This is from Heidi about the discussion on The Girls from Ames and what she had to say about their conference call from the author:
Here is my book club summary for the Girls From Ames book:
The Girls From Ames book inspired us to look take a close look at the friendships we have today. The book gave some of us a thankfulness of the friendships we currently have, and others a chance to learn what a real friend is really about. The depth of our discussion was amazing! We shared stories of long term friendships, friendships drifting, friendships ending, and hard times when a friend was there for us.
I think that friendships do take a back seat when you are in your 20-30's and life is changing so rapidly with married life and children. I got a sense that all of us look forward to devoting more time to rekindling friendships as our children get older and less dependent on us. It was reassuring to talk about this phase in our life and realize that we are all so similar in our need for friendship. Friendship is a necessity for women!
We all had a person in the book with whom we related to the most. We had a great time discussing why we were most like one particular Girl from Ames.
The highlight of this book club meeting was having the author, Jeffrey Zaslow, conference in for our discussion. Also, Heidi's mom Skyped in for the discussion as well. We are very technologically savvy book club! We loved asking Jeff about more specific information about his book. He was very generous with his time since we were calling him close to his bedtime.
It was fascinating to learn that people who meet the real Kelly often tell her that they are the "Kelly" in their group of friends. Jeff said that most people either tell him that they love her or hate her. It was also interesting to learn that Sally said that she does not hold any grudges against the girls for her "intervention." To her it only happened "38 years, 10 hours, and 2 minutes ago". Ha, ha, ha! Obviously, she forgives them, but does not forget!
The most fascinating thing that Jeff talked about was how men just don't need friendships as much as women do. He told us the story about how he plays cards with a group of men every Thursday night. When he was writing this book and learning about friendships, he decided to ask his friend next to him playing cards, "do you know the names of my kids?" The man answered "no, but I can repeat them back to you if you tell me." This statement was a huge eye opener to us and we talked about how our husbands would be similar in their answers. This is just so hard to believe from a woman's stand point and maybe even a little sad???
Jeff told us that his paperback version of The Girls From Ames will be out soon with an additional 20 pages devoted to an update on the girls. We will look forward to that!
I enjoyed hosting!
- Heidi
So- what's next? I think we'll be taking a break for the holidays. I'd like to set up a date for the beginning/ middle of January. If you are interested in hosting and picking a book please let me know and I'll get a mass email out as well as post it on the blog. It would be nice start reading over the Christmas break. Thanks to all you ladies for participating and being a part of this! Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
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