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Oct 21, 2010

Marta rated it:

This was my first introduction to Goldberg. At first I was put off by her writing style. The book started off a bit too poetic and it seemed as if there were "big words" thrown into the story simply because they were "big words." It almost felt as if she was showing off her extensive vocabulary and it ended up throwing off the flow of the storytelling.

However, after looking past (or rather getting used to) the writing style I began to get enveloped in the story o More...

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Jan 25, 2011

Amanda J rated it:

This book failed on so many levels. The characters were one-dimentional and dull. I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to care about any of them. It seemed as if Goldberg tried to add something slightly unexpected to each of them (Celia - econonmist/poet, Huck -teacher/druggie, Becky - best friend/Hasidic Jew etc.), but unfortunately it only made them feel more contrived.

Adding to the artificial feel of the prose was the author's clunky way of switiching between past and present. I may h More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Feb 14, 2012

Rachel rated it:

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1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 18, 2011

marymurtz rated it:

I couldn't figure out if I loved this book or hated it. I disliked the main character but felt immensely sorry for her. I kind of wanted to punch her in the face several times in the course of the book.

Celia Durst is in her thirties and walking into work when she is assailed by an emerging childhood memory of the disappearance of her best friend Djuna Pearson. Djuna was abducted when the girls were eleven years old, taken while they were with three other girls walking in the woods More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 18, 2011

Angela rated it:

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0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 26, 2011

Swiftyjess rated it:

Bee Season, her debut novel, is on my list of Top 5 books of all time. I was drawn into each character and when it ended, I actually held my breath as I read the last page.
When I read Wickett's Remedy I was totally disappointed and not enthusiastic about reading anything more by Goldberg. However, I spied a copy off The False Friend at the library and decided to give her another chance. As with Wickett's Remedy, I never connected with any of the characters. I felt the main character lacke More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 20, 2011

Michelle rated it:

I'd like to think that I could do better than this, but since so far I haven't........I thought this was a timid examination of girl bullying and what it does to the bullied and the bully.

A 32-year-old woman one day suddenly says, "My best friend is dead," which is how the author plunges her heroine into a (re) examination of this childhood friendship and what it wrought. She had told the cops that the other girl got into a stranger's car; now she decides something else hap More...

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Apr 13, 2011

Kate rated it:

[spoiler alert] Richard Russo describes this third novel by Myla Goldberg as “a riveting read, both compelling and richly satisfying.” Russo wrote Empire Falls, which I couldn’t put down, so I was inclined to trust his assessment. Yet having finished Friend, I wonder if Russo wasn’t acting a little like the false friend of Goldberg’s title, editorializing for convenience. The False Friend is based on a compelling premise: “I think, therefore I am is too vague. We are, because we remember.” This More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 22, 2011

Marcia rated it:

I would add a 1/2 star to my rating. I liked it a bit more than a three but not quite a four.
At age eleven, Celia was with four other girls when one of them goes missing. The girls had gone to the woods by the road and Celia and another girl named Dejuna had a fight. Djuna walks away and is seen getting into a brown car and is never seen again. Twenty years later, Celia is walking down the street and something triggers a memory of the day. She thinks that the brown car was not real More...

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Jan 16, 2011

Rosanne rated it:

The False Friend was a rather disturbing read. As a young girl, Celia had one good friend then a new girl enters the picture, Djuna and takes over as the new best friend. Djuna has many disturbing ideas that she likes to act upon. She convinces Celia to play a very cruel game with a girl named Leanne who would love to be included in their circle of friendship. Djuna decides that she will control the situation by bullying and degrading Leanne and never allowing her to measure up.

One More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 10, 2011

Catherine rated it:

I read this because I liked The Bee Season, an earlier book by this author. This book is about a woman in her early thirties, Celia who upon seeing a classic VW Bug is jolted into remembering the disappearance of her childhood friend, which she has repressed for many years. Channeling Gob from Arrested Development, I found myself saying “C’MON!” I know they were terrible cars – I owned one – but surely more than one has been on the road at some point in the past two decades.

