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The Elegant Gathering of White Snows

by Kris Radish (Goodreads Author)

3.27 of 5 stars 3.27 · rating details · 1,507 ratings · 271 reviews

Eight Women on a Journey That Will Change Their Lives as Lovers, Wives, Mothers, Daughters, Friends

Just after midnight in a small town in Wisconsin, eight women begin walking together down a rural highway. Career women, housewives, mothers, divorcées, and one ex–prom queen, they are close friends who have been meeting every Thursday night for years, sharing food, wine, an...more

Paperback, 336 pages

Published June 10th 2003 by Bantam (first published 2002)

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Mar 10, 2008 Heidi rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: less-than-one-star

This book is ridiculous. I enjoyed the premise, but was disappointed with the author. It reminded me of the kids in junior high/ high school that always made me roll my eyes as I walked past...the ones who tried to cram as many swear words and sexual references into their conversations as possible.

I tried to get through it because I enjoyed the characters and wanted to see what would happen to them and how their lives would change, but I ended up not finishing. The clincher for me was a sentenc...more

4 likes · like · see review

May 27, 2008 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was sort of my first "chick lit" type of book. I think it borders on estrogen overkill a bit, but i did enjoy it for the most part. The powerful message of this story seems to be that regardless of what's happened in your past, it's never too late to change your path, fullfill your dreams, discover who you really are, to change. Throughout the book the author presents the reader with portraits of each of the women walkers. Their stories are as compelling as they are unique and diverse, but...more

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May 03, 2011 Alice rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was the book club read for the month of April, and I just came from our great discussion. The book is about eight women who meet once a week in friendship. At the beginning of the book they are at Susan's when she reveals a distressing secret to them and proceeds to accidentally drop a delicate wine glass which shatters to pieces. They all decide at that point to go for a walk, and their walk becomes a pilgrimmage of healing for all of them. And not only them, but for women who learn about...more

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Aug 26, 2010 Joyce rated it 5 of 5 stars

Eight women from all different walks of life with all different problems get together every Thursday. When one of them finds she is pregnant with another man's baby, she breaks down. The women band together and decide right then and there to take a break and escape their real and daily life. They go on a walk with no particular destination, talking and confiding with each other. The news media catches wind of their walk and soon they are gathering crowds of cheering people, giving them food, cle...more

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Feb 05, 2010 BJ Rose rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, fiction, gr-authors, loaned-to-me

It took me a long time to read the first 3 chapters, and the only thing that kept me going was that I knew my daughter would ask me how I liked it (she loaned it to me). I started it because it was supposed to be all about friendship, but most of those first chapters leaned very much toward the 'I-am-woman, men-are-pigs' outlook: men are lazy, men get drunk and slap women around, men sleep around, men are lucky to have us, etc. All of those things are true about some men, and all of those things...more It took me a long time to read the first 3 chapters, and the only thing that kept me going was that I knew my daughter would ask me how I liked it (she loaned it to me). I started it because it was supposed to be all about friendship, but most of those first chapters leaned very much toward the 'I-am-woman, men-are-pigs' outlook: men are lazy, men get drunk and slap women around, men sleep around, men are lucky to have us, etc. All of those things are true about some men, and all of those things are true about some women.

The basic story here is that 8 women who are in a Friendship Club (they call it their weekly Study Group) suddenly decide to go for a walk in the middle of the night - and they just keep on walking and talking, leaving their families to fend for themselves. Mary decides she is happy with her life the way it is - she loves her husband & kids, she enjoys being a homemaker - and she tells the others she's going back home. Although the other women end up affirming her choice, I was left with the idea (from the author) that Mary was a cop-out, accepting less than she could be. Even later on, Mary is not portrayed as happy with her life, but as someone who is "content with the confines society has set". It was almost like the author was saying, 'she's happy, but she doesn't know any better' - that attitude bothered me.

