10 Friends from Sharon - also known as the Jewish girls and Pam - our lives are full of ups and downs just like the girls from Ames. What memories your book has brought me. We try to get together but aren't as good as these girls. We do have day long e/m sessions which is great fun. We are having a 50th Birthday High School Reunion this year and everyone will be there. The first time in a long time. I am really looking forward to it. Thank you for sharing your story. It was great!

While I have had many female friends over the years, my closest friendship dates back to high school. We were seated next to each other in History class and we've had a bond ever since. We graduated in 1988- and while our lives took us in different directions during our 20's (I got married and started a family while she earned 2 college degrees, became a teacher and didn't get married until her early 30's) we reconnected last year (now in our late 30's) and found that we are both in the same place in life again- I am a stay-at-home mother of 3 and she is a stay-at-home mother of 2. The wonderful thing about such deeply bonded friendships is that you can lose touch for a period of time, but once you reconnect it's like you pick up right where you left off. We live on opposite sides of the country now, but we stay in touch by phone and email and are planning on reuniting next summer (2010) to celebrate our 40th birthdys together! Even though there is just the 2 of us, I still related to parts of "The Girls From Ames" in so many ways.

My daugher gave me this book to read,she said I would like it, absolutely loved it, you can always find a good book and story if you look hard enough, would recommend this book to anyone (men or women) Thanks again

I loved the book and found myself reminiscing about my high school days. I also graduated in 1981 and tried hard throughout high school and college to work my way into a similar,larger group of girls who had been together for a long time. I was always on the fringe and eventually gave up trying to fit into their circle. Coming from a large family, my Mom always told me that my sisters would be my best friends and so I relied heavily on them for companionship. Perhaps because of this I never really learned how to reach out and make or be a great friend. I now realize that my sisters are sisters and not really the same as best friends. Sure wish I could have a do over! The Ames girls are blessed to have such devoted and caring women in their lives. Thank you to the girls for sharing their extraordinary story and to Mr. Zaslow for his poignant depiction.

I just completed reading your book, and I feel compelled to tell you how it touched me. My group is an amorphous gathering of women who have know each other from 5 to 35 years. We are mainly around 60, with a mother-daughter team who bracket us in age at 47 and 67. We refer to our joint abilities as "the power of the coven." I think it kind of scares the men!

Some of us golf together, and we are not good. A couple of years ago, I had my first opportunity to par a hole. My three golf partners made a hallway to the hole, and I sunk the putt. We called that the "power of the coven"!

More seriously, I have also had a couple of brushes with cancer, first in 2003, and, most recently, in 2008. I am enjoying great health not, and wish the same for Kelly and Angela. At the time of my diagnoses, my husband of almost 40 years was my rock, but my daily strength came from my women friends. Their words and love supported me, and still do.

Thank you for this book.


Truly,

Nancy Knutson

I absolutley LOVED this book and these ladies! I am 31 and I saw myself and my friends in the characters. I grew up in a small town and have maintained wonderful friendships with girls I met as a child and girls I met in high school. This book brought back so many good memories from my own growing up and it encouraged me to keep building those lifelong friendships. I love how the Ames girls meet at each others houses yearly, what a great idea! Thank-you for sharing your story with the world! I appreciate it! I have been telling everyone to read this book!

I just finished reading this wonderful book. At times, it was as if I were reading excerpts from my own life with my group of friends (let's call us the "Girls from Campbell" - class of 1985). Some started friendships in elementary school, some came in as late as freshman year of high school. We WERE a group of 10 (technically could have been 11, our dear friend drifted from us early in high school, only to succumb to drugs and then AIDS in her early 20's). The remaining 10 dwindled, one just took another path in life and another is still close to a couple of us, but not the group as a whole. As with your group, we have had 11 husbands (one of our girls is still single) and 19 kids (one with no children yet and one with her first child at 41). For get-togthers, we are now only a group of 8, but those 8 share treasured times and create wonderful memories each year with our annual trip to Tahoe. We all still live within a 90 mile radius of eachother, with the exception of one who lives just one state away. The parallels we share with your cirlce of friends is quite interesting. Including a photo that we took in Tahoe in 2007, it is very similar to the cover of your book (would love to email it to one of you). We always considered ourselves a 'one of a kind' group, but when the group email was sent out (from one of th girls)to tell us all "you have to read this book". I was thrilled to see other CIRCLES that have stayed as close as us. Thank you for being couragous enough to share your stories, your lives, your heartaches and triumphs. We have always commented that "with the stories we share, we should write a book"... I think your book has given us the encouragement to at least start documenting our stories for eachother. Thanks!

