The Girls from Corona del Mar

by Rufi Thorpe

“Why did Lorrie Ann look graceful in beat-up Keds and shorts a bit too small for her? Why was it charming when she snorted from laughing too hard? Yes, we were jealous of her, and yet we did not hate her. She was never so much as teased by us, we roaming and bratty girls of Corona del Mar, thieves of corn nuts and orange soda, abusers of lip gloss and foul language.”
 
An astonishing debut about friendships made in youth, The Girls from Corona del Mar is a fiercely beautiful novel about how these bonds, challenged by loss, illness, parenthood, and distance, either break or endure.

Mia and Lorrie Ann are lifelong friends: hard-hearted Mia and untouchably beautiful, kind Lorrie Ann. While Mia struggles with a mother who drinks, a pregnancy at fifteen, and younger brothers she loves but can’t quite be good to, Lorrie Ann is luminous, surrounded by her close-knit family, immune to the mistakes that mar her best friend’s life. Then a sudden loss catapults Lorrie Ann into tragedy: things fall apart, and then fall further—and there is nothing Mia can do to help. And as good, brave, fair Lorrie Ann stops being so good, Mia begins to question just who this woman is, and what that question means about them both.

A staggeringly honest, deeply felt novel of family, motherhood, loyalty, and the myth of the perfect friendship, The Girls from Corona del Mar asks just how well we know those we love, what we owe our children, and who we are without our friends. 


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Book Club, Friendship, Coming Of Age, Audiobook, Literary Fiction

256 pages, ebook

First published July 8, 2014

About the author

Rufi Thorpe received her MFA from the University of Virginia in 2009. She is the author of four novels, The Girls from Corona Del Mar, Dear Fang, With Love, and The Knockout Queen, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award. Her newest book, Margo's Got Money Troubles, will be out 6/11/24 and is currently being adapted for television by A24 and AppleTV. She lives in California with her husband and two sons.

Reviews

[Laura Hogensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like the marketing for this novel has been completely misguided. This is not really a novel about female friendship. At least not in the beach-read-friendly way the novel has been pushed. (Even the cover is misleading). Yes, there are females in it, and yes, there is a friendship - of sorts - but that's oversimplifying what turned out to be a far more complex novel that I was expecting. This novel addresses so many issues that it's a wonder it's as short as it is. Mainly, it centers around myths and mythmaking. How we can idealize or mythologize a person without ever really knowing them. How sometimes our relationships with a person are self-serving in some way. We think we are offering friendship, but what we may be doing is validating something in our own lives. It's also about mothers and children. About the choice to have - or not have children. About searching for meaning. About drugs, addiction, depression, and blame. I read a criticism of this novel where the reviewer said, "For a novel about friendship, it didn't seem like Mia and Lolola were actually friends." Upon finishing it, I thought, "Isn't that the point? What was their relationship really about? And why?" This book was a sleeper for me. I was expecting an easy read and what I got was something I'll be thinking over for awhile.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Such a powerful and profound novel. Don't let the glossy cover fool you - this book is brutal, heartbreaking, and filled with raw, brazen emotion. This is my first Rufi Thorpe novel and it certainly will NOT be my last. I can't even articulate how "The Girls From Corona del Mar" made me feel. But I definitely FELT something. The characters felt real. They had real problems, and their lives were messy and complicated. This novel is about friendship. Growing up in Southern California in the '90s, Mia and Lorrie Ann were the best of friends. Kindred spirits you could say. Both of them went through, traumatic, similar experiences during their formative years, but after graduating from high school, their friendship starts to come apart at the seams. Mia (the protagonist) has always considered herself to be "the bad one", and Lorrie Ann to be "the good one". But sometimes time and distance can change your perception. Mia thinks of Lorrie Ann as a tragic figure. Lorrie Ann is struck with tremendous loss throughout the course of the novel. Mia feels guilty for her good fortune but during the girls' adult years, Mia starts to realize Lorrie Ann isn't so innocent and kind-hearted as she once thought. Mia begins to question their friendship and loyalty to one another. If you witness your best friend self-destructing in grossly and disturbing ways, should you speak up or stay silent for the sake of the friendship?

This novel deals with some heavy topics such as: abortion, alcoholism, drug addiction, and child neglect. Some parts were painful to read but I found it impossible to put down. I've never read a novel that perfectly describes the ups and downs of female friendship. Rufi Thorpe is one hell of a writer. She definitely has a gift. One of the best books I've read this year. It stays with you. I highly recommend it. Enjoy!

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Girls From Corona”, was Rufi Thorpe’s debut novel. I had planned to read it six years ago - 2014 - when it was first published - but quickly saw low reviews from readers I connect with.

I decided to give it a go this year - after having thoroughly enjoyed
“The Knockout Queen”, also by Rufi Thorpe.