So why have I rated this a 4*?! Well, it's a weak 4*, but 3* just wasn't enough to show how much I enjoyed most of the rest of the book - the profiles of the walkers and of other women who heard about the walkers (Margaret's story was just totally heartbreaking, and it had nothing to do with bad choices and weak or abusive men). Unfortunately, the 'men-are-pigs' idea sneaks back in every now and then: when two of the women are talking about their husbands, one makes the remark that their men are basically hanging on to a good thing - this is after we've read their profiles and know what difficult times both women have put their husbands through, and the men were always there for them!

Oh, well! If you can get past this apparent mindset of the author, this is a book worth reading - and the friendship theme is really there, including stranger-to-stranger friendliness and kindness.(less)

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Jan 30, 2010 Ringthebells rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was disappointed in this book. Reading it, I felt as though I should be playing some sort of chick lit drinking game (one shot for every overused chick lit cliché).

I like chick lit! Or at least, I thought I did. But this book nearly managed to turn me off the whole genre.

The characters were all introduced too quickly, and not adequately distinguished from each other. By the time I finished the book I still couldn't tell most of them apart, and I didn't really care about any of them. I found t...more

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Dec 22, 2010 dianne rated it 1 of 5 stars

Ever have to read a book because a Good Friend knows the author and she's “really wonderful”? This was a first, and a true, unrequited act of friendship.

I needed gold lame slippers, a fake fur, some Kleenex, and a big box of bon bons in order to do this book justice. Some of the precious moments included:

Experiences we can all relate to:
(teenage daughter says, in front of her teenage friends): “Mom, you were my first friend – don't you know that that you taught me how to be a friend?...how to k...more

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Oct 20, 2012 Terry rated it 1 of 5 stars

I love books about women's friendships with other women,but This is NOT one of them. In fact after reading about a third of it I decided to read some goodreads reviews before going further. Thank you for your reviews which allow me to not finish it. I have a group of 8 friends that I have had since fourth grade. I have another group of nine that have been friends for 25 years and yet another group of about 8 that have been close for 6 years. All of these groups of friends and I have been through...more

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Apr 18, 2009 Patty rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, contemporary-fiction, fiction, friendship, women-s-books, women-writers, relationships, wisconsin

This is my second Kris Radish book, but apparently this was her first published novel. I read her book The Sunday List of Dreams when it came out. I am not sorry that I have read these books, but I am not sure what Radish is aiming to do with her novels. I do believe she has more in mind than just entertainment.

I usually read for one of two reasons. I read to learn - learn new ideas, new subjects, new worlds. The other reason I read is to become immersed. So immersed in the book that I forget th...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 19, 2011 Shannan rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: didn-t-want-to-finish

I'm struggling to get through this book. Basically it is about a bunch of middle aged women who decide that every trouble in their life is caused by the men in their lives and they decide to go walking on the highway - Forrest Gump style - not talk to anyone and just bitch and moan about the problems in their lives. While I think there is a place for this type of book, I know that for the 100 pages I read this book, I was a total cranky wench to all the men in my life (my husband and three sons)...more

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May 27, 2011 Taren rated it 1 of 5 stars

Worst book I've ever read! The characters were not developed well. Radish went into great detail to describe each ones life, but they were inter mixed with other non-relevant characters (whom I actually liked better than the main ones) that you get confused. At the end of the book I couldn't remember each characters background.

Plus WAY too much sexual stuff. It was just littered with it on every page. According to the author every women has some sort of homosexual tendency.

The premise of the b...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Sheri rated it 3 of 5 stars

ok, so it's not great literature...but the story was a great one! A group of women, totally fed up with their lives, just start walking. Walking away from their lives, down a road in rural somewhere, just walking and talking...through their fears, through their lives. I have read the other reviews on here and some of them were brutal, but if you just read it for fun and not try to over anylize it, it's great escapism. I liked it!
I need to add a comment now that I have finished the book. I was 3...more

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Jul 27, 2011 Kristal Cooper added it

I put off reading this for a long time, afraid that it would be way too chick-lit-y for me. It ended up being just right -- a wide variety of issues, well-written and interesting. It made me long for my own women's group to share so completely with, but I'm sure that finding a cohesive gaggle of girls such as these is not as easy as you'd like it to be.

