Francesca's Focus: Girls In White Dresses

*image

There's no doubt in my mind that this will be me in the future. Unfortunately, I will not be one of the girls who gets married and has a kid early or at a normal age (what is a normal age?). I am, without a doubt, one of the girls who will attend countless bridal and baby showers while I'm either super single or being cheated on by an average looking man. He may or may not have a job. I'm just guessing at this point. All jokes aside, I don't know what my future is going to be like, but I just have an inkling that I'm going to watch a lot of my friends getting married before I do and this book has mentally prepared me to do so.

If you've never heard of this book, you've probably seen the book cover in countless stores. I'd stare at the pretty cover in Target but never bought it because I just wasn't that interested in what the back of the book had to say. On a whim, I took it out of the library and I am so glad that I finally did. The book was funny, yet poignant at times. It was disappointing to see so many things going wrong with some of the characters lives, and other points where I couldn't help but giggle at some of their antics.

Some of the characters were complete train wrecks and I did have trouble sorting out the many characters throughout a good portion of the first half of the book, but once I got into the swing of it I found the book very hard to put down. Was it the best book I've ever read? No. Was it the worst? Not by a long shot. I found it entertaining and generally pretty interesting. I'm still fairly young (okay, pretty young) at 18, so most of it didn't apply to me yet, but it sounds a lot like the stories that my older cousins tell me.

I liked that the story wasn't candy-coated and extravagant. These girls didn't live in massive, spacious Manhattan apartments with an extremely disposable income. They struggled to pay rent and had their fair share of terrible apartments. They had bad romances and drank too much cheap liquor. It wasn't a picture perfect love story that included the best, most loyal friends in the world where everyone was cheery and great. The girls were slightly cynical, sarcastic, and amusing.

I've seen reviews from people (usually women) saying that they regret reading this book. I don't regret reading this book. In all honesty, one of my biggest fears is ending up alone. I realize that this isn't a big deal, especially if I have a career or great friends, some sort of silver lining because, contrary to popular belief, you don't need a significant other to be happy. Regardless of this notion, I'm afraid of never finding somebody who's going to love me despite my off key singing and fleeting obsessions with various things. This book, though fictitious, in a way prepared me for my future. Maybe I won't get married right away or find somebody straight out of college. Maybe I won't find a job I like until long after I've graduated. Maybe I'll lose my job, or have to move away. Maybe I'll lose touch with friends. Honestly, who knows. I don't, you don't, nobody does.

I'm afraid to recommend this book based on reviews I've seen of people annoyed with them be recommended a terrible book (I didn't think it was terrible, if you couldn't tell). Put it this way, it's not the next best selling novel. It's not a thriller or anything spectacularly written with beautiful similes and metaphors. But it's real. It's how people actually act, not some cookie cutter characters who have cute quirks and no afflictions. And that's refreshing.

What book have you most recently finished?