I just read this book while I was on a "girlfriend tour" back home last week, to Springfield, OH, and shared this story with my high school girlfriends. Just yesterday, I sent an e-mail telling them that I would for us to start a "blog" sharing similar memories and stories, so I think this will be my winter project. One of our friends is seriously ill at the James Center at OSU in Columbus; she's making progress, but has such a long way to go to beat her lymphoma and to get her system strong enough to do so. Even though we had maintained connections over these many years (40 years since high school), Beth's struggle and spirit have glued us together even more strongly and reconnected even more of us. The book was given to me by Angela's aunt, Ursula Williams, and I am grateful to have read it, and to have this inspiration to connect even more deeply with my friends. I am recommending the book to my sister and sisters-in-law because of their strong bonds with life-long friends. I have also written to Oprah to ask her to do a show about this - I hope you hear from her!

I absolutely loved the book! Thank you for sharing it with the rest of the world. I graduated from high school in 1981 so it felt like a step back in time for me. I parted ways in high school with my core group of friends after I was targeted in a way similar to Sally but I didn't have a supporter like Sally did. I know it was traumatic at the time but I managed to make new friends quickly and have no hard feelings about what happened. A part of me was sad while reading the book that I don't have any early childhood friends I stay in contact with but I'm a big believer in always being open to opportunities for new friends. I have made many great friends in college and adulthood with women of all ages. I bowl with a group of women that are old enough to be my mother but I really value the perspective on life these women bring to me. My relationship with these women is like having another Mom with none of the baggage! They call me their "young blood"! This group gives me hope because they spend very little time complaining about their life but focus on living it to the fullest. So my advice is to cherish and maintain your old friends but be open to new possibilities.

I read your book while visiting my hometown in Canada for my sister's wedding. I finished it as we drove through the west part of Iowa on my way back to Kansas CIty. When I reached page forty I was sitting in my father's recliner. He was already in bed. I am approaching 40 and my father has been living with Alzheimer's for ten years. Two months ago my father told me mother he could not marry her. I cried reading those pages. I also saw my father walk my sister down the aisle at her wedding this weekend. He did not know there was a wedding the next day. He got sick this week and I took your book to the hospital and read there too. I too have a circle of friends I have held close for 27 years and I saw them on this trip as well. Your book has resonated with me greatly. God bless your friendship. Thanks for sharing it.
Carolyn

I picked this book up at the library the other day, because the book about a longtime friendship captivated me. I'm a girl that has known her (1) of best friends since the day of playing with plastic pots with faces on them in a sandbox at the age of 5 in a trailer park in Kirkville, NY.
I also have another best friend Valerie whom I met in 4th grade (1974). We played "pencil people" together. total opposites. and then Karen in 7th grade. Sadly to say, I don't talke to that Karen much anymore. but I remember her all up into 12tth grade.
My point is? Oh I related so much. In a group of girls. We were called the Foursome Fearsome!!! not the Shit sistersd. but we have our stories. so needless to say, i CAN HONESTLY SAY Great book! and it will be on the best sellers list one day soon. You get a whole lotta mamas on the feed with that book. your history,. But please remember me. Chrissy,stina, tuck,fester, tucker, butch

I picked up the book to read as I prepare to meet "the girls from Cordele" for our yearly get together. We were all born between March -July 1940! We all went to the same schools from K-12. College sent us various ways as did marriage and families. We met for HS reunions and at age 55, decided to meet yearly. This will be our 15th meeting. Like the Ames girls, we have had joy and sadness, cancer and deaths, but we remain close in ways only long friendships can weave. We spend a week at some resort or home and talk and talk and talk. It is as if we have never been apart as we are so comfortable in this space. Many envy us our ability to stay together after all the years and miles apart.
We are now 8 having lost one too soon.