I’ve always loved this book cover - its taps into my own girlfriend - love relationships...
Plus....it has that summer-ish -‘California Dream-in -feeling....
And....
“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun feeling. ( sing 🎤 along if you wish)

The fun stops at the book cover....( as in summer-breezin)....
A much more serious story takes place — constantly moving in directions I didn’t see coming. (as was the case in “The Knockout Queen”). Rufi Thorpe keeps us curiously wondering ....”where we going next?” I’m starting to see it’s part of her talent technique.

I own the ebook - but I actually listened to the audiobook.....read by one of my favorite audio-readers: Rebecca Lowman.
I thought it was a great audio listen.

Again.... my 2nd time with Thorpe: I thoroughly enjoyed it ....not in a happy-go-lucky way....but in an observant, reflective way.

Mia and Lorrie, from Corona Del Mar, Orange County -California, have been friends since childhood. Best friends. Adolescence to adulthood.Their difference are spelled out to us right away...and their friendship becomes more complicated the older they get.
Mia says:
“Once, when we were about ten, Lorrie Anne had been given too much change at a Chevron snack shop: she paid with a ten, the man must’ve thought she gave him a twenty, Lorrie Ann didn’t even notice until we were five blocks away, and then insisted we walk all the way back so she could give him that unearned ten-dollar-bill, which as I recall was soft and wrinkled like wilted lettuce. I am sure Lorrie Ann would never remember that day, such an insignificant anecdote, but in my mind it became a central organizing allegory about the differences between us. Everything I had in life was half stolen, a secret, wilt-y ten-dollar bill that Lorrie Ann would have been too good to keep, but which I could not force myself to give away”.

Despite sorrowful rawness, it’s poetic prose unfolds like a revelation, —we get carried away with ripples of tragedies -with an eagerness to see what happens to Lorrie Ann, Mia, and the supporting characters.

There are heartbreaking birthing scenes, child raising, boyfriends, husbands, travel,
and its conclusion shows how family, friendships, love, and faith can stand up to the most terrifying truths, the most tragic of fates.

Lots of mixed reviews...
But....
If you’ve read Rufi Thorpe before -and liked her writing- chances are you’ll like this book too.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Girls from Corona del Mar is about the evolution of a complicated friendship between two girls as they become women. It is told through the eyes of Mia, whose perspective on Lorrie-Ann is constantly shifting. There is nothing neat or straightforward about the trajectory of their relationship. Novels about difficult friendships are rare, and as in her subsequent fiction, Rufi Thorpe nails it.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a deceptively emotional book. It had me early on with its sarcasm and bluntness, and then it became heartbreaking and real and thankfully not really about the trite “two girls and their friendship and their coming of age blah blah” thing.

How to explain this book?

Life is shitty would sum it up.

But there’s also that one person in your life that can never manage to get it together - and those people with bad childhoods - and we’re judgmental - and we’re hypocrites - and we are so unbelievably self-serving - and so selfless and loving - and you can’t fix people - and we are our choices - and our parents messed us up - but we also messed ourselves up - and it’s all just chaos - and it’s not our fault - but we only have ourselves to blame…

…and in the end we can never ever truly know another person.

And I guess that is what this book is about.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Loved the beginning of the book, Mia and Lorrie Anne, their friendship, their different families, the comparisons between the two girls and how they saw each other. Even when they moved apart, they were always there for the other in times of need. So how did I end up rating this so low?

The story tried to be too much, too over plotted, I believe. Everything under the sun was thrown at one of the girls and when her life falls apart she ends up in India with her vet legless boyfriend. Well I thought India was never going to end, what happens there was too stuffed, not of interest to me. Never did finish this, like the characters never could get out of India. Will I ever return to this and find out what happens? Probably not.

This book has gotten several vey good reviews, so don't toke my word for it, everyone has different book wants and this may fit yours, it just didn't fit mine.

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

After having my mind blown away by The Knockout Queen, I wanted to read more by Rufi Thorpe, so I picked this one, although it’s a “girl” book, a publishing trend that’s irked me for years.

The Girls of Corona del Mar is about the friendship of two girls from the Californian town, you've guessed it, Corona del Mar. Mia is the narrator of this novel. She loves her best friend, Lorrie Anne, who’s extremely beautiful, but also kind, sweet and innocent, all the things Mia thinks she lacks. Their friendship is the opposites-attract kind. Even their family situations seem at odds – Mia’s family is complicated as her mum is an alcoholic, with two young boys from her second marriage, whom she doesn’t parent very well. Lorrie Anne’s family seems to be wholesome, loving, and artistic. But their luck seems to change, as Lorrie Anne is struck by a series of tragedies.

I love friendship stories. This was a good story, albeit imperfect, as occasionally I questioned the likeliness of Mia knowing so many details about events that had happened in Lorrie Anne’s life, even though I understand having a first-person narrator is limiting in that way.

