Girls in White Dresses

Girls in White Dresses

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3.04 of 5 stars 3.04  ·  rating details  ·  8,713 ratings  ·  1,468 reviews
Wickedly hilarious and utterly recognizable, Girls in White Dresses tells the story of three women grappling with heartbreak and career change, family pressure and new love—all while suffering through an endless round of weddings and bridal showers.

Isabella, Mary, and Lauren feel like everyone they know is getting married. On Sunday after Sunday, at bridal shower after bri...more
Hardcover, 294 pages
Published August 9th 2011 by Knopf (first published January 1st 2011)
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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)
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Caitlin
Blerg. I’m going to get this out of the way up front. I did not like this book. Reasons:

1. There is no plot. There are a bunch of girls (I could not for the life of me tell you how many, see point 2). They are between 21 and 30 years old. They are not married, but people they know are. They are living in New York or Chicago and they have jobs that they hate. Each chapter consists of a kind of episodic event (or nonevent), mostly to do with boys who they don’t really like that much, but date anyw...more
Nikki Wilde
I am almost at a loss for words. I have no idea how to review this. The back cover say's that this will perfectly capture the wild frustrations and soaring joys of modern life. I can honestly say, that for me, the only thing soaring were my frustrations with this book.

It reads monotonously. We got summer sausage, we cut the summer sausage. I couldn't even keep the characters names straight and I didn't even care. I started despising the characters. Honestly, Isabella was so annoying. She didn't...more
Kelle
First off, I received a promotional edition of "selected short stories" with a magazine purchase, not the full volume of stories. The four stories/chapters in this copy are: 1) The Rules of Life (Isabella), 2) The Peahens (Abby), 3) Black Diamond, Blue Square (Isabella), and 4) Flushing Willard (Lauren).

I guess the stories are like many of those between friends finding themselves in their young adulthood. I found some of these female characters to be a bit whiny, and all of them to be very insec...more
Colleen Myers
This is a review for the ladies - specifically, for the mid-20s ladies, the ones who went to great colleges and had big dreams and couldn't wait to get out there and start their totally fabulous lives, except, oops, that's actually a lot harder than it sounds when you're 21 and it's senior spring and you're drinking Trader Joe's wine on the stoop.

