7 Girlfriend Books to Savor

Out April 26, The Year We Turned Forty makes lucky number three for the authors of The Status of All Things and Your Perfect Life. Maybe that’s why it follows three best friends who each get to repeat a year of their life and thereby alter their future. Will they repeat the same mistakes, create new problems, or live happily ever after? You’ll have to wait and see.

Set in 1935 in Manhattan’s Jewish immigrant community, debut novel Modern Girls, which pubs on April 5, features “modern girl” Dottie Krasinsky—a bookkeeper and loyal
daughter. She has a steady beau, a group of girlfriends, and an eye for fashion, but it only takes one imprudent decision to change everything. Unfortunately for Dottie, she’s forced to learn this lesson the hard way, prompting her to ask: How was it that out of all the girls in the office, I was the one to find myself in this situation?

In Cold Feet, Emma Moon wasn’t raised to believe in fairytale endings. Her mother wants to prioritizes work over her own daughter’s rehearsal dinner. And her father walked out on them when she was a baby. Now that she’s getting married and her intuition is telling her to run, Emma and her best friend Liv decide to take a road trip to San Francisco. All she has to do is find her long-lost father, so she can finally close the door on her longstanding family issues. The question is, will her journey bring her back home?

Three close friends. Three stories. A stay-at-home mom yearning for a career and an identity beyond her family. Another woman who would give anything for the chance to carry a child to term. And a divorcee who finds that moving on is easier than she thought it would be—or maybe not. As these women navigate life’s most challenging obstacles, they’ll have to count on each other to lead the way to happiness in The Friends We Keep.

In The Perfect Neighbors, Pekkanen’s seventh novel, she asks, How well do you ever really know the family next door? The answer: not very well. Or so it seems in Newport Cove, which just happens to be one the top twenty safest neighborhoods in the United States. And, quite possibly, the one with the most secrets. When Kellie, Susan, and Gigi welcome a new family into their quiet cul-de-sac, they begin to wonder why no one’s every invited to their house. Hmmm . . . I wonder if they’re hiding something? I guess we’ll have to wait until July 5^th to find out!

A list of girlfriend books would be incomplete without what, in my opinion, is the quintessential women’s fiction novel of all time: Summer Sisters. Drifting back and forth between the past and the present effortlessly, Blume captures the hearts and minds of readers by persuading them to invest in the all consuming bond between conservative Victoria Leonard (aka “Vix”) and wild child Caitlin Somers—better known as “summer sisters.” At the risk of sounding trite, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll go back to it over and over again.

The Patron Saint of Butterflies is possibly one of the most breathtaking and heartbreaking stories I’ve ever read. It may be categorized as Young Adult, but this coming of age tale has mass appeal. Agnes and Honey are growing up in the religious commune of Mount Blessing with the iron fisted Emmanuel at the helm. Agnes is a believer. Honey is not. When their journey takes a sudden turn, all at once, everything is at stake—faith, family, and, above all, friendship.