Do we ever truly know anyone, when even a similar lived experience can be interpreted and felt in a different way? These are some of the questions to ponder.

It’s probably unfair to compare The Girls of Corona del Mar, a debut novel, to the exquisite The Knockout Queen, a third novel, but we all do it. What’s wonderful to discover is how much Thorpe has grown as a writer.

Now I have to track down her second novel, Dear Fang, With Love.

[Sara Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

While much of pop culture might have you believe otherwise, the most important relationship a young woman has is not always with her first love, or even, say, with her father. It is with her best friend, the one to whom she tells everything about her sexual encounters, the one who accompanies her to medical procedures, the one who sometimes forgives but never forgets. As Rufi Thorpe demonstrates so vividly in her debut The Girls from Corona del Mar, the one we grow up with is the one we love forever--even well after we’ve grown apart. Lorrie Ann seems perfect: gorgeous, smart, and charming, while her best friend Mia, while brainy and attractive, has a more deliberative personality, and an alcoholic parent, to boot. If biology were destiny, it would be Lorrie Ann who succeeded most in life--except that bad choices and bad breaks intervened. Over nearly two decades, we watch Mia try to come to terms with her friend’s struggles and to understand why things didn’t go as planned. Occasionally, graduate-student Mia feels pretentious--her obsession with her PhD project, ancient Babylonian myth, is grating--and the way Lorrie Ann’s life unfolds can be contrived. But because of Thorpe’s raw and intelligent voice, this book stays with you. Mia calls her time in school “those seven strenuous years of tugging myself slowly toward excellence,” and explains Lorrie Ann’s attraction to an inappropriate mate this way: “She wanted to pick him up and shake him up and down until all the amazing things inside of him came out . . .[like]. . . the fallen candy from a piñata.” You may not like either of these women all the time, but you’ll likely recognize them, and find it hard to turn away.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Girlhood and Coming-of-Age Review: The Girls from Corona del Mar by Rufi Thorpe

I was on the search for a lightweight book to bring with me for a day full of travel, when the simple beauty of this cover, filled in tan, freckled skin, enthralled this fellow tan, freckled gal to pick it from the tucked away library shelf (the second time around). Funnily enough, I made a trek back to the library later that same day to grab the book because it wouldn't escape my mind from that morning sighting when I had failed to pick it up.

Rainbow Rowell recommended Rufi Thorpe's Dear Fang, With Love years ago, which meant for me that this author would nail down life specificities the way I enjoy in Rowell's books.  The Girls from Corona del Mar  did not disappoint within the first page, reading about a loving family's presence in Lorrie Ann's life.

And it took me a single sitting, reading swiftly through ten pages, to realize this was something to hold on to. I particularly enjoyed how the first couple of pages started with a tantalizing proclamation, "You're going to have to break one of my toes,"  then veered off to familiarize these characters, and ended the paragraph the same way it started so that we're included in their motives; a full circle.

Set in the mid-90s,  The Girls from Corona del Mar   follows two best friends, Mia and Lorrie Ann, through spot-on observations on life, growing together and apart, and always having that nature pull to return to each other. This read like an extremely attentive and introspective novel, full of vivid stories on Mia's lifelong friendship with Lorrie Ann. My mind was bursting with all that I wanted to note down with each page I read. You know it's a good book when you close your eyes at the end of the day and continue completing the story in your head.

Normally, friendships between girls are stowed away in boxes of postcards and ticket stubs, but whatever was between me and Lorrie Ann was not so easy to set aside.

I was surprised to find a unique storytelling mode where, instead of having two narrators who each tell their own tale, we follow Mia's perspective of Lorrie Ann's toils through the details Lor gives her best friend. You can peek this in the passage below:

“I love you,” Lorrie Ann lied. (Was it a lie? I never knew, exactly. I couldn't understand her love for Jim and so I made my peace with Lor's decisions by assuming her feelings for him were either feigned or a delusion, but perhaps they were not. Perhaps she loved him with the same animal part of herself that couldn't let that baby go.)

I really liked how the author gained control with this little insert because Mia went a little off-task into Lor's (the name Lorrie Ann is a pain to type) world, and the usage of first-person brought it back to the narrator.

I'll be honest by saying right off the bat I was as wrapped around Lorrie Ann's finger as much as Mia. Something about the utter kindness and goodness of her always shone so brightly on the page. It's best told in this incident that captures Lor's character through the author's storytelling:

Once, when we were about ten, Lorrie Ann had been given too much change at the Chevron snack shop: she had paid with a ten, but the man must have thought she gave him a twenty. Lorrie Ann didn't even notice until we were five blocks away, and then insisted we walk all the way back so that she could give him that unearned ten-dollar bill, which as I recall was soft and wrinkled like wilted lettuce. I am sure Lorrie Ann would never remember that day, such an insignificant anecdote, but in my mind it became a central organizing allegory about the differences between us.
Everything I had in life was half stolen, a secret, wilt-y ten-dollar bill that Lorrie Ann would have been too good to keep, but which I could not force myself to give away.

