Beautiful Girls

I loved Beautiful Girls! I loved these wonderfully rich stories that are brimming with life. With enormous charm and humor, Bauman writes about growing up, being beautiful, or un-beautiful, and the search for love and connection. The writing is exquisite and the characters are amazingly alive. These stories reminded me a little bit of Lorrie Moore's work. This is a book I want all my friends to read. A terrific debut!

I was told to read Beautiful Girls from a respected friend. I hesitated because I do not like to read short stories. Nevertheless because the stories were short I began to read them.To my surprise, I found each story to read like a novella. The author is very talented. Each story comes full circle and most remarkably, each story has meaning and heartfelt warmth. Surprise! I remommend the book highly. It is a very good read and the author is very talented . I am looking forward to her next series of short,long or first complete novel.. I recommend Beautiful Girls highly!!

I read these short stories one story at a time, often with several days in between. I kept thinking that each one was better than the one before. Each one had an essence that evoked poignant memories of every stage of life, even though the scenes and the characters ranged widely. Each also caused at least one breath-catching realization about life that had never occurred to me before, or had a lovely twist that brought forth a sigh, or a knowing shake of my head at an "out-of-the-mouths-of babes" moment or one for how trustingly childlike we can be at any age.

I loved Beautiful Girls for its sensitive observations about being a woman today punctuated by an incisive humor. The women and girls in these stories are full of hopes and dreams, aching for something beyond their current lot. A young lawyer struggles with such mundane activities as laundry while her father slowly dies; a high school student faces the realization that she has a "lousy personality;" a woman vacationing on a tropical cruise wonders if she is suffering from "soul leakage." Ms. Bauman vividly imagines their inner lives, their pains, their longings, all with a wit akin to Lorrie Moore's, a sense of humor that simultaneously alleviates and heightens the intensity of emotions.This is an amazing debut. I highly recommend it and eagerly look forward to Ms. Bauman's next book.

What a brilliant, glorious debut for a terrific story teller. Each of the stories is absorbing, compelling, and written with exquisite pathos and humor. It is easy to dwell in the lives of her character's, feel their joy, pain, and disappointments,and easily move on with the incredibly smooth flow of this narrative.Here is one book that can't be put down, and is deeply satisfying throughout. Read this engrossing book effortlessly, and with great pleasure.Kudos to Ms Bauman. I for one, am anxiously looking forward to her second writing.