Girls in White Dresses

By: Jennifer Close

Narrated by: Emily Janice Card

Wickedly hilarious and utterly recognizable, Girls in White Dresses tells the story of three women grappling with heartbreak and career change, family pressure and new love—all while suffering through an endless round of weddings and bridal showers.

Isabella, Mary, and Lauren feel like everyone they know is getting married. On Sunday after Sunday, at bridal shower after bridal shower, they coo over toasters, collect ribbons and wrapping paper, eat minuscule sandwiches and doll-sized cakes. They wear pastel dresses and drink champagne by the case, but amid the celebration these women have their own lives to contend with: Isabella is working at a mailing-list company, dizzy with the mixed signals of a boss who claims she’s on a diet but has Isabella file all morning if she forgets to bring her a chocolate muffin. Mary thinks she might cry with happiness when she finally meets a nice guy who loves his mother, only to realize he’ll never love Mary quite as much. And Lauren, a waitress at a Midtown bar, swears up and down she won’t fall for the sleazy bartender—a promise that his dirty blond curls and perfect vodka sodas make hard to keep.

With a wry sense of humor, Jennifer Close brings us through those thrilling, bewildering, what-on-earth-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life years of early adulthood. These are the years when everyone else seems to have a plan, a great job, and an appropriate boyfriend, while Isabella has a blind date with a gay man, Mary has a crush on her boss, and Lauren has a goldfish named Willard. Through boozy family holidays and disastrous ski vacations, relationships lost to politics and relationships found in pet stores, Girls in White Dresses pulls us deep inside the circle of these friends, perfectly capturing the wild frustrations and soaring joys of modern life.

Hey, I enjoyed it!

This seemed to be more like a series of seventeen short stories with recurring characters rather than a novel. But I found each story charming in its own way. The main character changes from story to story, with some appearing as the star only once. When characters reappear in a later story, it was interesting to see how their attitudes changed along with their circumstances, since the stories take place over ten years. I did think that the description of the book was misleading. It tries to shoehorn four separate stories (chapters 10, 1, 14, and 6) into a single plot line and ignores the other thirteen stories. No wonder some readers were confused. I recommend that you listen to this book as 17 freestanding stories that just happen to be presented together.

Dull

The story went nowhere and with ~2 hours left, I finally quit. Hopefully it got better for those that stuck it out.

enjoyable beach read

If you could sum up Girls in White Dresses in three words, what would they be?

enjoyable, beach, read.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

I liked the different perspectives and the looping stories. I liked that you learned about each girl to an extent but that you still mainly focused on isabel.

Which scene was your favorite?

idk

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

nope. its a simple read. not much emotion

Any additional comments?

As a young adult woman this book is relatable. everyone getting married or looking for marriage and some people finding it in places or people you didn't expect while still the main character struggles. but each character doesn't have much depth and you end up not really caring about any of the relationships which sucks because the whole book is about relationships.

Alright

Would you try another book from Jennifer Close and/or Emily Janice Card?

No. It was a bit flat. Character development was begun on some characters and then abandoned. Definitely skewed more towards Isabella and skipped over a lot of the other characters.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Yes

Do you think Girls in White Dresses needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No

A book for preteens

I was looking forward to reading this book especially since everyone around me seems to be getting a ring on it...I thought this book would share how the characters dealt with it but it turned out they all were whinny self-centered girls who don’t appreciate people for who they are...somewhat entertaining.