What makes so much of these eyeful remarks is how grounded in reality they are.

I was initially won over by Lorrie Ann with this truthful statement when faced clearly, at only eighteen, with an impossible choice: “But don’t you learn to love someone?” Lorrie Ann asked.

This right here is what too many novels fail to realize when they proclaim that love is all or nothing. Love isn't some overbearing emotion that takes control of your sane thought process, love is something that you need to discover how to do with morality. "You don’t fall in love. You grow in love." Love is recognizing the grandiosity of the person standing before you; love is including that person within your own being.

Her thought process of said impossible choice is demonstrated touchingly. She had this terrible death happen within her family, which she concludes as her fault for not being good enough or observant enough of the signs in her life, so she doesn’t want to set off something now that'll make bad things appear back in her life. She chooses what she deems the right thing. What follows changes the trajectory of her life and Mia's along with her.

And yet it was not me but Lorrie Ann whom the vultures of bad luck kept on visiting, darkening the yard of her house, tapping on the panes of her windows with their musty, blood-crusted beaks.“Wake up, little girl!” they cried.“We've got something else for you!

I felt suspended the entire time I read through this reflective and tumultuous story. So much of this novel is built on the many tragedies that befall Lor despite her best. And I kept wallowing over just how many they are... I mean, I came to relish whenever Lor walked back into Mia's life, though knowing it's only when something unfortunate happens makes it a bittersweet pill to swallow.
At a certain point, when the only times these two communicate is when something bad occurs to Lorrie Ann, it became an exhausting process of “Oh, what now?” It read like a condensed version of A Little Life, which I liked for the subtle quips on life but disliked immensely for throwing tragedy after tragedy my way. It takes away from the realness of life when we only meet these two characters when tragedy strikes. I wanted to spend more time in the in-between moments that make up a lifetime. When everything's shit, however, it makes you appreciate little gestures of kindness, simple as a sweet nurse over the phone reassuring Lorrie Ann.

On a random note, I enjoyed how the title chapters are indicant of what’s ahead. It's a little touch that shows how much a book means to an author.

And I'm still so in awe at how this book kept me enthralled page by page with its eyeful observations. This is an author that lets no moment slip by; you have to be really sensitive of your reality to succeed in writing down what you see in real life. And I, for one, am a complete sucker when it comes to introspective novels that reveal a deeper layer that lies within us.
The Girls from Corona del Mar nails down the complexity of maintaining a long-distance friendship. I admired, in particular, what was said about feeling like a character in a book, like, you don’t exist unless I pick you up.

“That came out awful, but what I mean is that when you are a half a world away, it seems more like something happening in a novel, you know, and we've lived apart for so many years now that you are kind of like that for me, except when I see you, then you are suddenly terribly real, and that made Jim's death real and now I feel like I can't catch my breath because everything is too real for words.”
Lorrie Ann looked at me critically for a moment, as though I were a gem she were assessing through one of those tiny eyepieces. Then she said, “I know exactly what you mean. For most of the year you are just a character in a book I'm reading. And then when you do show up, I think:  Oh, God, it's her! It's her. The girl I knew when I was a kid. My friend.”

This is such a sweet moment  too real for words ... And then this moment on how talking over the phone never fully captures the true experience in a single phrase: “I’m not sure,” Lorrie Ann said, and I wished I could read her face.”

They hold this interesting dynamic wherein Mia feels forever endowed by Lorrie Anne's virtue. Her "opposite twin."

I did not pursue my relationship with either for personal reasons, but because I sincerely believed they were the two best specimens of humanity I had yet to run across on the planet.

But when this book turns bad, it goes down all the way. It hit a point of no return after the 150-page mark, and I was left dumbfounded. I felt truly betrayed by the inorganic change in character happening halfway through. I had spent so much time with this book, singing its praises, only to have this abrupt tomfoolery wherein the most moral character had everything immoral thrown her way. I’m still in a state of shock. It came to the point where I had to point the book cover face down on my nightstand, till its fast return to the library the following day, because  I couldn’t bear to look at it without some semblance of anger flaring up inside me. It felt like two completely different stories were being told: One of genuine storytelling, using many sharp observations about family life, and telling a truthful tale of girlhood. And the other is focused on tearing down what we build up for the past 100 pages. Like, when Mia starts being the moral compass for Lorrie Ann that’s when you know something fishy is going down in the storytelling.



