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Rating:  Summary: The Last Girls is the First & Last I will Read of Lee Smith Review: I am really surprised the number of 4 and 5 star reviews for this book. I am a fan of Southern fiction and was pleased when my book club selected this book for our April read. However, quickly into the novel and I was frustrated, bored and wondering how I was going to get through all 384 pages.The premise is a good one: College girlfriends reunite to journey down the river as they did in college, only this time, it's to spread the ashes of one of their own. Now, interestingly enough, there were 12 girls that took the initial trip back in 1965 and only four meet up for this tour. The most interesting of the four women discussed is Harriet, the shy, never married best friend to the deceased - Baby Ballou. Harriet is both interesting and endearing and everytime the author gives us a glimpse into her, she changes the direction of the story. In fact, Smith never gives you enough time with any of the characters to develop a real connection. For that matter, she spends more time on the husband of one of the women rather than the woman herself!. I was also perplexed that the women who were reunited on the boat never really seemed to reconnect with one another or have any real interest in being there. It left me wondering what the purpose was in even telling this story. Overall the story seems scattered and lacking of any real focus. Furthermore, I did not understand the author's need, after 370+ pages of no real mention, to "update" us on the lives of the women who didn't take the reunion ride. Who cares? If they weren't important enough to write about in the bulk of the book, why are they now? Why even have them at all? Ms. Smith may have a large following of readers, however, I will not be one of them.
Rating:  Summary: Very Disappointed in Lee Smith Review: I grabbed this novel because it was written by Lee Smith, whose previous Southern novels (most of which I've read), I've liked and learned from. This new one is a complete departure, and I wondered at first if it had been too long since I'd read a Smith novel, or whether the book really was that badly written--and decided, soon on, that yes, to me, it was embarrassingly poorly structured and written, one of the worst novels I've read in quite awhile. I agree with everyone who has mentioned not caring about the characters; I didn't either, and in fact, disliked most of them, except Harriet, who is the most developed and 'real.' Baby, who the book revolves around, is such a stereotype and it was hard for me to understand why she was so charismatic in college (but also why, except for Harriet, she was so little mourned by the others). The other 'girls' I found it hard to empathize with, though I'm of this same time period myself; I also wondered why Catherine was even in the book (she had so little to do with Baby in college, it seemed), and didn't see the point of her husband, Russell, present on this 'memory' trip either--nor did I like having to read about his background. This was to be a 'girls' trip, so why is there a male along? The stories of the 'girls' are SO skeletal, so lacking in detail--this just isn't the Lee Smith I've known, who has written such memorable novels of Appalachia and the South, where I've usually learned something about Southern religion, say, or Appalachian music or the like. In this novel, I had hoped the setting of the Mississippi River would be more prominent, that I'd learn more about it (nope! almost nothing). Or that there would be interesting points of tension between the four women who hadn't seen each other since they were college roommates. But there's little conversation between them, let alone any development of the 'girls' meeting as women after a long absence, and the theme of friendship never evolves--or what does is cliched and empty. Well, I found the whole book cliched and shallow, not at all thought-provoking nor good storytelling. I read it quickly, just to finish it, and was so sad, wondering what had happened to Lee Smith (or where her editor was) & felt I'd wasted my time and money. I would say to other would-be readers, give this book a wide miss, but don't give up on Smith--try her 'Devil's Dream' or 'Saving Grace' instead.
Rating:  Summary: Great Southern Fiction Review: Lee Smith, in her book, The Last Girls, tells the story of five women who are unexpectedly reunited after the sudden death of one of the group members. The woman all attended college together three decades earlier, and use the awkward circumstance under which they are reuinted, to bond on the common topics of aging, lost loves, and other "girl stuff," as they embark on the reinactment of a cruise down the Mississsippi, taken 35 years earlier, while together in college. The cruise provides the setting for the ladies to renew their acquantances and catch up with one another on 35 years of their lives. Smith's characters are complex and well defined in a simple style and engrossing story that remains with you long after the completion of the book. Smith possesses the ability to present characers the reader actually cares about. The story is engrossing and the reader is not left disappointed at the conclusion. Well recommended, especially for you lovers of Southern Fiction.
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