This is the third Kris Radish book I've read and throughout the first two I was complaining about the run-on sentences. During this one, I finall...more

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May 12, 2012 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

All I can say is don't read the epilogue! This last part of the book ruined it for me, it made no sense what so ever to present such monumental success for every character, just silly and unnecessary. I could connect with sentiments on one level, I totally get the thing about friendships between women and much of it resonated strongly with me. I did find the whole premise of getting nationwide fame for talking a walk for what, one week, just a tad loose. It's not credible framework with which to...more

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Apr 17, 2013 E rated it 3 of 5 stars

I appreciate the themes of this book--the unique bond between women, getting out of the way of yourself, forgiving yourself, loving yourself--and I think these ideas are important and relevant to most women at one time or another, but at times these tenets felt...over-written, maybe, pushed a little too hard. I really enjoyed many of the vignettes, but wished that some of them could have been revisited. Fewer characters, more development within the novel. WIth many of the stories, it seemed like...more

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Oct 01, 2010 Tej rated it 2 of 5 stars

While some of the individual stories were okay, this book's premise was wholly unrealistic. Yes, I imagine there are lots of women who would love to just escape, but no way would eight women actually do it en masse. Nor would something so insignificant in the middle of nowhere become international news. I want the last few days of my life back.

And for the record, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did not exist in 1968. And the Fox River is not in the southern part of the state. And if you take I94...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Samantha rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I was disappointed by this book.
Some of the women's life stories were well written and enjoyable to read. However the overall tone of the book left me with the impression that there were certain situations being overused. So much so that it seemed that these points were being added to the book for the sake of having them there and not really as part of character development. In particular the fact that so many women in the book ended up being lesbians. I don't have anything against lesbians bein...more I was disappointed by this book.
Some of the women's life stories were well written and enjoyable to read. However the overall tone of the book left me with the impression that there were certain situations being overused. So much so that it seemed that these points were being added to the book for the sake of having them there and not really as part of character development. In particular the fact that so many women in the book ended up being lesbians. I don't have anything against lesbians being portrayed in books but it seemed forced into the storyline just to make a point that lesbians are out there.

I was extremely disappointed at how Susan's story ended. She ends up having an abortion and through this act reclaims her life. What made me mad about this is the fact that this was presented as an act of female empowerment. Empowering would be to own up to your acts, realize they have consequences and then assume them as an adult woman. I know women who have had abortions and they have all regretted it. When they came to the decision they didn't feel empowered but desperate and afraid. In the book abortion is shown as the ultimately liberating act for Susan, letting her "off the hook" from her own actions and enabling her to go on to have a great, satisfying life. I believe that is not a good message for women or men. I also believe that if the book was true to life, a whole other story could be written about how Susan has dealt with the loss and grief, but the author makes it look like making her "mistake" disappear has changed her into this amazingly happy woman. I just think it would have been a more realistic book if it had explored such feelings in a more complex manner. Otherwise, it makes it look like the author just wants to present her pro choice view on paper without any further depth to the subject. Same goes for the lesbianism. This does not make for a great book.

I gave it 2 stars instead of 1, because I did enjoy reading some of the stories and I found them to be well written. Most of these were the "side" characters.