This unnatural change of pace made me feel beyond exasperated. It's all that I had been warned about on immorality was shown with a turn of a page. W H Y ??? I'll just say one thing: Those questioning the system of justice while claiming that ridding a child of its life because of a disability are exactly those that the system exists for. I mean:

"Zach's suffering is not more than a child's in the Congo just because we are genetically related."

How is one supposed to react calmly to reading such utter BS? She's talking so coldly about her own son, and I'm wondering how this is the same person from the start of this book. I cannot stand when good characters are destroyed this way. This felt like an amateurish and insensitive dissection on a character's life.

I just don't have the patience anymore to deal with such crude remarks being made for n, such as comparing genocides and reducing both in the process of doing so.

*Cue my search for a new favorite book to calm my storming rage.*



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[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up

I loved this, and I think I'd read anything Rufi Thorpe has written or decides to write. She absolutely nails complicated (but realistic and relatable) protagonists, and her books are always a joy to read. I always love books which make me think about life in a different way than I had previously, and The Girls from Corona del Mar definitely did that. It's a novel about realising other people aren't always exactly as we see them, and realising that even the closest of our friends are always ultimately somewhat unknowable to us.

Also, don't let the kind of generic women's fiction cover put you off. My dad made a comment about thinking it wouldn't be his kind of thing after I left a copy on his bookshelf, which is what made me think about this! Ok, fine; it's initially about two teenage girls growing up together in Newport Beach, California, but it's SO much more than that. The writing is literary without being overly fussy, which is just how I like it, and the book has a complex narrative spanning decades of their lives, together and apart, and gets quite dark, sad and morally confronting at times (but again, not in a way which is ever trite).

Highly recommended.

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of two friends, Mia and Lorrie Ann, whose lives go in very different directions, The Girls from Corona del Mar entertained but failed to wow me until the moment I became completely discombobulated. The novel is told from the point of view of Mia, who seems like a reliable narrator until the evidence subtly piles up to indicate she might not be, at which point the entire novel turned on its head for me. But I still can’t decide what the author’s intention was. Are we meant to see Mia as reliable or not? If she’s supposed to be reliable, this is only a 2- or 3-star read for me. But I’m choosing to believe Rufi Thorpe knew what she was doing here, in which case, 4 stars and my admiration.

8/26/16: My feelings, they are complicated. Review to come.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars: The Girls from Corona Del Mar is a stunning debut novel. It’s one of those books where you think “I need/want to get back to my book”. The story is told from Mia’s point of view of her friendship to Lorrie Ann. Mia idolizes Lorrie Ann, the perfect, kind, and beautiful girl. Mia thinks Lorrie Ann is so kind that she “deserves” goodness in her life, while Mia believes she herself has a stone for a heart thereby being undeserving in the universe. Yet, bad things keep happening to Lorrie Ann. Mia spends much time contemplating why Lorrie Ann isn’t getting the love back from the universe.

As an adult, Mia tries to make sense of Lorrie Ann’s life retrospectively. Mia wants there to be a connection between what we did and what we got. Mia then looks at her “labels” of Lorrie Ann. Talking to other people in Lorrie Ann’s life, she learns that she might not have known her as profoundly as she thought.

This novel is an interesting read about friendship and perceptions. There’s a bit of feminism added to make it intriguing. It’s funny at times, and horrifying at other times: just like life.

[Patricia Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this story. I've been trying to read a lot of short, under 300 pages, books to catch up on my reading since my pet sitting business is very slow in January. I've read quite a few in the last few weeks. This is one of the best. Another one I could not put down. A story of two young girls and their on again, off again friendship through the years. Told by this two women. The author has a way to make you really care about these two people and what happens to them and a lot happens. There are a lot of stories about young women who are friends forever but this one was exceptionally good to me.

[Karin Slaughter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love stories about friendship because I think that as we get more connected with the internet and such, it weirdly becomes harder to maintain lasting relationships with people. I mean, there's the flurry at the beginning and you write three or four times a day, then by the end of the year it peters out and you're writing every day to someone else.

Anyway, I loved this book for its exploration of a long-time friendship in all its complicated glory. As a student of chance, I was also drawn in by how luck can change the course of a person's life-sometimes not for the good. I've had friends I've watched burn out for various awful and stupid reasons, and I don't know which is more difficult, being the person it happens to or being the spectator who stands by incapable of rendering help.

