Glamour

Wow. This book was much better than I expected. I picked it up in the new books section at the library because the cover is cute! It starts off with three friends on their way, separately, to a board meeting for Glamour, the company they founded. They hate each others guts and cannot wait to duke it out. Next chapter--skip back 10 years, to when they first met in high school. They all go to the same school, where movie star's, people in government, and other rich people's kids go. Sally is the pretty one, Jane is the smart one, and Helen is the exotic one. One by one, bad things happen to each girl and this story is about how each one copes with these things themselves and with their friends...their sisters. It's about this perfect friendship, each friend with their own strengths, each one with their own problems, and how in the end, they aren't really complete without each other. This is a great book that I would definitely recommend! :)

This was a really enjoyable read! I've never read Jackie Collins, but would liken it to what I hear about her novels - big Hollywood glamour, lots and lots of money, gorgeous men and women, subplots and revenge, and lots of good lovin.' The basic plot is that 3 teen girls meet at a prestigious Beverly Hills finishing school and form a friendship that, eventually, leads them to open a store called GLAMOUR. The story follows each of the girls individually and as a group, from about age 17 to age 25. There are a lot of changes that each of the girls goes through, and the character development is really a strong point in this book. You definitely start out loving each girl - Sally, Helen, and Jane - but, by the end I, at least, really disliked one of the girls a lot. It was a testimony to the writer and how well she developed the girls' characters. There was love and romance, friendship, and an ending that was appropriate and satisfying. My only complaint .. I wish the girls had been older. I'm not 17 and doubt that age group would read this story, so the young characters felt a bit distant from me, and their exploits were hard to believe given their age. But, overall it was a wonderful escapist read and I couldn't finish it fast enough.

The three young girls meet at a posh Beverly Hills high school because they are the outsiders; undesirables not good enough to mingle with the rest of the affluent student body. Thus Texan Sally Lassiter, Englishwoman Jane Morgan and Jordanian Helen Yanna form their own pact to help each other survive the bullying barracudas and harassing sharks. However, finances force Sally and Jane to drop out and Helen is packed off in marriage to live in the Middle East. Over the next few years separately all three obtain business success with Sally a designer, Jane a corporate officer, and Haya (formerly Helen) an international carpet seller. A decade later, the trio meets in Los Angeles; where they concoct a concept to combine their skills to open up a luxurious shop GLAMOUR. While the store is extremely successful, the partners never recapture the level of friendship they had as teens and drift in separate directions while taking potshots at one another. The obvious homage to Sex and the City is throughout this intriguing character study, but Louise Bagshawe puts her own spin on affluence and trysts. The three prime players contain differing personalities. As teens they need to bond with someone in similar dire straits, but as late twenties with professional success, they no longer need one another. Although there are some cul de sac scenes that feel like padding, fans of women's modern fiction will enjoy following the exploits of three women in Los Angeles. Harriet Klausner