I obviously don't recommend this book, but I guess some women will enjoy it depending on how tolerant they are to having controversial topics shoved down their throats, how they define empowering, and how they view life and life choices.(less)

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Jul 14, 2012 Cait Swanda rated it 2 of 5 stars

I've been trying to get through this book for weeks. I can't do it. It gets 2 stars for getting me interested enough in a couple of the characters to be interested what happens to them but that's it. There's so many minor characters, and to be honest, way too many major characters, that I can barely tell them apart. The women's names are all so similar that even halfway through, I have no idea which is which. There are sections that really grab my attention. Unfortunately, those small sections a...more

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Jun 01, 2013 Carol rated it 2 of 5 stars

Radish sends her readers on a verbalized journey that takes some thoughtfulness to absorb. She tells of 8 women who have a variety of life's experience and their coming to terms with past behaviors. There is nothing very fictional about childhood tantrums, inability to understand one's mother, licentious sexual experience, divorce, inability to understand the opposite sex etc. And it probably wouldn't be very hard to pull together 8 women who have had parallel experiences. Having said all of tha...more

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Sep 11, 2011 Kendra rated it 1 of 5 stars

I only made it through half of this over-zealous big bag of FLUFF of a book. At 150 pages, I’d had enough and I moved on. The story is about eight women "on a journey that will change their lives as lovers, wives, mothers, daughters, and friends." It sounds intriguing but I just couldn’t get into it. I didn’t connect with the base story and by the middle of the book I hadn’t connected with any of the characters. I found it all very unbelievable and “over-sold”. I felt as if the author was trying...more

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Oct 26, 2010 Katie rated it 1 of 5 stars

I couldn't even make it a third of the way through this book, and to be totally honest, it may have been for a superficial reason. If I had to read the term "Women Walkers" written in such a reverent manner one more time I might have thrown the book across the room. In fact, my eyes may have rolled right out of my head.

Seriously, though, I agree with other reviews stating that the author told us too much without really showing us anything. Suddenly, these women, literally overnight, are making...more

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Apr 08, 2010 Pam Masters rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary

This is a book that I believe every woman could relate too. And it's one that I will be recomending to everyone I know. It's not often that I find a book with a character that I can relate to, let alone 8. I'm not saying that each woman in the book is me, but there are bits and pieces of me in each woman. I think in a way, I can relate the most to Chris. She has always been one to watch the world happen, and to be pretty isolated from "friends." In a way, I'm just like her. I would LOVE to find...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Cath rated it 1 of 5 stars

Can't I give this half a star? No matter how many times I have tried to start this book... I cant' seem to finish this. I will read one or two pages before I get frustrated with the characters and want to move on to something else.

Maybe I am trying to read this at the wrong time in my life. Maybe I am not old and whiny yet. I feel like a failure for not finishing this book but I am feeling like life is too short to read sub par books.

If this hadn't been assigned for a bookclub book, I would ha...more

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Feb 16, 2010 Melissa rated it 2 of 5 stars

Okay.

I really, REALLY, _REALLY_ liked the premise of this book. I love that these eight friends just spontaneously decided to chuck it all and go for a walk. And I love that the walk was a week long, and that they liberated themselves from their daily lives and gloom and doom and sameness and routine. I truly love this idea - as (is mentioned many times in the book) who amoung us wouldn't want to do that ?

But I really, REALLY, _REALLY_ found the characters quite annoying. I found them unbeliev...more Okay.

I really, REALLY, _REALLY_ liked the premise of this book. I love that these eight friends just spontaneously decided to chuck it all and go for a walk. And I love that the walk was a week long, and that they liberated themselves from their daily lives and gloom and doom and sameness and routine. I truly love this idea - as (is mentioned many times in the book) who amoung us wouldn't want to do that ?

But I really, REALLY, _REALLY_ found the characters quite annoying. I found them unbelievable from a conversation point of view. Perhaps I run around in small circles or something, but I don't know anyone who
talks like this (at least talks like this on a regular basis). And by that I mean, some of the dialogue is just unbelievable for me. Having said all that, the situations all of these women are in, or have been in at some point in their lives, echo stories I have heard or told myself. There is definately some commaderie that comes from the common stories that makes me feel "sort of" connected to them. But that's where I stop, I suppose. If I can use some hackneyed prose myself - the homosexual undercurrent that runs through the book (and is sometimes not so much "under", but smack in your face, bothered me. Some might say that perhaps I have "underlying homosexual latencies" that I need to work through. And while Freud-wise that may be true, frankly I felt like I was being recruited for lesbian-ism. Like - I really don't care if you're gay. But if I'm gay I figure I'll find my own way to it. This book made me feel like perhaps I was a failure and all of my problems can be explained by not having "felt the romantic touch of a woman". All I'm sayin' is that that vibe got old for me after a while.