The novel also captures a certain time during the eighties when everything crapped out, and having lived through that during roughly the same age bracket as the characters, I could totally understand that sense of impermanence. I think as a gen-Xer, we all live with the fear that any moment now, everything is going to be taken away. So, what I am saying is please buy my books and make all your friends buy my books so I don't end up living in the streets with my cats.*

*let's be honest, they'd find a new home once the nip ran out

[Ladybug Lynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Loved this book for 3/4 of it and then I wanted to throw it across the room. At first, it is a beautiful examination of female friendship and the "bad luck vultures" that seem to plague certain people's lives. And then the book starts with all this BS that there is nothing more important than a woman to be a mother. Really! What of those women who never have children (either by choice or by circumstances beyond their control). Are their lives not of value because they didn't have a child? She vilifies one character because of her (justified) actions towards her child while lifting the other up because she is the stereotypically good mother. Author seems to hate woman. For example, there is no need to describe a completely minor female character at the end of the novel as horsey-faced. It adds nothing to the character or the story other than meanness.
So disappointed by this book.

[Sarah Strucker · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was truly terrible, and it's depressing that any critic has called it "good." I was initially interested in it because I grew up in the 90s and was in my 20s during the Iraq War--I had a lot of friends who lost spouses and family members to that war, or who fought in it themselves. In "The Girls from Corona Del Mar," I thought there might be a contemplation of the central tragedy of our time. Instead, I found that Thorpe seemed merely to exploit those events to write a "chick book" about two idiotic friends who serve as parallel universe alternates of each other. It's a choose-your-own-adventure book: one girl has an abortion and goes on to be immensely successful--landing not only a tenure-track job at a major R1 university (in classics, no less) but also a wonderful husband--while the other one keeps her baby and endures a life of suffering and tragedy. So, in other words, the book is a cautionary tale: abort your baby or end up like Lorrie Ann. Think I'm being simplistic? Well, Lorrie Ann experiences so many life tragedies that you have to suspend disbelief to keep reading: her father dies tragically, her son is profoundly disabled due to complete medical negligence, she has to have a hysterectomy, her mother gets beaten with a lawn ornament, and then her husband joins the military and gets blown up in Iraq. When her son is taken away by protective services, she runs off to a couple of third-world countries and becomes a drug addict--an understandable choice, IMO, but one for which the narrator judges her endlessly.

Throughout all this, the narrator romanticizes Lorrie Ann--eventually, I found the narrator more tedious and unbelievable than Lorrie Ann. Despite getting multiple degrees from top-flight schools and being the first person to translate the oldest poem cycle in the literate world (yes, the first person ever, and this translation goes on to be a bestseller), the narrator is incapable of seeing Lorrie Ann for who she is. And in the end, she still remains jealous of Lorrie Ann. When Lorrie Ann's big secret eventually comes to the surface, the narrator is shocked. But this "secret" is the most predictable plot twist of the entire novel. Of course Lorrie Ann didn't live a perfect life before tragedy befell her. How can the narrator be so smart and yet so incapable of seeing the facts? I had to constantly remind myself that these characters were adult women--not two teenagers. I don't know many adult women who continue to romanticize their teenage friends--especially not when they themselves are successful and their teenage friends ended up homeless drug addicts.

The novel also betrays serious misunderstandings about the profoundly disabled. Lorrie Ann's son is non-verbal and needs a feeding tube, but in the end the narrator goes to visit him and thinks that he's really communicating with her, and that he even breaks a keepsake to get back at his mother. It's laughable and depressing--laughable that anyone would write this way, and depressing that the narrator (and plausibly the author) thinks that the developmentally disabled can be trotted out as mere symbols in morality plays. Just as the Iraq War is played as a plot complication to add to the misery of a character's life, so too are the developmentally disabled reduced to simple moral arbiters.

I found other aspects of the book ridiculous as well. First of all, I think it strains plausibility that these two friends have so many unintended pregnancies between them. In the 90s, people knew how to use birth control. More pertinently, those who didn't know how to use birth control generally didn't end up being bright enough to go to Ivy League schools. (In high school I knew girls who got pregnant and girls who went to Yale; their circles did not overlap.) But okay, setting that aside, Thorpe's insistence on connecting everything to the Sumerian goddess Inanna was heavy-handed and pretentious. Yes, it's clear from the get-go that Lorrie Ann is a deity that Mia has constructed rather than a real person. Move on.

This book is nothing but missed opportunities. It's too bad that Thorpe didn't use Inanna and the narrator's interest in Mesopotamia to highlight more poignantly the US's obsession with Iraq and the ill-fated war that claimed thousands of lives. Instead, she developed a novel that insults more than it illuminates. Skip this one.

[Jessica Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We don’t deserve the spring, and we don’t deserve the winter either. They just exist.”

The marketing for this book does no justice to its sadness, its darkness, its profundity. Two childhood friends, Mia and Lorrie Ann, take completely different paths in life. Mia, the colder and hard-hearted of the two, finds a fulfilling career and a man she loves, while beautiful and kind Lorrie Ann appears to be plagued by bad luck.

Mia struggles to find a semblance of meaning in it all, wondering what either of them did to be given their lots in life, never fully allowing herself to feel the happiness she doesn’t believe she deserves.