After reading this book, I had one of my first pangs of Kindle regret since purchasing the device a little over a year ago. Girls in White Dresses is t...more
Kristin
This wasn't a bad book, and in fact the writing was quite good. Normally I'm not a fan of the whole interrelated story style, but I enjoyed it here. I think my problem is that despite the fact that I'm the same age as all the women in the stories, I couldn't relate to them at all. They're so focused on trivial things, they make terrible choices, they settle for men they don't seem to love in order to avoid being alone. I really need characters that I can like more if I'm going to like a book. Al...more
Jocelyn
Jennifer Close's debut novel Girls in White Dresses explores the complexity of being a single woman. The novel follows the lives of three women, Lauren, Isabella and Mary, as they navigate the often treacherous waters of relationships, friendships, work, and the fear of the unknown. The novel is told in a series of connecting stories and is a wonderful approach as it allows the reader to observe small moments within the lives of these women. Each character is real and authentic and the writing i...more
Natalie (Natflix&Books)
I loved Girls in White Dresses. I flew through it, ignoring almost everything else to get to the end. Each chapter is written like a short story, which is my favorite format for a novel. It is melancholy and funny and just oh-so-true. It tells the stories of a group of friends after college as they start to navigate their lives in the city. Their jobs and relationships, wedding showers of friends they are mostly happy for, actual weddings, pregnancy, holding on to the guys who aren't really righ...more
Kelly (TheWellReadRedhead)
I really enjoyed this book! There are two things that make it stand out for me vs other chick lit. One, the characters are going through very average, every day events--they don't get into these crazy, ridiculous situations that you see in some other novels of this genre (ie. Becky Bloomwood's entire existence in the Shopaholic series). But that doesn't mean their lives are boring. Instead, it's fun to read because they are going through things that nearly every girl in her late 20s/early 30s ca...more
Ruth
Hmmm. This was a story about college graduates as they began their careers and marriage. There did not seem to be any real plot or climatic event in the book. We just rambled from one topic to another in the lives of the various characters. I enjoy stories that tell about relationships and major events in life but I do need a real plot to hold it all together and humor along the way only adds to the enjoyment. I just couldn't say to others to read this book because they are sure to love it. This...more
Jovani
This book embodies everything I can't stand about some women! How they can be completely pathetic when it comes to love and relationships. Every character (don't even ask me their names bc I couldn't keep up) was involved in one train wreck after another. The most infuriating part is that each women single handedly sabotaged every relationship they were in! I knew it was bad when I started siding with the men the majority of the time. I thought I was going to read a book about women finding out...more
Diane Mulligan
This one isn't close to the hype. The prose is so plain that the narrative voice can only be described as journalistic, which doesn't suit a character driven story at all. Everything is told matter of factly instead of being shown through scenes and description. I found the characters generally sympathetic, but Close only scratches the surface of her numerous POV characters. If you are a single, urban, white woman in your 20s or 30s, the characters and situations feel familiar, which I suppose...more
Brittany
I loved every inch of this book. It's not your typical chick novel where everyone gets a happy ending and life is perfect. It's completely relatable, from the hangovers and summer sausage to the ambivalence about life in general and men in particular, to the annoyance that is every bridal shower but your own and to what we really think when our friends have kids. It's also very wry. I love Isabella so much, and Lauren. This is just a really great book. I can see how it wouldn't be for everyone,...more
Elizabeth
I really enjoyed Girls in White Dresses and found the three main characters in their 20s to be totally relatable. It was an easy read but entertaining and I was happy that Close didn't wrap up each girl's story in a nice little pink bow. It was funny, truthful, and engaging. What a great debut for a first-time novelist.
Erin
Finished this and loved it! A great look at life after college and on your own, when friends one by one start to settle down and get married....if the show GIRLS didn't exist, this would have made a great TV series.
Megankellie
I'd enjoy doing a graduate semiotics thesis on this book. I needed some candy and got it but the second I read about an apartment in New York I lose my empathy for the people in the story. You live alone in your second apartment and you're 24? I know a 38 year old architect who is still saving to live alone. Apparently envy is resentment + longing, and I am crippled by my resentment + longing for the reality put forth with no mention of the raging class system or a city where they found an unatt...more
R.
2013 May Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close

I married young. I started dating my husband a few months before I even turned 19! We dated for a few years and married when I was 22. We have recently celebrated our 20th anniversary and most of those moments of all those years have held way more joy and happiness than sadness.

I have often wondered though what it would have been like to have a young adulthood where I was single and on my own for a while. Most movies and books make it seem like an...more
Heid Zhng
Read it in one day. So yes, the prose is watery and/but infinitely accessible.

It certainly rings autobiographical, so from time to time I'm a bit worried if the author herself ended up...fat. All the drinking, grill cheeses and late night macaroni. (She's not, to save you two seconds of googling.) The first two or three stories read like a 20 lbs heavier Sylvia Plath - all of which is common sense, thank God - mistaking the weight as life experience, thus trying to pull off a Jennifer Egan. But...more
Kelly
My daughter loved this book and told me to read it. I think I'm too old (49 to her 22) to appreciate it the way she did. I liked the idea of the book more than the book itself. The format is more vignette style than a cohesive story, and I had a hard time seeing the friendship among the college friends since the reader is rarely treated to interactions among all of them. Instead, the author tends to focus on one of the girls in each chapter, and the remaining friends are incidental. I found it t...more
Michelle
I was looking for something very light to read and this book definitely falls within that parameter. But I forewarn yout that this is a book for a very definite audience. It would appeal to someone who either is a young person in their twenties or early thirties who lives or wants to live in a major city or someone who lived that life years ago. Otherwise I suspect the reader will find the story difficult to relate to. It's a book that well describes the experiences some young women have when th...more
Jillian Kapp
The book seriously lacks in the descriptive department. I'm not sure I even know what color hair most of the girls have, and emotional stock in the characters takes some time to build. Inflection is nonexistent, it's nearly impossible to initially tell how a character is speaking. If she's being catty or sensitive or enthusiastic or hilarious, which is initially frustrating but the episodic peek into their everyday lives revolving around moments of large impacting decisions gradually fills in th...more
Persephone
Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close claims to be a novel, but it's really a series of short stories, all concerning a clique of girls from Philadelphia who get jobs (mostly) in New York. They may not be cheerleaders exactly, but they seem to share a similar sort of mentality, being privileged, well-educated, pretty girls who get jobs in areas like publishing, and when they don't, sourly contemplate how these are "not the kind of people (they are) supposed to be around". The men they date ar...more
Heather
The description on the inside jacket cover of this book says “wickedly funny and utterly recognizable.” That is pure marketing bullshit, unless of course you mean ‘utterly recognizable’ as a synonym for “eye-rollingly cliché and reminiscent of every single episode of Sex and the City, or Friends, or (insert the young singles dating sitcom of your choice) ever made, ever.” The wickedly funny part is just wrong. I think I may have smiled twice, and I got incredibly angry at these ridiculous women...more
Amanda
I like to read through the Goodreads reviews for a book after I've read it, and wow there is a lot of hate for this book. I really enjoyed it! As a 31 year old unmarried woman whose friends are all married with kids, I found the stories to be true and the characters to be authentic. Sure, not all of them were completely likable, but I felt as though I knew someone like each of them. My favorite section was the one about Kristie's six bridal showers, which was hilarious and so very true. I found...more
Nicole
If you are anything other than a late 20's single woman with no children who has a penchant for drinking and often accepts dates from men you know you aren't going to get along with, then this book is not for you!

