Sheila Williams, Girls Most Likely

Girls Most Likely

Sheila Williams

Ballantine, July 2006, $13.95

ISBN: 0345464761

The invitation to attend the thirtieth anniversary of their high school graduating class has four African-American women looking back on their lives as they close in on fifty. In the fifth grade in Ohio, the in-crowd Reenie Keller rescues bookworm Vaughn Jones from a beating by a bully. Reenie introduces Vaughn to her pal Su Penn. The trio become the Three Musketeers that change into the four amigas in junior high when Audrey Taylor joins the group.

Over the next two and a half decades the quartet remain close loyal friends helping one another with life. They are there for one another when deaths strike and male troubles lead to broken dreams and marriages. They are there for one another as their offspring begin to grow up and hint at turning them into grandmothers. Now Vaughn is mentally falling apart, as her troubles seem insurmountable; Reenie feels guilty over a secret she maintains, that if revealed will destroy their camaraderie, but not revealing it will destroy her; Susan still scorns her mother for deserting her after all these years; and Audrey remains true to her martinet father's demand for perfection. Each is breaking down, but as a group they remain strong and supportive; now they need each other more than ever before.

This is a terrific look at four sisters whose friendships keep each afloat, as life has not lived up to the dreams they had when they first met. The storyline rotates between the prime players, so that the audience gets inside the heads of these realistic women struggling at forty-eight years old with family issues and middle age problems, including aging. Sheila Williams provides a strong look at middle aged women with this deep tale (see also DANCING ON THE EDGE OF THE ROOF).