The Girls from Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow
c.2009, Gotham Books 
$26/$32.50 Canada
297 pages

Your daughter calls her “BFF” – Best Friends Forever. It’s a girl-bond that means sharing everything, including secrets, crushes and favorite clothes, best signified by incessant phone calls, texts, instant messages and sleepovers.

Dads will never understand; mothers know exactly. When you’re 12 years old, your best friend is the only one who understands you. You’ll be friends ‘til the end of time.

But sometimes, graduations, miles and years come between you – and at your 30-year class reunion, you’re awkward strangers who once shared confidences. Lucky is the woman who keeps one childhood friend past college. So imagine keeping 10 of them.
In the new book The Girls from Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow, you’ll read a story of friendships, memories and 11 BFFs.

Six years ago, after writing a column on women’s friendships for The Wall Street Journal, Zaslow printed an e-mail from a woman named Jenny, and filed it. In 2003, when he decided to revisit the subject, he found the e-mail and was intrigued. He met Jenny and the nine other women he came to call “the Girls from Ames.”

Marilyn, Jane, Karen, Angela, Karla, Kelly, Jenny, Cathy, Diana, Sally and Sheila were altogether known as The S Sisters, the “S” standing for a four-letter word that jealous classmates had bestowed on them. Most of them were born in Ames, Iowa, just north of Des Moines.

Several of the Girls had known one another literally since birth. They attended grade schools together and were tightly-knit by middle school. They knew one another’s families. They knew one another’s crushes. And they knew one another’s secrets.

One Girl had an abortion; another’s birth was due to a lost brother. One Girl lived with anti-Semitism; another was the victim of well-meaning “mean girls.” They were adults before they knew of their parents’ sacrifices. Among them, there are 22 children, though one had none and another lost her eldest.

They live in nine different states now. And one lives no more.
So why would you read a book about 11 women you don’t know? I asked myself that. The answer is, if you grew up in the 1950s, ‘60s or ‘70s, you’ll see yourself and your friends in this book.

The Girls from Ames is the story of 11 women, their lives, hopes, dreams and families. It’s a look back at the teenagers we were (complete with David Cassidy adoration, Farrah haircuts, new drivers’ licenses and parties with boys), and the women we’ve become.

Author Jeffrey Zaslow has several other biography-type books under his belt, so he knows how to pull his readers in. Researching this story, he spent considerable time with the Girls from Ames, as well as with their parents, husbands and siblings. He leaves us with a few surprises at the end of this book, as well as a few tears.
If you’re a Baby Boomer who remembers your teen years and the girls who spent them with you, you’ll love The Girls from Ames. It’s a book you’ll want to read and share with your own BFFs.

Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was three years old and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with a dog and 11,000 books. Readers with questions or comments may write to her in care of this publication.