So - it's not that I didn't like this book, but at times I felt like "oh, please GET ON WITH IT!" and by "IT", I don't necessarily mean the story, but "IT" whatever "IT" is that these women needed to get to.

What I can't figure out - are these women real? I've tried googling them, and searching for "The Menstrual Hut" in Wisconsin (I mean, hell if Oprah's name is mentioned in the book I thought maybe there is some reality here)...but I can't tell. The book did make me think, but now I'm done thinking. Except for this thought though. I remain a little irritated at it after finishing reading it.(less)

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Dec 22, 2007 Amy rated it 1 of 5 stars

Oh my god, this book totally gave me estrogen poisoning. I'm down with the Ya Ya books and their imitators, but there is only so much "embrace your womanhood" that I can take, and this book totally crossed the line.

It's about a diverse group of women in a "study" club (they ostensibly meet to discuss books, politics, etc, but mostly they drink wine and gossip), who get a lot of media attention for taking a 7 day walk. So, I actually thought that sounded pretty good, and it was fine for the firs...more

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Dec 22, 2007 Liz rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: those who like lots of Sweet&Low in their coffee

Shelves: book-club

Read this for my book club - the plot and setting appealed to us (7 women friends in a small Wisconsin town set out on a multi-day walk).

The book was a disappointment right from the beginning. Radish never sufficiently explains why a group of women who've gathered to drink and talk would suddenly take it into their heads at 11 pm to head out the door and start walking. The comment in my book group was, "And just wearing whatever shoes they happened to have on!" Perhaps because all of us have act...more

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Mar 23, 2010 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: All women, younger women, men who are confused by women

This was a borderline 5 star book for me. It's been a while since reading this book, but I still think about it from time to time. The whole idea of this book was foreign to me - growing up in a house of brothers and playmates and friends who were mostly boys, the value of what these women shared in friendship was eye opening to me.

It was a good read that moved along quickly I recommend it to all women or any guys that want to know why your female counter part needs that "girls night out."

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Oct 27, 2008 Dana rated it 2 of 5 stars

All of a sudden eight women in rural Wisconsin decide to go walking. It is a journey of the heart and touches women from everywhere. Each of the women walking is of a different age and from a different background. There are women who have lost children, women who have been raped, women with mental diseases and women lost from their families and their own dreams. They are walking and finding themselves. As they walk the whole of 'women hood' gets behind them and is empowered. Further this empower...more

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Nov 07, 2010 Traci Haley rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, general-fiction, abandoned, books-i-hated

While I enjoy Kris Radish's writing style, I found this book to be disjointed and silly. The plot, which I gather I was supposed to find "mystical" and "uplifting", just seemed stupid. The characters were flat and uninteresting, and the reactions of side characters didn't make any sense. I normally don't give up on a book when I've read more than half of it, but I just can't choke down another sentence. I will admit that Radish has improved since this first book, but I don't think I'm going to r...more

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Jun 10, 2010 Amy Gourley rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm usually not a big fan of books about groups of women and their friendships and their problems. I thought this one might be interesting since it is about a group of women who just start walking down the road in the middle of night and leaving their lives for a bit. I ended up getting confused which woman was which and starting skimming after the first 100 pages or so. Too much descriptive prose. I just got tired of it. I doubt that I will read more by this author.

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About Kris Radish

Kris started writing the moment she could hold a pencil. She grew up in Wisconsin, graduted from the University of Wisconsin with a journalism degree and hit the ground running. Her father calls her "the tornado". She worked as a newspaper reporter, bureau chief, nationally syndicated columnist, magazine writer, university lecturer, bartender, waitress, worm harvester, window washer....to name a f...more

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