The Last Girls

Rating:
Summary: strong characters
Review: At age 18-22, a dozen girls, college classmates, float down the Mississippi River on a raft. Twenty or twenty-five years later four of this group take a river cruise which retraces their earlier route. During this trip we get to know these four as they are now and listen to their memories and their thoughts about one who was unable to make the reunion trip.
Lee Smith reveals one truth that has bothered me for years: We never really grow up; it's all a lie; there's not some "magic" age where all secrets are revealed. It's a relief to learn I'm not the only one who looked forward to the enlightenment of adulthood only to come to the conclusion it never happens.
Character-driven. An interesting read -I finished the book in days- but something about open-ended stories bothers me... they're so ...unresolved. The characters are strong and will stay with me forever.

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: 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: A poignant story and enjoyable read
Review: I liked this book. I wouldn't call it a ROMANCE novel - it was NOT, but it was sort of that style... except the writing was good. Definitely, it was a book for women, being about four women who had gone to college together some 30 odd years earlier and who had taken a raft trip down the Mississippi River with a large group of girls they went to college with. They got together for a Riverboat Cruise to have a memorial for the fifth friend, Baby, who had recently died.

The story went back and forth between the stories of the women on the trip, Baby, and a few other characters. I don't usually like all of that back and forth stuff, but it was well done and the stories of the women were interesting. One thing always pops into my mind, though, and that is why does every single person in every single story have to have some problem or secret or woe or whatever lying in the background of their psyche? I just DO NOT get this. Can't ANYONE ever be happy in their marriage, not have a deadly disease, be able to love, be loved, whatever? Is no one really happy? I understand that just reading about someone being happy might not be such a great story, but when your story is about so many people, couldn't one of them just be "normal" and "happy"? Just something I think about. Anyway, the story included a lot of history about the Mississippi and surrounding areas, which I enjoyed, but it was truly a story of women and of friendships and of how people change and how they stay the same. I was disappointed not to see more of a connection between the women who, as "girls" had been so close, but it was a nice story and I enjoyed it.

I listened to the audio version of the book and it was narrated by the author. I think you get a truer narration when the author does it because they know just the way they want you to hear it. I recommend the story to those who enjoy this type of female literature.

Rating:
Summary: It could have been so much better
Review: I was very dissappointed in this book, maybe because the premise was so intriguiging to me. I expected to read much more about the first boat trip and what transpired there - I expected the events of the trip to have more long-reaching effects on the girls' lives. I wish they would have shown how the trip affected what type of women they became.

And I certainly expected to know more about all the girls on the trip and how they related with each other. Why did the author even have 12 girls on the trip? She could have lessened the number and given us more insight into their personalities and interaction.

This book focused on the individual stories of the four main characters with very loose threads tying them together. The book jacket is misleading, making the reader think the trip down the Mississippi is going to be featured in the book, when it is only referenced in passing.

Rating:
Summary: The Lost Girls, Found
Review: Lee Smith is a renowned Southern writer, winner of the 1999 Academy Award for Fiction. "The Lost Girls" is the first novel of hers that I have read. It is a story well told but sometimes too cliche. Twists and Turns abound, but no real surprises.

Five classmates from a Blue Ridge Mountain college take a homemade raft trip down the Mississippi. 35 years later these same women meet again for a steamboat ride down the Mississippi following the same trek. This time the boat trip is not for fun but to bury one of the classmates, Baby.

Margaret Ballou, nee Baby was the trouble maker/finder of the group. She was beautiful and winful. She once said she made love after every funeral she ever attended and she loved funerals. It is unclear if Baby drove off the bridge intentionally in her small town in Mississippi or if she lost control of her car. She had many instances of "breakdowns" in her her years. She had several marriages and alcohol and drugs played a big part in her life. Saying that, everyone loved Baby, everyone wanted to be her friend. But Baby picked her friends carefully and the four other women who were gliding down the Mississippi were her only real friends.

Harriet was a teacher. She has led a solitary life. First living with her mother and then alone inheriting the home they shared. She has had a few romances, but is skittish and has a big hole in her life.

Courtney, the Southern belle, living the good life. A husband who paid little attention and a lover who paid too much. She wanted both but could not choose between them.

Catherine, the sculptor on her third marriage. Her present husband did not trust her and accompanied her on this steamboat trip. Did she love him, probably not, she loved her work too much.

And finally, Anna, the romance novelist. She had many fictional lovers and other lovers in her lifetime, but she was growing older and the lovers were not there any longer.

These four women met at the Peabody Hotel, at the mouth of the Mississippi to start their trip down the Mississisppi River to New Orleans. It would be in New Orleans that the ashes of Baby would be dispersed. There would be men on this trip, stories and truths to be told and revealed. Would the lives of these four women change as a result of this adventure? You Betcha!

The novel was engrossing giving a sense of "being there". Not exciting but moving. The lives of these women were not dull and a lesson to be learned in each one. prisrob

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.

Rating:
Summary: Nicely written story
Review: The Last Girls is a nicely written story of female friendship and a journey they undertook. The characters are well developed, but I found I didn't connect with them. Once I could keep the characters stories straight, I didn't mind the flashback fashion the author used to weave the story together. I guess I just kept waiting for something to happen, which didn't. Still, not a bad book to read as long as you reign in your expectations. It is what it is; a lovely well written story about floating down the Mississippi.

Rating:
Summary: Nicely written story
Review: The Last Girls is a nicely written story of female friendship and a journey they undertook. The characters are well developed, but I found I didn't connect with them. Once I could keep the characters stories straight, I didn't mind the flashback fashion the author used to weave the story together. I guess I just kept waiting for something to happen, which didn't. Still, not a bad book to read as long as you reign in your expectations. It is what it is; a lovely well written story about floating down the Mississippi.