Rating: 
Summary: Another Pleaser
Review: Benny Hogan and Eve Malone were inseparable since Benny's tenth birthday party. They could not have been more different. Eve was the daughter of a handyman and a rich girl rebelling against her parents. Orphaned, nuns raised her. Benny felt smothered by her adoring parents.
Both Benny and Eve study at the university in Dublin where they met Nan Mahon who has her whole life planned out, starting with finding the perfect husband. Benny falls in love with the handsome Jack Foley who manages to love her despite her size. However, when tragedy strikes, Benny and Eve learn who they can really trust.
Written in Binchy's usual easy to read style, Circle of Friends is a wonderful novel of friendship and betrayal. I easily finished this novel as I watched Benny struggle with her weight and the expectations set by her family. Eve learns to trust again as the family who scorned her slowly allows her back in. Our emotions wonder as Nan makes some bad choices, hurting everyone in her way.
Rating: 
Summary: Read this book....and NEVER see the movie
Review: I really enjoyed this book when I read it in college. It was a complex book with many characters...I had the priviledge of a discussion group, perhaps that is why I was able to understand it as well as I did. This book just shows how false "friends" can be. The Nan Mahones of the world are out there, people who know nothing at all about friendship. You take this character and contrast it with Eve. I was touched by Eve's loyalty towards Benny. I just loved how they grew up together and continued their adventures at college. You saw different sides to them as they mingled with others, making the characters very real to me.
The book ended with Benny moving on after betrayal by Nan and her lover....and I feel this made her a strong character I truly respected. It was a very realistic and sincere ending. I mean, who wouldnt after all that guy did? I was horrified at how the ending of the movie undid that. It (the movie) was just corny to me after that ending (especially the nauseating "Bless me father for I have sinned"....Blech!!)
In summary.....read the book, pass on the movie.
Rating:
Summary: A good escape
Review: Frolic in another world.... in fact, many other worlds. It's classic Binchy.
Rating:
Summary: For anyone who remembers being 19 and in love...
Review: If the mark of a great book is its ability to make you continue reading no matter how late it is, "Circle of Friends" deserves at least six stars. Binchy's style may be slightly vanilla (were the fifties really that innocent?), but no one is better at drawing the reader in and making you care about her characters and what will happen to them in the next chapter. Even the relatively uneventful passages are never boring as we watch Benny and her friends make their way out into the world, in some cases not very far into it. Their experiences as first-year university students are all too accurate. I'd nearly forgotten about the politics of school dances and the thrill of being seen with that special someone at the coffee shop after class and the odd sense of "friends forever!" with people you've only known for a few weeks. Here, they don't seem clichéd at all, perhaps because they're so universal and because Binchy retells them in her own unique style and with her vivid characters.
If there is a sense of sugarcoating to the story, it wears off just in time as the plot builds. It's never very suspenseful and the climax is even a bit obvious, but it's also very refreshing to those who have had enough of Hollywood endings (including the one in the movie adaptation of this book). More than anything, this is a very accurate portrayal of how short, intense friendships so often turn out in real life. Highly recommended for fans of coming-of-age fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Great Ugly Duckling Story...Not A Cliche
Review: This is one of Binchy's best books, in my opinion. She takes a chcarcter who is very insecure, Benny, and puts her in situations that are new and different for her. Instead of making the standard decisions that every other writer has characters choose, Benny takes a stand in her sheltered life, and ultimately the best decision.This book is about an overweight girl, who goes to college, thinking that the world is not available to her, since she lives with protective parents who want her to marry Sean, her father's assistant in the family menswear shop. She meets Jack, a handsome boy who could have any girl, and who chooses Benny, although is not completely faithful to her. Benny deals with her insecurities about her relationship and life. While Jack is charming and funny, she does not realize that Jack really isn't the boy for her. Her relationships with friends Eve, who is an orphan raised by the nuns of Knockglen, Nan, a Dublin girl, and many other townspeople are intriguing. If you love an underdog/ugly duckling story, this is the one for you. I also think the movie is great, although I typically do not like movie adaptions.
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