The Girls from Corona del Mar

April 14, 2014
The divergent paths of two girls raised in a Southern California beach town plot the course for Thorpe’s affecting debut novel. Mia, who recounts the story of their friendship as an adult, had always cast herself as the “bad one” to Lorrie Ann’s “good one”: “She was beautiful... but I was sexy.... We were both smart, but Lorrie Ann was contemplative where I was wily, she earnest and I shrewd. Where she was sentimental, I became sarcastic.” Secrets like lost virginity and an abortion cemented their bond, but high school graduation sent the young women in opposite directions: Mia went to Yale, and on to Istanbul to study the Sumerian goddess Inanna; Lorrie Ann had a shotgun marriage, and then became a young Army widow, caring for her disabled son, eventually turning to drug addiction to cope with it all. When Lorrie Ann turns up barefoot on Mia’s doorstep in Istanbul, Mia hardly recognizes her; she can’t make sense of the way her seemingly flawless friend’s life has panned out. Thorpe unflinchingly examines the psychological tug-of-war between the friends, and delves in to the pro-choice debate and issues relating to medical malpractice to give the personal narrative heft. The result is a nuanced portrait of two women who are sisters in everything but name. 75,000-copy first printing.

June 15, 2014
Is Mia's best friend, Lorrie Ann, really a better but unluckier version of Mia herself? That's the question in this debut novel about the journey from girlhood to womanhood.Friends since they were children, Mia and Lorrie Ann are opposite sides of the same coin: "We were both smart, but Lorrie Ann was contemplative where I was wily, she earnest and I shrewd. Where she was sentimental, I became sarcastic." Growing up in the eponymous Californian neighborhood in the 1990s, narrator Mia constantly measures herself negatively against her friend with the perfect family. Lorrie Ann loyally helps 15-year-old Mia when she needs an abortion, but a few years later, after Lorrie Ann herself becomes pregnant, she makes a different decision-to marry the father, Jim, and have the baby. After a difficult labor, the child is born with cerebral palsy; and then Jim, who joins the Army partly to cover his family's medical bills, is killed in Iraq, leaving Lorrie Ann to struggle not only with money and child care, but drugs too. Meanwhile, Mia, still thinking of herself as black-hearted compared to her lovely friend, has gone to Yale, then graduate school, and found a wonderful partner in Franklin, a classics scholar like herself. The two girlfriends meet again years later in Istanbul, after Lorrie Ann has lost her suffering child to foster care and has become a heroin addict while Mia has just discovered she might be pregnant and is unsure whether to tell Franklin, who has said that he doesn't want children. Thorpe brings sensitivity to her well-trodden terrain of female friendship and dilemmas of choice, but Mia's journey of discovery about herself and her "opposite twin" feels excessively binary.A slender, overplotted account of finding emotional peace.

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May 1, 2014
Best friends since high school, Lorrie Ann and Mia couldn't be more different. Lorrie Ann comes from a happy and close-knit religious family; Mia desperately tries to take care of her alcoholic mother and troubled younger brothers. Lorrie Ann is a typical good girl; Mia ends up getting an abortion at 15. But Lorrie Ann's fortunes change after her father dies in a car accident. Shortly after their high-school graduation, she gets pregnant and marries her boyfriend; her baby is born injured due to malpractice during the birth; her husband joins the army and dies in Iraq. Eventually, she ends up in a messy and unhealthy relationship and turns to drugs to quiet her demons. Meanwhile, Mia has escaped to Yale but can't quite forget her friend, whom she compares to a goddess. As time and distance separate the women, narrator Mia recounts every time the women tried (and mostly failed) to reconnect. This literary novel will leave readers questioning the myths and realities of complicated relationships.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

March 15, 2014

Growing up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Southern California, Mia always compared herself unfavorably with best friend Lorrie Ann, who had a serene sweetness and goodness and, in Mia's eyes, a perfect family. Then a series of personal tragedies befalls Lorrie Ann and pulls the two friends in divergent directions: Mia to Yale and eventual success as a classics scholar; Lorrie Ann to early widowhood, motherhood to a severely handicapped son, and, eventually, drug addiction. When Lorrie Ann unexpectedly turns up in Istanbul, where Mia is living on a research grant, Mia must reassess everything she thought she knew about herself, her friend, and her perceptions. VERDICT This debut novel would be unbearably grim if it were not for the sardonic humor of the first-person narration by Mia, who is so likable that it's hard to see why she has such a poor opinion of herself. The book should appeal to readers who enjoy dark-edged relationship dramas, such as the works of Jane Hamilton or Wally Lamb.--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2014

Mia is a toughie who as a teenager had to contend with boy troubles, contentious younger brothers, and a heavy-drinking mother, while her longtime friend Lorrie Ann was always all sweetness and light, protected by her family. Then tragedy strikes Lorrie Ann, and she becomes a shockingly different person. With a reading group guide; this debut is making some waves.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.