- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (1 Jun 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747596638
- ISBN-13: 978-0747596639
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 75,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Girls in Trucks
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Gone with the Wind meets Sex and the City' Jane Fallon, author of Getting Rid of Matthew 'Full of sweet, funny memories laced with a kick of clarity and written with the beguiling voice of the South easy to read and hard to forget' Raffaella Barker 'A moving story about a funny, frank and unforgettable chick' Cosmopolitan 'There are more gasps, sobs, laughs and surprises in these pages than in most people's entire bookshelves. Love never felt so sharp or real as in Katie Crouch's debut' Andrew Sean Greer, author of The Confessions of Max Tivoli
Product Description
Meet Sarah Walters, a Camellia Society debutante with a weakness for bad ideas. Sarah's mother lectures her on etiquette but tends to get loose after a few gins. Still, Sarah tries to follow the debutante code - after all, in Charleston, manners mean everything. But it's not easy to follow the rules, particularly in the summers when she runs into boys in pickup trucks, or, later, when she moves to New York with her friends. For the Camellia girls soon learn, careers don't always go to plan and men don't always love you back: the bright future they thought was theirs dissolves into heartbreak, illness and addiction. And when a shocking event brings thirty-something Sarah back home to Charleston, she must decide where 'home' really is.
Inside This Book
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
This book traces the lives of four girls, one in more detail than the others. Following their experiences of love and life. I found that the charcters were reaslistic and felt myself warming to them. It was an easy read and also quite short as I read it in one afternoon, it was an ideal holiday book. It was quite a light book, even when it dealt with darker themes. Have to say quite a girly book though.
The only negative thing is that the booked jumped around quite a bit, back and forth through time. Into other peoples perceptions and left huge gaps in the ladies lives that would of been nice to fill in.
However thought it was a good book and will read others by the author.
The only negative thing is that the booked jumped around quite a bit, back and forth through time. Into other peoples perceptions and left huge gaps in the ladies lives that would of been nice to fill in.
However thought it was a good book and will read others by the author.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
131 reviews
27 of 29 people found the following review helpful
The Unexamined Life
15 May 2008
Format:Hardcover
Good writing, a page-turner, but there is no there there. After reading this book I feel I finally understand what the word slacker means. Sarah Walters, from Charleston, South Carolina, narrates this story about her girlhood through to her early thirties. She's into substance abuse and unkind men. The contrast of her affluent southern belle upbringing with her down and dirty lifestyle is handled with clever wit. But, the story is told too much on the surface, for me. It is a solipsistic tale, except there is no real tale--more a series of seemingly workshopped vignettes, or like a decoupage--a collage of scenes with a veneer of shellac. There are no interiors. It's as if Crouch takes the fiction writer's maxim "show don't tell" over the top and we have no idea, ever, what anyone is feeling. I found a riff on the Chinese to be offensive, even if it was triggered by Sarah's ex dating an Asian woman. One hopes it was meant to be ironic but because there is no reflection or interior expression, one can't know for sure. Equally, when Sarah and her boyfriend think it's hilarious to rent a car and drive onto the highway when they are both stoned, drinking beer and neither of them has driven in a year, it appears the reader is supposed to find this funny, too. There is writing talent here, but not enough sense of story or character. I'd be interested to see what Crouch does next, unless it's more of the same.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Promising beginning dwindles to uncertain end
29 May 2009
Format:Paperback
The author did an excellent job of bringing the reader into her world in the beginning of this book. However, about half way through, things started to fall apart, to the point where I had to wonder if I was indeed reading the same book, from chapter to chapter. I was disappointed that the freshness and pace dwindled into an aimless, disjointed mess of an end. Bottom line: I couldn't care less about any of the characters after reading the first half. Disappointing.
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Excellent story, well told
4 April 2008
Format:Hardcover
Sarah Walters grew up in Charleston trying to follow the rules. She attended Cotillion Training School to learn the dances and etiquette required of a debutante. As a member of the Camellia Society by birth, she will use these rules and skills all her enchanted life.
Sarah hears this from all directions, from her mother who drinks too much, from the Camellia Society mamas who always seem to be around, and from the other Camellias who attend Wednesday night classes.
Sarah's older sister, Eloise, is valedictorian and the most promiscuous girl in class, something she feels the need to share with Sarah. When Eloise goes away to Yale, Sarah's education also broadens. Charleston is no longer the place for her.
While Sarah learned how to serve tea, she never learned to respect herself. Sleeping around seems to be the norm, and while she feels like everyone knows the rules to this game but her, she stills wants to play.
A move to New York City with her friend Charlotte makes the game tougher as there is now more time to drink and party. Sarah spends time with the wrong men; men who are sick, or just cruel, and will let her turn herself inside out in order to keep them happy.
Tragedy in her family calls Sarah home where she realizes being a Camellia isn`t as pretty, or as safe, as it once seemed. Never the less, it is a constant-something and someone to depend on. Do the rules still apply? Can she be happy if she picks up where she left off in Charleston?
Told in a humorous voice, this is a dark tale of a young woman's endeavor to find true love and happiness. Women of all ages will identify with Sarah, if not in deed, at least in theory.
Armchair Interviews says: Well told, Girls in Trucks is a story that will keep you turning pages.
Sarah hears this from all directions, from her mother who drinks too much, from the Camellia Society mamas who always seem to be around, and from the other Camellias who attend Wednesday night classes.
Sarah's older sister, Eloise, is valedictorian and the most promiscuous girl in class, something she feels the need to share with Sarah. When Eloise goes away to Yale, Sarah's education also broadens. Charleston is no longer the place for her.
While Sarah learned how to serve tea, she never learned to respect herself. Sleeping around seems to be the norm, and while she feels like everyone knows the rules to this game but her, she stills wants to play.
A move to New York City with her friend Charlotte makes the game tougher as there is now more time to drink and party. Sarah spends time with the wrong men; men who are sick, or just cruel, and will let her turn herself inside out in order to keep them happy.
Tragedy in her family calls Sarah home where she realizes being a Camellia isn`t as pretty, or as safe, as it once seemed. Never the less, it is a constant-something and someone to depend on. Do the rules still apply? Can she be happy if she picks up where she left off in Charleston?
Told in a humorous voice, this is a dark tale of a young woman's endeavor to find true love and happiness. Women of all ages will identify with Sarah, if not in deed, at least in theory.
Armchair Interviews says: Well told, Girls in Trucks is a story that will keep you turning pages.
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