The Girls' Almanac: A Novel Exploring the Closeness and Distance of Female Friendship, Intimacy, and Women's Interconnected Lives

by Emily Franklin

The Girls' Almanac chronicles the lives of Jenna and Lucy—two thirty-something women who desperately long for a true friend—as well as the lives of the women and men who have touched them: friends, lovers, parents, and neighbors. Set across the Northeast—through suburban neighborhoods, preppy camps, island resorts, and Ivy League colleges—as well as far flung locales like Ecuador and Iceland, The Girls' Almanac traces the friendships of women willing to risk both self-consciousness and intimacy, loss and betrayal, in pursuit of a proper best friend. Exploring the fascinating closeness and distance that female friendships encompass, The Girls' Almanac reveals the map of Jenna and Lucy's interconnected lives, and ultimately their pathways to each other.

Genres: Short Stories, Chick Lit, Fiction, Adult Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 26, 2006

About the author

Growing up, Emily Franklin wanted to be “a singing, tap-dancing doctor who writes books.”

Having learned early on that she has little to no dancing ability, she left the tap world behind, studied at Oxford University, and received an undergraduate degree concentrating in writing and neuroscience from Sarah Lawrence College. Though she gave serious thought to a career in medicine, eventually that career followed her dancing dreams.

After extensive travel, some “character-building” relationships, and a stint as a chef, Emily went back to school at Dartmouth where she skied (or fished, depending on the season) daily, wrote a few screenplays, and earned her Master’s Degree in writing and media studies.

While editing medical texts and dreaming about writing a novel, Emily went to Martha’s Vineyard on a whim and met her future husband who is, of course, a doctor. And a pianist. He plays. They sing. They get married. He finishes medical school, they have a child, she writes a novel. Emily’s dreams are realized. She writes books.

Emily Franklin is the author of two adult novels, The Girls' Almanac and Liner Notes and more than a dozen books for young adults including the critically-acclaimed seven book fiction series for teens, The Principles of Love. Other young adult books include The Other Half of Me the Chalet Girls series, and At Face Value, a retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac (coming in September 2008).

She edited the anthologies It's a Wonderful Lie: 26 Truths about Life in Your Twenties and How to Spell Chanukah: 18 Writers Celebrate 8 Nights of Lights. She is co-editor of Before: Short Stories about Pregnancy from Our Top Writers.

Her book of essays and recipes, Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, 102 New Recipes ~ A Memoir of Tasting, Testing, and Discovery in the Kitchen will be published by Hyperion.

Emily’s work has appeared in The Boston Globe and the Mississippi Review as well as in many anthologies including Don't You Forget About Me: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes, When I Was a Loser: True Stories of (Barely) Surviving High School by Today's Top Writers, and Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers on the Mother-Daughter Bond. Emily writes regularly about food and parenting for national magazines and newspapers. She travels, teaches writing seminars, and speaks on panels, but does not tap dance. Emily Franklin lives outside of Boston with her husband and their four young children.

Reviews

[Jennifer]

Short stories about various interconnecting characters from the time they are kids/teenagers through adulthood. This book surprised me - I thought it was going to be chick lit fluff, but it wasn't at all and was actually quite good.

[Sara]

Some of the stories drew me in, but the way they were connected was confusing to me.

[Mirah W]

Wow...I cannot believe this book was even published in its current state! The idea is good: two women who become friends late in their lives have really been connected all along by other relationships. However, the delivery failed completely! There were so many characters introduced I could not keep track of when someone met someone else or if they'd ever met before at all. Two of the secondary characters (Gabrielle and Kyra) seemed to get more coverage than Jenna and Lucy, the main characters. The writing was disjointed and poorly delivered. It's really too bad because some of the stories exploring people and their decision-making processes were quite insightful. With a little review and drafting, I think the book would have been better as a collection of short stories.

[Barbara]

I really, really liked it. Emily Franklin has passed the two book test. And maybe it's not quite 5, but it's a good four and a half. One of the problems I had was it has multiple POVS and I read ahead a lot and wanted to know more about how some people ended up. I would recommend it to people who want some different chick lit. Though there's a lot of sadness and I think emily might've been working through some death issues while writing it. Liner Notes is pretty good, too. And it's hard to track some of the people.

[Julie]

I really had trouble keeping up with this book. It was hard to remember who was who and why he/she was relevant. There were too many characters and too many tangents and it was just overall confusing. I think some of the storylines were good they just didn't go far enough for me, meaning that by the time I got into it we were moving on. I would have much rather that the author concentrated more on Jenna and Lucy and less on "the women and men who have touched them" (taken from the back cover).

[Kshappert]

There was a diagram at the front of the book with lines drawn between various characters. I had to refer to the map constantly while reading. WAY too many characters and not enough development of any of them. And the supposed cornerstone of the book...the friendship between Jenna and Lucy...is barely explored. Could have been good, but mostly wasn't.

[Lisa]

The format of this book was interesting, but I kept getting confused and forgetting people's names, which was annoying. It was a little different than the typical chick-lit books, which was nice, but overall it felt like it could have been pulled together a bit better.

[Kristen]

Loved this book. It jumps around like a six degrees of separation thing. Great anecdotes give good life to the characters. Great easy summer read!!!