I was touched and thrilled to have just finished this beautiful piece of literature. Thank you, thank you for sharing your stories!

My two long time girlfriends and I went to a penguin publishers book sale. We shopped separately and all bought this book and didn't know until after we compared purchases. I think it is a testament to the power of friendship that it spoke to all three of us. Thanks again!

I have been lucky to have many friends walk with me on my lifeline, but one special forever friend was Judy. We were placed in the same crib at church in wichita kansas in 1949 and we stayed together thereafter. In 1995, her body died from an 8 year battle with breast cancer. I came to her home to "help her die with laughter" and visited afterwards to "help her family" get on with life. In 1998, i married her husband and with the blessings of my three sons, added her two wonderful children to our family circle. The best part is I am able to share judy with her children and to keep her alive with my memories. So, maybe her body left, but my forever friend is still with us where she always was...in my heart. Thank you for a wonderful story of friendship.

It was so heartwarming to read The Girls of Ames. I also have a very close bond with 8 girls from high school and we call ourselves the "Sisterhood." (A name our grown children make fun of from time to time.) "Are you emailing the sisterhood?"

Over the years we have bonded through reunions and visits and our ties have actually grown stronger.

Although we all don't have the same political views or live on the same coasts, we have been able to stay connected through great memories and much love.

What I loved about the girls from Ames is that each girl was very different from each other and they were allowed to be who they were within the group. They did not judge each other and just allowed each other to be who they were. That is what makes friendships last and what I have enjoyed in my " sisterhood."
Thanks for allowing us to delve into your very personal lives and see a little of ourselves. Have fun at your next reunion!

This is such a good book, and I'm sure reflects stories like this from all over the world.

I was fortunate enough to grow up with a group like this, and while we do not get together every year, we keep in touch via phone, letters, and email. The advent of email is wonderful for groups like the Girls From Ames, as it is so current and immediate, plus you can copy everyone.

My group was from Milton, Wisconsin, and we were all born in 1939. We were known as "The Clique". Two members of our group have died, but the rest are going strong, and while we don't all get together as one big group every year, we get together in smaller groups several times a year.

The most interesting part of the book for me was seeing the difference in girls who grew up in the 1940's and 1950's and girls who grew up in the 1960's and 1970's.

I just finished reading The Girls from Ames. What a wonderful story. I couldn't put it down! It had me laughing and crying as I connected my story to their story. I grew up in Ankeny, Iowa, just south of Ames and am just a few years older than the Ames girls. My girlfriends have been my family, my rock. We have been there for each other over the years since graduating from high school and I know we will continue to be there for each other. We've loved each other and supported each other through divorce, loss of parents, death of a spouse, and the tragic death of a child. My heart ached when I read about Karla's precious daughter Christie and her battle with leukemia. I felt like I was right there living through my late husband's fight against cancer. To hear that Kelly and Angela are in good health after dealing with breast cancer was so happy to hear. What an amazing group of women! Your story is so inspirational and I thank you and Jeffrey Zaslow for sharing. What would we do without our girlfriends, our sisters by choice???

I grew up in a small rural community with a population consisting of about 5600 residents. There were ten of us that became the very best of friends. We still have mini reunions quite often. This book just took me back to wonderful times growing up. We lost our first friend this past year to cancer. It has affected us all in so many ways. Another friend just lost her husband. I feel so blessed to have such a support group. We are so much like the girls from Ames. We laugh, cry, fight and love each other and have for many years. Nothing can ever break the bond of true friendship. We are a family of dearest friends and will always be. What a wonderful book. I listed "The Girls" from my hometown in the front of my copy. I plan to re-read this book many, many times.

I grew up in Ames & had a group of 10 of the best friends a girl could ever have. This book touched my heart to the core for so many reasons. I was so fortunate to live in Ames, it's a very special place to me. So for that reason alone- this book was amazing. I could completely identify with everything these women went through and they ways in which they met is so eerily similar that it was almost scary!
My "Ames" girls and I have been passing the book to one another and writing a passage to each other as each one finishes the book. We are all living all across the country now & I'm so glad that someone wrote this book b/c we've never felt closer to each other b/c of it. Thanks so much!!!

I absolutely loved this book. I have two groups. My Andalusia Girls Club - we have 16 members (one now deceased) and have been together for 25 years. We all live in the same neighborhood and all our children are the same age. One year, 9 of us had high school graduates. We get together once a month and take a yearly trip to the Jersey Shore. This group is incredibly special to me. They were there for me during my husband's battle with cancer and especially after his death in 1999, which brings me to my other group. This group is my support group friends. We came together in 1999 at a support group meeting after all our husbands passed away and are still the best of friends after 10 years. Some of the group have come into our lives and gone out but 6 of us are still going strong. We have done so many things together. We have taken many many trips, had New Jersey summer shore houses together, and have spent countless hours just being with each other filling the void of losing our husbands. And, to make things even more unbelievable, my path has crossed before with each one of them and didn't even realize it. One of the girls even took care of my husband in the hospital and her husband actually died less than a month before mine. I never saw her at the hospital but did talk to her on the phone. We realized this at a meeting one night. Another one grew up in my neighborhood but was 4 years older than me and went to Catholic school so we didn't really know each other. Absolutely incredible. I don't know where I would be without this group today. They have filled an incredible void in my life that was left after my husband died. I was the organizer of everything but without them being there to organize our outings, I don't know what I would be doing. We all realized that there is life after a death but we needed each other to have this life with. I love each and every one of them (both groups). I'm a very lucky person and blessed beyond words.

