Friends Like These

Hardcover

Status

Available

Call number

823.92

Genres

Young Adult

Fiction

Children's Books

Collection

Young Adult

Description

New York City. June, 1982. When eighteen-year-old Beth arrives in Manhattan for a prestigious journalism internship, everything feels brand new - and not always in a good way. A cockroach-infested sublet and a disaffected roommate are the least of her worries, and she soon finds herself caught up with her fellow interns - preppy Oliver, ruthless Dan and ridiculously cool, beautiful, wild Edie. Soon, Beth and Edie are best friends - the sort of heady, all-consuming best-friendship that's impossible to resist. But with the mercury rising and deceit mounting up, betrayal lies just around the corner. Who needs enemies, when you have friends like these?

User reviews

LibraryThing member miss.mesmerized

Eighteen-year-old Beth arrives in Manhattan in June 1983 with high expectations. An investigative article for her school’s newspaper secured her a prestigious internship at a newspaper and promises to become the summer of her life. However, her welcome is rather unspectacular, the apartment she

shares is shabby and she feels like an outsider. At her workplace, too, she soon feels like a stranger, her three fellow interns seem to be much more knowledgeable and move around like fish in the water. She immediately befriends Edie, an outgoing young woman of New York’s high society. Hard work, a completely new life - Beth is overwhelmed by her new life, too overwhelmed to notice that not all is what it seems and therefore, she has to learn the hard way, that New York is a shark’s pond.

Meg Rosoff has created another young adult novel that also attracts adult readers like me. “Friends Like These” tackles not only Beth’s coming-of-age but also friendship at workplaces, the precarious situation of interns and still after so many decades, women’s place when it comes to careers – it does not make much difference that the novel is set four decades in the past.

Beth is the typical bumpkin, she is inexperienced, insecure and does not know how to behave in these unknown surroundings with all the cool people. Edie quickly becomes her mentor and introduces her to the habits and lifestyles of the Big Apple. The difference between the two girls could hardly be greater, but soon, Beth comes to understand that not all is gold that glitters and that what she envies is not what it seems at first.

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, funny as well as reflective it opens a whirling world that makes you question what you really want in life. A novel of first which can be exciting and hurting at the same time.

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LibraryThing member lisan.

Interesting to read about NYC from 40 years ago when it was still gritty and cheap, but the story of women betraying women was a little tiresome. I really wish Beth would have had more of a backbone.

LibraryThing member AnaraGuard

The first page of this novel immediately propelled me into 1982 New York: gritty, hot, menacing. “You could get shot just for being in the path of a bullet. AIDS knew where you lived.” Beth has arrived here for a coveted newspaper summer internship and is completely unprepared for the

unrelenting humidity, the horrendous amount of cockroaches in her 5th floor walk-up apartment, and perhaps most of all, for Edie. Edie is Beth’s age but a world apart. A native New Yorker, she has plenty of money and lots of freedom. Or perhaps it is simply parental neglect.
Soon Edie and Beth are joined at the hip day and night, working and living together, drinking too much, telling each other everything. Beth “didn’t really mind being swept along by the force of Edie’s personality. She liked being swept along.” She observes that there was “no ceremony for when you found a lifelong friend.” Never having had such a close friend before, she relies on Edie’s opinions even when she doubts them. But then comes the next sentence: “And no divorce for when it went wrong either.” Secrets and betrayals are part of the going wrong, as Beth painfully awakens to Edie’s lies and to her own shortcomings.
This is a fast-paced read that feels as genuine as a good memoir, as truthful as a deep friendship.

Thank you to the publisher for providing a copy via LibraryThing's Early Reviewers.

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LibraryThing member RooRue

I liked it.

LibraryThing member fromthecomfychair

With a title like "Friends Like These," you know there will be problems in the friend department. Beth is a 19 year old high school grad who gets a summer internship at a New York paper before she begins her freshman year at college. The year is 1983, and AIDS is stalking the population. She

strikes up a friendship with Edie, another intern. With Edie, a wealthy NYC native, she learns about the city, men, and most of all, about friendship. Short chapters drive the novel along to its conclusion. A quick read, but not without depth. Musing on the nature of friendships.

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LibraryThing member ewyatt

Beth heads to NYC the summer before she begins college to do an internship in the publishing field. She's got a sublet that is HOT and roach infested. She's got big dreams and is ready for adventures. There are 4 interns in the program. She and Edie, a wealthy New Yorker, immediately click. Their

fast friendship isn't always what it seems and Beth learns a lot about relationships, truth, and what her boundaries are during this summer in the early 1980s. It's a quick read, a good summer pick.

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LibraryThing member sennebec

This grew on me quite smoothly. Two girls interning at a NYC newspaper in 1983. Beth is from Providence, RI, Edie from the city. Both with Jewish heritage, but completely different perspectives on it. Beth is quiet and serious, Edie the complete opposite. What evolves is a bell curve of friendship

that has Beth at times mesmerized by Edie's manic aura. By the end of the internship, Beth has moved from a roach infested apartment, to live in comfort with Edie, then when the allure fades, back to the apartment. In the process, she matures in numerous ways while Edie doesn't, seemingly trapped in a web of narcissistic helplessness. Beth has learned a lot while experiencing in a quieter way, some of the same life lessons lost on Edie. A subtle historical coming of age story that I liked very much.

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LibraryThing member oldandnewbooksmell

I just couldn't get into this. I tried a few times and even tried to audiobook, but it just wasn't for me. And that's okay - others have enjoyed it. Just wasn't for me.

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