Rating: 
Summary: Nice Girls finish first
Review: ...in this deliciously accurate and entertaining tale of six thirty plus women who gather on a snowbound Manhattan night. In vino veritas...Wine flows, the wind blows, and all the women break down and let their feelings show. I was moved to tears and shrieks of laughter. Could not stop gulping chapters! A winner!
Rating: 
Summary: What an unreal waste of time!
Review: Lucky for me, I borrowed this from the library. how angry would I have been to have wasted money on this! What could have been an AMAZING story, falls flat, dead. ONE character out of the six MAIN characters has a MINIMAL resolution to her issues. The others have NONE. ZERO. One character--one of the more interesting characters in the book--has a big "secret" that we wait most of the book for her to reveal... and when she does... YAWN! The character from Kentucky... pul-lease, did this woman do ANY research??? Be serious! Martha, who by all standards, should have had some experience to teach her something valuable... no, she is unchanged. Just a ridiculous waste of my time!
Rating: 
Summary: HUGE FLAW in the book
Review: Cunningham has a character originally from Kentucky and yet she obviously couldn't be bothered to do any research whatsoever about the area. She doesn't have the dialect correct, nor any of the attributes she gave the area. She talked repeatedly about them eating fried dough--or crullers. This is NOT a Kentucky thing at all. I don't know where she got this from. The woman spoke of her home--Slocum Hollow. No, in Kentucky it's Holler. No one says Hollow there. Also, she says that in Kentucky everyone says, "Gettin' away with it." A.) This is not an expression particular to Kentucky and B.) If someone were saying it in that part of the country, they would say, "Getting' away with hit." It's frustrating that a publishing house, editor, and agent would all miss this serious faux pas. This woman was born and raised in New York City; her bio confirms it. Did no one think that perhaps she had no clue about Kentucky culture and speech? Otherwise, the plot is fine, but it does drag at points. I felt like she was beating me over the head with certain points. I wanted to stand and scream, "I've got it! I've got it! Move on!" Not a bad read, but there are so many more worthy books similar to this.
Rating: 
Summary: Ahh, the dynamics of female friendships. . . .
Review: This book took me a while to get into, but once I did, it was worth it. Beautiful Bodies chronicles the events of one night where 6 late-thirties women, friends since their first days in NY, meet up for a baby shower. Cunningham chooses to first introduce us to each of the women by writing about their separate journeys to the baby shower, and then observes what happens when the women meet up, one by one. But the book really doesn't get started until all of them are together. I've read several books about female friendships, and, honestly, this book is one of the most accurate in describing how the relationships among female friends, particularly when there is more than two, can alternate between gentle, strenuous, compassionate, then explosive (not necessarily in that order) all in one evening. I totally saw myself and my friends in these characters, and loved how Cunningham expertly described the mood shifts as the evening progressed. I'd recommend this to any woman, as long as they are not expecting a standard plot where everything is tied up in a neat bow at the end. Unlike most of my favorite reads these days, this book isn't perfect as a beach read -- I think it would be best enjoyed on a weekend night by yourself with a great dinner and a glass of wine.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful 6 women, six points of view
Review: A refreshingly honest, literate and lovely six sided portrait of a group of friends who gather one snowy night in New York...to celebrate and examine the secrets and truths that keep them together...An ode to twenty years of female insights and comforting --A great read, and the perfect book to share with your best friend.
Rating:
Summary: Finally! A Book that Does NOT INSULT WOMEN!
Review: The women who inhabit this hilarious yet seriously heartfelt and very smart novel, are REAL women, not glitzy tv prototypes. I liked the woman who cared for her mother, the nature of the sex she sought for comfort. Finally, a book that put the erotic into prospective. There is passion here but also the realistic interludes when no one meets a man. Never read anything quite like this! My group is reading, adoring this bright, beautiful book.
Rating:
Summary: More, please -- intelligent erotica for single women
Review: Sexy is SMART here and very emotionally caring. I loved these six best friends -- they are real.
Rating:
Summary: Most Beautiful Book for Women
Review: How to be sensitive, erotic, without ever being crude? As a librarian, I loathe "chicklit" and must advise readers to head for this gem instead -- Literate, hilarious, a Vanity Fair of life in NYC. Six women, all bright and alluring, tell all.
Readers' guide.
Rating:
Summary: This is a bottle of wine book!
Review: Sip slowly, extend the pleasure. I had red wine like the women in the novel, then passed this as a birthday present to my best friend. Heaven! Finally a funny sexy novel that doesn't demean women. Smart & well written. I wish there were more stars for the joy this brings! Laugh out loud, then brood.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, Baby, a beautiful novel
Review: If you ever wondered what more you could want to know about women's secret desires and wounds, this novel will tell you -- and make you double over, laughing as well. Martha is the outrageous character of our time, parading her materialism in an endangered goat hair cape, and bleating of sex transmitted disease. Maybe hotter and sweeter and smarter than Sex and the City, which i also love.
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