More to the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 29, 2010

Jessica rated it:

Well, it's not Bee Season. Myla Goldberg is a phenomenal writer, but I'm afraid I'm always going to want everything else she's written to be Bee Season - that perfect mix of psychology and philosophy and religion and wonder. The False Friend is all psychology, but is nevertheless truly fascinating in its milieu.

The False Friend deals with an adult remembering a long-repressed memory that changes the way she views herself and her childhood. Celia Durst's best friend Djuna got into a st More...

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Nov 13, 2010

Kathleen added it

The False Friend, by Myla Goldberg, narrated by the author, B-plus, produced by Random Audio, downloaded from audible.com.

This novel is very different from Goldberg’s first novel, “Bee Season.” In this book we have two girls, Celia and Juna, best friends and rivals. They take three other girls, followers, with them on an unauthorized road and into the woods. Only Celia comes out and Juna is never found. Celia told people at the time that Juna had gotten into a car with a strange More...

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Oct 26, 2010

Alex rated it:

A weak beginning led to an intriguing story. The beginning of this novel really threw me off; it felt contrived, and there purely to launch the reader into the plot. All of a sudden, the reader is standing on a street corner with the protagonist, Celia, as she suddenly flashes onto a memory of a friend she hasn't thought of in years--a memory that is so compelling to her that she almost immediately flies back to her hometown to confront it. Unfortunately, I had only known Celia for a few pages More...

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Jul 24, 2010

Sandra rated it:

What is a friend? What does a friend look like and act like? How do we judge whether we are a true friend or not? What do we look for in a friend? These are questions we ask ourself from the time we first enter school.

After reading the summary of this book I knew I wanted to read it. The False Friend is the story of a young woman,Celia, who believes she is responsible for the disappearance of her childhood friend Djuna. She is remembering her childhood friendships and she does More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 12, 2012

Eveli rated it:

The beginning of this book made it a little hard for me to push forward. Too much description of where she grew up, what every room looked liked, so on and the vocabulary seemed too much. But I gave it a chance even though it seemed that it really wasn't for me. A thirty-two year old woman coming back to a childhood she had stopped thinking about, talking about and not exactly moved on from but survived and pushed on. Before I knew it, I was absorbed in it. The author's words & world seemed in s More...

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Dec 28, 2011

Cayleigh rated it:

I found The False Friend to be a quick read about a woman who goes back to her hometown to right a wrong that happened when she was 11. I kind of liked the small glimpses back in to Celia's 11 year old life, things were so much more trivial but also so intense at that age. A lot of the book was very lyrical in it's descriptions of the people and places, I really enjoyed this. At the same time I think that sort of writing also disconnected me from the characters. I started to like the description More...

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Jul 05, 2011

Heather rated it:

I'm honestly not sure why I keep reading Myla Goldberg, because I always start out with high hopes, and I'm always disappointed. The False Friend has a great concept. A girl is abducted, and twenty years later it returns to haunt the friend who let it happen. I bet it would have made a striking short story. But as a novel, as this novel, it just doesn't work.

First of all, dumping out a ton of quirks and details do not well rounded characters make. Every time I started getting into t More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 23, 2010

Kelly rated it:

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Nov 17, 2010

Myla rated it:

Second book by Myla Goldberg, just to give her another chance, and disappointed again. There just isn't enough good stuff to make it worth reading. I kept reading not because I was compelled by the characters or the story, but just to see what happens. And what is with her idiot characters? Celia's live-in boyfriend is a high school teacher who's an occasional drug user, and that's just something that's part of him, she doesn't even consider leaving him for it. Very stupid. I can understan More...

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 27, 2010

Susan rated it:

Several little girls walk along a forbidden road, two of them leading the way. One child never returns. Twenty years later, one of those girls, Celia, sights a VW bug and is flooded with memories, with the lie she told, and decides it is time to make amends. If only she can get someone to believe her.

