Blue sky, green trees.

On the negative side it was slow moving and some of the plot points were painfully predictable. On the positive side it had moments where the pace really picked up, and there were enough of them to keep me going through to the end (though I skimmed).

This is a hard book to review because I loved it so much at the beginning, by the halfway point I was annoyed, and for the rest of the book I became increasingly furious.

It started out as a great story about how two grad student writers-to-be bonded instantly and deeply, forming a friendship that anyone would envy, but then it turned into a brutal read about how Lucy completely manipulates and exploits Ann's friendship over the course of decades. The depth of Lucy's neediness and selfishness is shocking. The entire relationship revolves around Lucy needing Ann to tell her multiple times a day that yes, Lucy is talented; yes, Lucy will find love; yes, Lucy will have sex again; yes, Lucy is Ann's very favorite person in the whole world, that she loves Lucy best of all. One of the most horrifying examples of this last instance was when the two of them were out to dinner with a new friend of Ann's and Lucy literally climbs onto Ann's lap at the table, snuggles into her and demands that Ann declare Lucy her absolute favorite friend - in front of the other friend! - and then refuses to get off her lap for the rest of the evening. And Ann goes along with it! I can't think of a more rude way to treat the other friend at the table.

There's also the time when they are getting ready for a family holiday party and Lucy tells Ann that her skirt makes her look like a slut, then after Ann changes Lucy puts on the skirt herself and wears it to the party; her only response is to laugh in Ann's face and tell her "Gotcha!", meaning that she just wanted it for herself and lied to get what she wanted. Also Lucy almost ended the friendship when Ann started dating a poet, even though Ann had asked permission first (!!!), because Lucy must be the favored poet in Ann's life. The entire second half of the book is filled with incidents like these.

Throughout this entire book it is made abundantly clear that Lucy has hundreds of friends, that people are drawn to her, enchanted by her. I don't doubt this for a second; but still, how? There must have been some sort of charisma to Lucy that one felt in person that just doesn't come across on the page, something that made up for her appalling behavior. I certainly hope so.