But the stories we tell about ourselves and the ones we love aren’t always accurate. And sometimes there are no answers, and the most freeing thing we can do is accept that.

This book devastated me — as a mother, a friend, a person trying to figure it all out. It hurt so good.

[Patrick Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating and incredibly readable novel. First, the narrative perspective is interesting, in that it's a story of two characters and told from one character's perspective. Second, it's a story that tackles big, moral issues around abortion and motherhood. These two aspects combine to give this novel the feeling of being very old, even though it was published in the last year.

I felt it did a great job of both offering a perspective and an opinion on abortion while still telling a tremendously gripping story. I read this book in days and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a great novel that isn't afraid of weighty subject matter.

[Alena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fair or not, I think if I had read this novel when it was published and not after reading the 5 star Dear Fang With Love, I would have liked this better. But now I know what Rufi Thorpe is capable of writing so this doesn't quite measure up.

I love that her young female characters are unapologetically brash and smart and profane and confused. They're incredibly complex, which makes for great reading.

But they story telling is convoluted and the brashness borders on the needlessly offensive. I just could not suspend my disbelief through some of the plot.

But I will say again that I think this author is immensely talented and incredibly smart. I will continue to read her eagerly.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book started well and held my interest while building the friendship of two high school girls. I enjoyed the author's truthfulness from the protagonist when describing her younger self. About the mid-point I stopped appreciating the truthfulness and the dark omens. I was not in the mood to read a depressing book about bad decisions compounded by jealous and/or selfish behavior. I skipped ahead and read the last chapter. I'm glad I did and was confidant in my decision to stop.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars
Regrettably, I admit that The Girls from Corona del Mar has been sitting on my bookshelf since 2015. Originally I bought it to fulfill the PopSugar Reading Challenge “Authors under 30 years old” category. Despite being Rufi Thorpe’s debut novel I find her themes still exude a maturity seemingly beyond her years and her publishing experience. The Girls from Corona del Mar tells the story of a lifelong friendship between Mia and Lorrie Ann, two teenage girls of meager means that find solace in each other.


As young girls they are ostensibly polar opposites, Mia “The Black-hearted” and Lorrie Ann “The Sainted”. As they grow older and life takes hold Mia sees Lorrie Ann as unlucky and can’t fathom how bad things could happen to such a good person. She finds herself asking ‘Why not me?’. She does not see herself deserving of happiness or any of the blessings that life has bestowed upon her. Beholden to the labels that were ascribed to the pair, Mia has sold herself to this ideal version of Lorrie Ann and is shocked to see when she falters. Resolute in her conviction, Mia pushes to make Lorrie Ann fit into her conception of her and loses sight of what is really happening. At the end of the novel Mia discovers something of herself, but is left questioning whether her and Lorrie Ann ever truly friends? The Girls from Corona del Mar is a lesson about how we view ourselves and others. It begs the question “Do you ever really know anyone, even yourself?”

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book thinking it would be a light summer read, a sort of California coming of age chick lit. I was so very wrong.

Mia and Lorrie Anne are best friends in high school. Mia has a dysfunctional family dynamic, an alcoholic mother and an absent father, while Lorrie Ann's family is a model of love and happiness, even if they rather unconventionally live in a one bedroom apartment where her brother sleeps in a tent on the balcony. Mia believes herself to be hard-hearted and cold while Lorrie Ann is angelic and loving to all. Their paths diverge right after graduation when Mia gets accepted to Yale and Lorrie Ann gets pregnant and drops her plans for college.

One tragedy after another dogs Lorrie Ann, while Mia's life just gets better and better. They drift away from each other until one day Lorrie Ann shows up unexpectedly at Mia's apartment in Istanbul. The tale she tells is stunning and Mia is once again caught up in Lorrie Ann's life, but Lorrie Ann disappears as suddenly as she arrived.

A few years later Mia and her family are back in California and she reconnects with Dana, Lorrie Ann's mother. The picture that emerges is nothing like the image that Mia has carried in her heart all these years, and she is forced to acknowledge that maybe she never really knew Lorrie Ann at all. It's a painful realization for her, but it helps her move forward.

I found this book so compelling that I read it in two days. I simply couldn't put it down. I don't think I'll forget it soon.

[Kalen · Rating 2 out of 5]

** 1/2

I liked this a lot until it got all bogged down in how amazing motherhood is and then I mostly felt like I am probably somehow a bad woman for not having children. And then I got over that and just felt irritated.

[Karina · Rating 4 out of 5]

What was most alarming, in the end, was the vertiginous sense that I did not know Lorrie Ann, and, in fact, had never known her. I could not sort out who she might be in my head. (PG 228)

I was very surprised I liked this book because I thought this author might be all hype but I really enjoyed it and couldn't wait to keep reading it.

The book is about friendship and loyalty and growing up to dim realities; seeing people for who they really are versus our image or delusion of them.