Dear Ladies,
Thank you for sharing your intimate stories with all of us faithful readers. I was sorry to come to the finish and want you to know that your touching words continue to flow through us.I am blessed with 4 friends, some from first grade, who meet yearly to kick up our heels in the fall leaves of N.C. We all graduated in 1970 from Haworth High school in Kokomo, Indiana. I am the "Jane" of the group and relish my e-mails, cards, chats, and laughter with these fine women, who have scattered physically yet we know we can be "there" when needed. The strength of friendship is difficult to place into words. So glad that you all contributed, with the nudging from Mr. Zaslow. Cheryl Meisterman

Thank you so much for sharing such a compelling story. I feel as if I have lived part of this story in my own life, though I am only 18 years old.
For as long as I can remember, there have been five girls in my life who I consider to be my best friends, my family, my sisters. We have all grown up in a small town in central NY (I actually know where Hamilton College is and am quite familiar with Clinton)and have spent our childhoods bopping from one anothers' houses. Our parents call us "the neighborhood girls" and it is a name that sticks since we continue to call ourselves that in reference to each other.
Together we have weathered a number of storms through tears and laughter, hugs and tightly held hands. While we have been closer to certain girls at different times in our lives (there is a three year gap between the youngest and oldest), we have always had each other for advice, a shoulder to lean on, and laughs to be shared. I feel as if I cannot explain my life without mentioning these girls who have been an integral part of it.
This year, the last of "the neighborhood girls" are leaving for college. I am heading west to Rochester while our other recent graduate (who I call my twin given our uncanny resemblance) will be traveling across the country to attend a school in Washington. It will be the furthest any of us have ever been from each other. While I am moving closer to one friend, another is going farther.
I recently came upon "The Girls From Ames" while browsing the shelves at the library and was touched by the story it had to tell. Given the changes that are ahead of us, I found solace in the words of wisdom and experiencre told in those pages. I hope to one day look back on this time with my four best friends and laugh at the worries we've shared and the jokes we told just as the Girls from Ames have been able to do.

Thank you so much for sharing this incredible story with the world - it is truley and inspiration that I'm sure many - young and old - can relate to.

I am an avid reader adn am always looking for a good read. I came to read the Ames girls by way of a relative of one of the Ames gals. My best friend is Cathy's cousin, Vicki, so natrually I just had to read it.

Deep long abiding friendships must run in Cathy's family..let me tell you about our group. I too am privileded to have a strong circle of lifetime friends. We are a bit ahead of the Ames girls as we are in our 60's now.

We also met in elementary school many years ago. We started out with a group of eight and by high school when Vicki, Cathy's cousin joined us we were ten strong. We also have shared every emotion possbile wiht eachother. We have always had our regular get togethers that started in junior high weekly.We all did marry, some divorced, some lost children, parents, siblings, faced devestating illness, plus lots of joyful times and events etc..we clung to eachother along the way. We have often joked that hey we should go on Oprah or write a book because if IT can happen in life it HAS happened to at least one of us.

Our families know and accept this unbreakable bond we have. They are on the outer ring of our cirlcle..knowing, caring, understanding but not on the inside.

We recently lost one of our "Girls". This has been very hard. She will alwasy be with us, we have too many memories to ever forget her in any way.

As I read the book it made me think so much of our "Girls Group'..the many fun times we had, all that we had shared, grwoing up together, sharing grief and loss, laughing until you wet your pants. The book brought so much back and I thank you for that.

We were almost a gemeration ahead of the Ames girls so some of our circumstances were different..times were different. That said I can truthfully say that we are all good strong smart women who truly feel blessed to have this special cirlce of love we have.

Cathy, Vicki found our group when she moved to Ohio and has been part of it ever since. So I must assume that she comes from that same good strong loyal family stock that you posess. She fit in like a glove. I was also lucky enough to meet your Mom and Dad on a visit to Vickis. We have had our friendship for many years some over 60 years...so yes we understand your lovely special story very well indeed. Thanks for telling it !!!

Betty Hopp