Author: Rachel Bertsche
Pages: 349
Publication Date: December 20th 2011 by Ballantine Books
Source: Library,
Link: Goodreads, Offical Website
When Rachel Bertsche first moves to Chicago, she’s thrilled to finally share a zip code with her boyfriend. But shortly after getting married, she realizes that her new life is missing one thing: friends. Sure, she has plenty of BFFs—in New York and San Francisco and Boston and Washington, D.C. Still, in her adopted hometown, there’s no one to call at the last minute for girl talk over brunch or a reality-TV marathon over a bottle of wine. Taking matters into her own hands, Bertsche develops a plan: Meeting people everywhere from improv class to friend rental websites, she'll go on fifty-two friend-dates, one per week for a year, in hopes of meeting her new Best Friend ForeverLet's be honest, the title of this book sucked me in. I too am a MWF seeking BFF. I checked out this book from the library and hadn't read until one day I wanted something different to read and started reading it, and couldn't put it down. I feel this woman's pain. Rachel relocates to Chicago as a newly wed. She gets a job and is happily married but missing one thing in her new town. Friends. How many times have I gone through this in my adult life moving and trying to make friends again. The sad thing is.. the older you get, the harder it is to make friends. Believe me I have tried.
Rachel has a goal of going on 52 girl dates in one year. She manages to find these dates in all sorts of ways. A point that Rachel mentions in the book when it gets hard to meet friends is those who have lived in the area their whole lives. They already have strong friendships that are hard to break into. Also... most of the time their whole family lives by them. Parents, siblings, nieces, nephews. I find that I run into these problems when I try to make friends to. There's a section in the book where Rachel (yes I feel like I am on a first name basis with her) talks about her writing an online article talking about seeking a best friend. A lot of people write her and she end up going on girl dates with them. I didn't really connect too much with this section because well I just would never put out an ad.
She actually sounds like she makes a lot of friends in the book. So many that she talks about needing to double up on friend dates during the week. Yet she is only half way through the year still trying to make even more friends. I felt a little bad for some of the women who didn't realize they were in some sort of a contest. I also have to admit.. I want this group of girlfriends she talks about. I love watching Sex in the City. I see these women go through life together as are always there for each other. I watch all the Real Housewife shows and just want to have that group of friends. Let's go on a girl's vacation! Though.. I suppose those women are constantly fighting.
I don't read a lot of non-fiction. Hardly ever. But this is one book I related to and practically read in one day. I would suggest that if you are even a little bit out there looking for friends as an adult to go ahead and check this book out. I did see some reviews making fun of the author for being desperate but I am guessing those people either still live in the same town with the same friends or they are just lucky and make friends easily. There were a few neat ideas in the book to try out, like using meetup.com, hiring a friend finder like a match maker, or even hiring a friend to hang out for the day. I probably would skip that last one LOL! What about you?? Any crazy friend stories??
The crystal ball says:
Sun is shinning!!! Great day to go outside and read this book.
