Girlfriends: Invisible Bonds, Enduring Ties

As important as friends are to women--essential, after all, to their identity as human beings--other roles in their lives get most of the ink: their lovers, spouses, children, and family. Girlfriends lovingly--and somewhat exhaustively--spotlights female comradeship. This book (which screams, "Buy me as a gift!") is simply a collection of women speaking about aspects of their female friendships to the indefatigable interviewer-slash-authors. Major topics of the book include girlhood adventures, friendships during transitions such as marriage and children, remembering friends, et cetera. In an odd little postscript, Girlfriends lists methods of female bonding such as theme parties, things with quilts and teacups, and other rituals. After all the words that precede it, such a section seems like gilding the lily.

Relationships with lovers (male or female) thrum with a sexual undertone that works against the special distanced intimacy of friendship. As Girlfriends never tires of pointing out, only another woman knows what it is like to be a woman. A powerful antidote to alienation, friendships are a prime ingredient in a woman's life well-lived.