I finished reading this book last night and sobbed. Even though I so strongly wanted to write about how it affected me, it's difficult to put into words. In my group there are nine - we call ourselves The Sugars. We met in graduate school (so have only been friends for about 10 years) and now live in seven different cities. We get together about once a year (I just visited with the 3 in St. Louis and couldn't stop talking about this book!) and have a new "set-in-stone" reunion date each July (this is the first year). We have had our ups and downs but would die for each other.

I loved reading the book because I saw myself and so many of the others in the girls from Ames. I can't wait for all my friends to read it and get to know the girls from Ames, and themselves, in the process.

Thank you for telling us your story and sharing your dark and sunny days. I feel so lucky to have a group of wonderful female friends.

My mom gave me this book over the weekend. She thought I would enjoy it as I am the same age as these ladies and grew up in a town 40 miles North of Ames. I read the whole book in 2 days.

I cant help but wonder if I was standing next to them at the Springsteen concert or at any of the other numerous places mentioned in the book that were so familiar to me.

Enjoy as my mom said, didnt even touch it. I loved this book. I loved the girls. They remind me of my group of friends that I grew up with. But while I still see them at class reunions and do talk on face book, we dont get together like these girls do. I sure wish we did. I am sending them all copies and hope, that after they read it, we will get something together soon.

Thank you for this and thank you girls from Ames. You guys Rock. And if we had lived in Ames instead of Webster City, Iowa. I hope I would have been blessed to be in your circle of friends.

I just wanted to say after reading this book it made me think that I am so lucky to have two friends who are there for me. I just wanted to say to the women in Ames that I think they are so brave.

My group of friends are older than this book talks about, but many similarities.

Our "Careyville" friends were all born in 1943, met in Kindergarden,and 2nd grade in Hutchinson Kansas. We are all turning 67 years old this year and still get together every year.
We are meeting in Naples, Fl in April 2010.
We have had one of the original friends die a couple years ago.
We have lots of fun and having known each other for so long with great memories and create new ones every year. Two years ago, we all met in Winter Park, Colorado.

Some of us live in Kansas, some in Colorado, some in Naples, Fl. and some at Lake Ozarks, Mo.
Thanks,
Judy

My 8 high school girlfriends and I just got back from a trip to Mexico. We were celebrating two things:
1) Turning 50!
2) Being friends after all these years.
As a matter of fact, my friend Ann gave each of us this book for the trip. It was the "must read" book of the week-end. Through-out the week-end, someone would look up from the book and say "Oh my God, they're just like us!".We have also had our fair share of heartache and loss, but through-out it all, we have stood by each other and "had each others back". How comforting to know, at the age of 50, that there are 8 girls who support me no matter who am I or what I do. They always, always, always, have my back. While you thought you were writing about the girls from Ames, you were really writing about the girls from Robbinsdale. Thank you for writing "our" story, and for giving us a forum to re-visit the past.

I began to read The Girls from Ames on a flight Monday. It was absolutely the best and worst book I could have chosen, as I was traveling to the funeral of a friend's toddler, half a country away.

I have a very close group of ten friends; we share the common bond of a child born in January 2006, and all of us have 3 or more children. Dubbed the "moms of many," we have 42 children among us.

This will sound strange, but the ten of us were friends for three years before any of us met each other. We met in an online "birth club" and formed a close online friendship. Since we formed a private group three years ago, more than 23,000 messages have flown back and forth between us.

Occasionally, some of us have had "meetups" so that now all but one of us has met at least one of the others.

We come from all different backgrounds: jobs, locations, religion, family history. We talk about everything; it's just online instead of in person.

One of the hardest things I had to do was to call one of my best friends (whom I've never met or spoken to) last week to tell her that another (whom I've never met or spoken to either) had lost her little one. We cried together, and made arrangements to support our dear friend.

And so it is that I flew from Minnesota to Alabama for the funeral of a dear little girl, and hugged these best friends whom I'd never met.

Our families "get" our friendship now more than ever. We've shared many things before, but now tragedy has entered our lives and we will continue to be there for each other.

I really enjoyed the book. I have had numerous women friends in my life and I agree that women's relationships are essential.

I want to commend Jeffrey Zaslow, author for a beautifully written tribute to women.

I was given the book as a gift. The giver was pleased to find a book from IA even though I was from KS. (Iowa-Kansas, close enough was her response)

THANKS