This debut novel from Jennifer Close (who will most likely benefit from how closely her name resembles that of the successful Jennifer Cruise) is a compilation of short stories that depicts the lives of a group of female friends as they struggle to find careers, men, and themselves in N...more
Lisa
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Amanda Muchmore
I read this book during a 6 hour car ride home from vacation. I finished the whole thing with almost an hour to spare. It wasn't terrible, and the writing was witty and almost entertaining... the story just wasn't great, or even good in my opinion. This book never really progresses. There is no climax or true plot. It just follows a few girls nearing the end of their young-adult stage who act way to young for their age, are incredibly insecure, and don't have any standards when it comes to datin...more
Lindsay
I go through this phase every summer. It gets hot, I don't feel like wearing make-up or drying my hair, I wear as little as possible, and I stop wanting to read anything serious. My collection suddenly looks tired, everything seems too long. I want to read something quick, refreshing, light: see Traveling Pants, Millenium Trio, Hunger Games. I start looking at Fluff and Chick Lit books in a new way. Sometimes, GASP, I actually like them. Which is basically why I picked up this piece of crap.

And...more
Samantha Smith
So I'm a big fan of chick-lit and this book came recommended to me by another librarian. Recommended!! Honestly I can't imagine why anyone would recommend this book. It is terrible!! I love books about young twenty-somethings figuring out who they are and books about thirty-somethings making a life for themselves. I love relationship books. I thought this book had all the components to make me really enjoy it. I can enjoy even the silliest chick-lit novel. But come on. All these characters were...more
Shoshana
I've been searching on and off for good old-school-Meg-Cabot-style chick lit. I feel like I've read some in the last several years that I enjoyed, but most of it has been disappointing, and I fall back into romances, which are actually more interesting and varied, on the whole.

This was no different.

It looked cute! The flap gave cute, flippant descriptions of three friends in their twenties navigating their personal and professional lives while everyone around them gets married. I am down with th...more
Cara
This book was just what I was looking for a fun, light confection. It tells the story of a bunch of girls who were friends in college, and their adventures as they grow up and move into their 30s. I love stories with multiple main characters who have distinguishable personalities and all interact in intertwined lives. I also love stories of close-knit groups of female friends--something I envy. This book contained those things, plus funny people and funny situations.

The only thing I really didn...more
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Jennifer Close was born and raised on the North Shore of Chicago. She is a graduate of Boston College and received her MFA in Fiction Writing from The New School in 2005. She worked in New York in magazines for many years and then in Washington, D.C., as a bookseller. Girls in White Dresses is her first book.
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The Smart One Wit is het nieuwe zwart

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“Sometimes she missed people before they even left her, got depressed about a vacation being over before it started.” 31 people liked it
“In college, twenty-nine had seemed impossibly old. By now, she'd thought, she'd be married and have kids. But as each year went by, she didn't feel much different than she had before. Time kept going by and she was just here, the same.” 20 people liked it
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