Although I first thought I was going to be reading a mystery and while a mystery is part of the story, it is secondary. This book is really about friendship, family, relationships. More...

10 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 15, 2012

Justice rated it:

My Review (free o' spoilers):
This was a quick listen for me - it's just over six hours as an audiobook. I really, really enjoyed it - I love Goldberg's writing and how she drops these beautiful philosophical moments in the novel. The prose was like a pond in a hidden glade - deep and reserved. Goldberg narrates the audiobook, and I found this refreshing: she knows the pacing and the need for emphasis on certain turns of phrases, so it really added a new layer to the novel. Consider two of More...

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Feb 17, 2011

Kimber rated it:

I normally do not review books that I do not like simply because everyone's tastes are different and I would not want to discourage people from reading something simply because I did not like it. However, I was angry by the time I finished this book. I trudged through the thick, and sometimes incomprehensible prose because I was intrigued by the story. Several times after reading aloud to my husband passages of not only inconsequential but downright ridiculous usage of the English language, no d More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 08, 2010

Chelsea rated it:

Celia Durst was eleven years old when she lost her best friend Djuna to an abductor on the side of the road. Now she is thirty-two and heading home to tell the truth about what really happened that day. Unfortunately for her, this is not as simple as it sounds. Her other friends from that time don't believe her story, and not even her parents think her memory could have actually occurred. Add in a stale relationship with her long-time boyfriend and coming back to the place where she grew up is n More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 29, 2010

Erica added it

The False Friend is the story of a woman named Celia. When Celia was 11, she and her best friend, Djuna, were very close and very mean, and one day Celia saw Djuna get into a strange car and then no one ever saw her again.

Except one day, twenty years later, Celia remembers things differently. She remembers following Djuna into the woods and seeing her fall, possibly into a well. She becomes dead-set on going home and convincing her parents, her former friends, and the police that thi More...

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Jan 03, 2011

Cheryl rated it:

When my best friend Bonnie and I were in fourth or fifth grade, we got shuttled off campus for GATE once a week, a baffling but fun reward for having scored well on some mysterious test back in second grade. Our mutual friend (and my former BFF) Stephanie was not in GATE. So what did Bonnie and I do? We invented an awesome girl from another school whom we’d befriended at GATE. Chonnie (as in Cheryl + Bonnie) was an amalgam of all that was cool in our ten-year-old minds, meaning she probably crim More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 08, 2010

Kathy rated it:

I found this book to be a quick but good read. I found it rather hard to sympathize with Celia’s dilemma as she doesn’t seem to realize that she was actually a very nasty child...in fact when in partnership with Djuna she was quite the bully! And in the present day, she is stringing along her long suffering boyfriend Huck. It was a very interesting story though. I tried to remember back to events in my childhood and my memories are sketchy at best so I can see how hard it is to remember event More...

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Nov 03, 2011

David rated it:

This was a solid 4.5 star read for me and I'm quite shocked to see the overall low score for this novel as well as the glut of bad reviews on the first page.

Celia Durst has returned to her childhood home after 20-odd years when "the sight of a vintage VW bug dredged Djuna Pearson from memory." She and Djuna were intense best frenemies whose relationship served as the centerpiece of a 5-girl clique. One day while walking in the woods, Djuna disappears. At the time, Celia cl More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 23, 2010

Julie rated it:

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1 comment like (5 people liked it)

May 10, 2011

Jen rated it:

My second completed Myla Goldberg book. I didn't like it as much as Bee Season - which I think is one of the best contemporary novels ever written - but I still liked it quite a bit. The heroine is Celia Durst, who suddenly remembers something terrible from her childhood and feels compelled to go home and confess to everyone. But when she gets there and starts talking to people, she finds out that everyone else remembers it differently. The story itself is interesting, pulling you along because More...

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