With Friends Like These-Sally Koslow

With Friends Like These
Sally Koslow
Ballantine, Aug 10 210, $25.00
ISBN: 9780345506221

The foursome met in the 1990s when they became apartment mates sharing the costs of rent in Manhattan. Over the years, they went their separate ways, but Quincy, Talia, Chloe, and Jules remain friends although their lifestyles are different from those single days in New York.

Chloe married a Wall Street hedge fund manager while Talia wedded a teacher with a healthy trust fund. Both have preschool aged sons while also job sharing a copy-writing position. They were best friends until Talia went after a job that should have gone to Chloe. Quincy and Jules remain childless. They were best friends until Jules gave away Quncy’s real estate deal to her boyfriend.

Each is confronting their forties with men in their lives who seem at times too powerful and too inadequate. Arthur admires Jules but fails to act beyond friendship. Tom hides in the academic world while Talia anchors them in gritty reality. Xander demands timorous Chloe be at his side at parties and other events. Jake tries to be there for his Quincy, whose life is filled with tragedy. Now the quartet has reconnected.

This is a warm tale that focuses on the value of friendship in the good times and especially the bad moments that everyone faces. The lead four females are totally different in personality, but each holds up their perspective rotated between them. The men in their lives are also diverse with differing degrees of demands on the women in their lives. Although nothing new to the sisterhood theme is added, readers will enjoy this intelligent salute to friendship due to the strong ensemble cast.

Harriet Klausner