BOOKISH FRIDAY: “THE GIRLS OF AUGUST”

Welcome to another Bookish Friday, in which I  share excerpts from books…and connect with other bloggers, who do the same.

Let’s begin the celebration by sharing Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and let’s showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

What better way to spend a Friday!

Today’s featured book is one I had hoped to read by summer’s end…and maybe I can still make it.  The Girls of August, by Anne Rivers Siddons, is about four friends carrying out a ritual getaway…until something happens to halt the friendship connection.

 

 

 

Beginning:  Of all the fifteen summerhouses, the first one was the best.  That’s what we all agreed on, for a while, anyway…until we grew wiser, more measured in our joy, more careful with the doling out of praise.  Funny, we rarely agreed unanimously on anything, but for years there had been no doubt about the Colleton house.  At first glance it had seemed designed—brick, board, and shingle—for the girls of August.

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56:  Rachel shook her head as if freeing it of stupid thoughts.  She pulled out a tube of gloss and painted her bottom lip.  She paused and, holding the gloss aloft, said, “Obviously Oliver is wrong.  Just look at you!  And look at Teddy!”

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Synopsis:  Every August, four women would gather together to spend a week at the beach, renting a new house each year. The ritual began when they were in their twenties and their husbands were in medical school, and became a mainstay of every summer thereafter. Their only criteria was oceanfront and isolation, their only desire to strengthen their far-flung friendships. They called themselves the Girls of August. But when one of the Girls dies tragically, the group slowly drifts apart and their vacations together are brought to a halt. Years later, a new marriage reunites them and they decide to come together once again on a remote barrier island off the South Carolina coast. There, far from civilization, the women make startling discoveries that will change them in ways they never expected.

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I love friends getting together at the beach, especially when they do so after a rift.  When they are trying to repair the damage.  What do you think?  Should I read this one next?

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