady; Byrd and Rosanelle round out the group. When one of the SSGs becomes terminally ill, the remaining friends are spurred to resolve their own problems before she dies. Corinne, Julia and Lanier rotate as first-person narrators, but King (The Sunday Wife) does little to distinguish their voices, and the parade of characters and stories can be hard to follow at first. Once the names fall into place, however, the story's gentle Southern humor and warmth shine. It isn't all iced tea and tomato pieâKing tackles some troubling issuesâbut the characters are true to life, and readers will sympathize with their struggles.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From AudioFile: Patricia Kalember masterfully narrates this story of college pals who remain lifelong friends. She portrays each of the women, who voice alternating chapters, with gentle Georgia and Alabama accents, and perfectly characterizes "Miss Cotton" with an exaggerated drawl. As they help each other through abusive marriages, divorces, and illnesses, Kalember portrays their sorrows with touching emotion. She easily transitions to a lighter tone as the group reenacts its delightfully silly queen contest. She gives special attention to the author's directives, applying appropriately condescending airs to a couple of "holier than thou" characters and actually yawning on cue. Listeners will enjoy Kalember's strong performance as they applaud the growth and strength of the Same Sweet Girls. J.J.B. AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From AudioFile: Patricia Kalember masterfully narrates this story of college pals who remain lifelong friends. She portrays each of the women, who voice alternating chapters, with gentle Georgia and Alabama accents, and perfectly characterizes "Miss Cotton" with an exaggerated drawl. As they help each other through abusive marriages, divorces, and illnesses, Kalember portrays their sorrows with touching emotion. She easily transitions to a lighter tone as the group reenacts its delightfully silly queen contest. She gives special attention to the author's directives, applying appropriately condescending airs to a couple of "holier than thou" characters and actually yawning on cue. Listeners will enjoy Kalember's strong performance as they applaud the growth and strength of the Same Sweet Girls. J.J.B. AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine
This is an Advanced Reading Copy. A story of women's friendships as the years go by
