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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."
Best Friends Forever is a grand, hilarious, edge-of-your-seat adventure; a story about betrayal and loyalty, family history and small-town secrets. It's about living through tragedy, finding love where you least expect it, and the ties that keep best friends together.
Compact Disk Includes a bonus MP3 CD of Jennifer Weiner's Little Earthquakes!
Review:
"Chick lit doyenne Weiner offers airtight proof that the genre thrives with this clever, sad and sweet turn on Thelma and Louise — style rage. Juggling the politics of broken families, heartbreaking betrayal and shaky self-esteem, two girlhood pals — ugly duckling Addie and wounded beauty Valerie — reconnect after their high school reunion, where Valerie exacts a long-in-coming revenge on smug former beau Dan Swansea. But the payback gets more complicated when police chief Jordan Novick, nursing a broken heart and a crush-at-first-sight with Addie, is called in to investigate Dan's disappearance. Along the way, Val and Addie stage what may be the funniest not-quite-heist ever pulled off as they evade the heat over the missing Dan. The big payoff, of course, is that Addie and Valerie mend the mean-girls misunderstanding that drove them apart as teens and discover the shared pain and loss that bound them as kids and, once again, as adults. This beach read will win readers over with its wit and wisdom. (July)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
Best-selling novelist Jennifer Weiner says her seventh book, "Best Friends Forever," is in part an answer to this question: "What if Thelma and Louise didn't have to die?" The two doomed dames do come to mind when reading this high school revenge fantasy, which opens with onetime jock Dan Swansea waking up in a dark parking lot naked with blood on his head. But Weiner fans shouldn't panic; the story... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) soon turns to her more familiar themes: loneliness, friendship, the search for love, the struggles of mothers and daughters, and the sheer misery of being a fat girl in a thin girl's world. Her heroine here is Addie Downs, a 33-year-old greeting card illustrator in the Chicago suburbs who has spent her adult life taking care of troubled family members and who now lives alone in her childhood home with fresh memories of dismal blind dates. The story starts in earnest when Addie's childhood best friend, Valerie, a beautiful blond weatherperson on "Chicago's third-rated TV station" whom she hasn't spoken to since high school, appears on her doorstep one cold evening, upset and bloodstained. You can probably take it from here, no? As a fan of vulnerable smartass Cannie Shapiro, the likable heroine of Weiner's most recent best-seller, "Certain Girls," and her breakout novel, "Good in Bed," I had trouble warming up to this most recent offering. In "Best Friends Forever," Valerie is over-the-top, weather-girl ridiculous — she wants to rob a bank, for heaven's sake — and at times the story borders on the farcical. But there are compensations. Addie displays flashes of the trademark Weiner snark: "Didn't you once read the weather while you were riding a mechanical bull? I'm going to suggest that the dignity ship has sailed without you aboard." And the flashbacks to the girls' childhood friendship and their two vastly different mothers are moody, touching and true to life. In fact, the thing I enjoy most about Weiner's books is their familiarity — how her characters' concerns, jokes, insecurities and even homes feel like real life, or at least the embarrassingly tame version lived by average middle-class moms like me. With its girl-on-the-lam main characters, "BFF" has less comfortable warmth than some of Weiner's previous works, but enough to keep me pleasantly looking forward to book 8. Reviewed by Claudia Deane, who is a writer in Silver Spring, Maryland, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)
Synopsis:
Jennifer Weiner's newest novel, BEST FRIENDS FOREVER, " "depicts the nuances of female friendship with her incomparable humor and heart.
Synopsis:
Bestselling author Jennifer Weiner’s dazzling new novel Best Friends Forever explores the impact of love, desire, and familial loss on a friendship between two young women, and how the choices they make will change their lives forever.
One of the nation’s most beloved and successful writers of women’s fiction, Jennifer Weiner has become a literary phenomenon with millions of copies of her books in print. Her latest work, Best Friends Forever will delight fans and critics alike, following the ups and downs of a long-time friendship between two young girls who grow up to be two very different women. Addie Downs and Valerie Adler were eight when they first met and decided to be best friends forever. But, in the wake of tragedy and betrayal during their teenage years, everything changed. Val went on to fame and fortune. Addie stayed behind in their small Midwestern town. Destiny, however, had more in store for these two. And when, twenty-five years later, Val shows up at Addie’s front door with blood on her coat and terror on her face, it is the beginning of a wild adventure for two women joined by love and history who find strength together that they could not find alone.