I know many people that have outgrown friendships and when I ask, "Why are you still friends with this person if you have nothing in common with them anymore?" The answer always seems to be, "I've just known them for such a long time." Does loyalty matter when it feels one-sided? Is this a good excuse to have stress or their burdens on your shoulders?

Such a great story about real things friendships endure. The characters felt real and their upsets became my upsets. All the characters seemed like horrible people but then they had that shred of kindness that made me rethink their actions.

Very good story. Great writing. Overall, enjoyable.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story it’s about 2 girls who are friends through childhood and as young adults
The narrator is 1 of the girls. The narrator wonders if she ever knew herself or her friend at all

This is not an action book. It’s speculative I was thinking about the characters I was reflecting on my friendships. So if you like that then you will like this book
It’s well written and there are a few things questions that you will have about the characters and they will not be answered. Instead you will have to draw your own conclusions

I think that it’s a good bookclub read for some great discussions!!

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a story of friendship. It asks the million dollar questions of How well do you know your closest friend? Do you only see what's in front of you? Do they share every nuance of their life with you?

I admired this book for the numerous ethical scenarios brought to the forefront. This book will lead to many discussions and leave you considering the questions asked, the situations presented. The topics addressed abortion, responsibilities of a mother, quality of life, illness, loyalty and choices.

The two main characters Mia and Lorrie Ann are antithesis but as you learn more of these two and as they grow they become the flip side of each other. Lorrie Ann deals with many unfortunate challenges and you find yourself asking what you would do in her position. Their friendship is infested with numerous threats it is agonizing. The narrative interlaces controversial matters in a brilliant fashion. Thorpe shows the changes and growth a friendship suffers, extremely plausible.

A friendship dealing with distance, time and misfortune to one party in the equation. This story directs the focus on the complexities of friendship and relationships in general. The reader will take stock in their capacity as a friend and reflect on their own best friend. A very touching story leaving you with an abundance of virtuous schemes to examine.

Dramatic debut effort from Thorpe, a compelling story. Certainly left me auditing myself and my friendships and relationships. A story leaving you dissecting yourself asking endless questions is always worth reading.

You will close the book with one thought running through your mind What does friendship and a friend mean to you?

A copy was provided in exchange for an honest review

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't misunderstand my 3-star rating -- I would (and often do) recommend this book. It's ambitious and largely relatable, powerful and beautiful.

This story of two women's lives and their evolving relationship with each other is a good wake-up call to so many social ills, and a surprisingly frank observation of self and interpersonal relationships.

The first half of the book is especially compelling. The characters experience life in very common ways, and the story is told with heart. Ominous foreshadowing and excellent imagery abound (the vultures of bad luck, the hammer to the toe, the narrator's cold black heart).

The second half is a bit more tedious, albeit still an interesting read, and very much true to the spirit of the first half. The plot here overwhelms the form; sentences become compound, important dialogues become inane, and largely gone is the powerful imagery that so nicely tied the first half together.

The author makes up for it with a strong, heartbreaking, yet viscerally redeeming conclusion. It's not a perfect novel, but it's a very good read. Recommended for the self-aware, the heartbroken, the selfless, and the self-centered.

[Helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

The description definitely doesn't do it justice because it makes the plot sound like a chicklit. In reality, it deals with a lot of important topics and I didn't expect it at all. Sometimes it does feel like it's a bit too much in 200+ pages but it was an enjoyable read.

[Dana · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's this annoying woman who's always at parties because she's dating someone in your friend group. She's the one who always latches on to you because you don't know a socially appropriate way to tell her to go the fuck away. She says she's from Corona Del Mar which intrigues you because you've been there and imagine growing up in a Cali beach town is like a 90210 fantasy. Then she starts rambling on about her alcoholic mother and loser brother and this underachieving best friend who became a teen mom and a drug addict and a burden to society but she loves her so much becuse really she would do anything for anyone and and she even took this amazing trip to India and then she tells you of her time living in Turkey doing intellectual things! Of course the most important thing on earth is being a mother, and why do bad things happen to this saintly friend, but not to her? It's so unfair!

You've refilled your drink twice when she starts talking about this best friend's vagina size and now you're hoping for a catastrophic earthquake so you can die.

That's exactly what it's like to read this book.

[Olivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost got rid of this book a couple of days ago. I decided to give it a try via audiobook before I actually went to sell my physical copy.
I knew from the third chapter on that this was gonna be a 5 star for me.
A day later and here I am. I am shook and touched and I feel so greatful that I had that little of brain left to give The Girls from Corona del Mar a try.
It was depressing as fuck, but it was the realest thing I've ever read.

UPDATE 9/7/18

Perhaps a 4.5? Now that I'm a bit more removed for the book it's not really on the full 5 star level for me.