Jennifer Weiner is also the author of the novels Good in Bed, In Her Shoes, which was made into a major motion picture, Little Earthquakes, Goodnight Nobody, and Certain Girls, as well as the short story collection, The Guy Not Taken. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Philadelphia with her family.
Jennmarie68, March 12, 2010 (view all comments by Jennmarie68)
I really connected with this story. Having just passed 10 years out of high school I find myself thinking about people I haven't seen in years and what they are doing now. So reading a story about two friends who had lost touch and have been reconnected was something that really resonated with me.
I connected with Addie, the main character. Even though she has made some changes to her life since high school, she is still pretty much the same person she was. She's shy and she lives her life without trying to cause too many ripples. Given the circumstances that surrounded her path to where she is in life at this point, I think that I would have made some of the very same decisions. I didn't like Valerie at the beginning of the story, but as the story progressed she kind of grew on me, as I've known people in similar positions and I almost felt sympathy for her. Even though the story is told from Addie's perspective Valerie is very much the catalyst that keeps the story going.
The writing was pretty good. The story jumps between the past and the present and also jumps between a few different locations. While this jumping can sometimes lead to a very disconnected story it was very well executed in this book. The flashbacks help to explain the time gaps between high school and the present. They also help build the story behind Val and Addie. The characters were very believable. The plot was a bit on the crazy side, but after I got to know Valerie I started to think that she's the kind of person that really could get herself into something like this.
This one really played with my emotions, as I really wanted to dislike Val but ended up feeling kind of sorry for her. Plus as we learn about Addie I really could let myself become her as I was reading. I even pictured her to be almost like me. The other characters were kind of two-dimensional, but because their importance to the story was limited I think they didn't need to be well-rounded.
Jenna Scholnick, August 2, 2009 (view all comments by Jenna Scholnick)
More than just "chick-lit". This is a touching and funny story with wonderful characters. Another great novel for fans of Jennifer Weiner.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (1 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Chick lit doyenne Weiner offers airtight proof that the genre thrives with this clever, sad and sweet turn on Thelma and Louise — style rage. Juggling the politics of broken families, heartbreaking betrayal and shaky self-esteem, two girlhood pals — ugly duckling Addie and wounded beauty Valerie — reconnect after their high school reunion, where Valerie exacts a long-in-coming revenge on smug former beau Dan Swansea. But the payback gets more complicated when police chief Jordan Novick, nursing a broken heart and a crush-at-first-sight with Addie, is called in to investigate Dan's disappearance. Along the way, Val and Addie stage what may be the funniest not-quite-heist ever pulled off as they evade the heat over the missing Dan. The big payoff, of course, is that Addie and Valerie mend the mean-girls misunderstanding that drove them apart as teens and discover the shared pain and loss that bound them as kids and, once again, as adults. This beach read will win readers over with its wit and wisdom. (July)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
Jennifer Weiner's newest novel, BEST FRIENDS FOREVER, " "depicts the nuances of female friendship with her incomparable humor and heart.
"Synopsis"
by Netread,
Bestselling author Jennifer Weiner’s dazzling new novel Best Friends Forever explores the impact of love, desire, and familial loss on a friendship between two young women, and how the choices they make will change their lives forever.
One of the nation’s most beloved and successful writers of women’s fiction, Jennifer Weiner has become a literary phenomenon with millions of copies of her books in print. Her latest work, Best Friends Forever will delight fans and critics alike, following the ups and downs of a long-time friendship between two young girls who grow up to be two very different women. Addie Downs and Valerie Adler were eight when they first met and decided to be best friends forever. But, in the wake of tragedy and betrayal during their teenage years, everything changed. Val went on to fame and fortune. Addie stayed behind in their small Midwestern town. Destiny, however, had more in store for these two. And when, twenty-five years later, Val shows up at Addie’s front door with blood on her coat and terror on her face, it is the beginning of a wild adventure for two women joined by love and history who find strength together that they could not find alone.
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