The Friendship Test: A Novel

by Elizabeth Noble

Book Overview

A beautiful story of friendship from the Number One bestselling author of The Reading Group and Things I Want My Daughters to Know They say the friends you make at college are with you for life, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060777745
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 1.0" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

I loved this book

I think this is a very good book...it kept my attention and I kept reading late into the night to find out how everything turned out...I am going to buy the Reading Group next because I think this author is a very good story teller.

A poignant and touching story about lasting friendship

THE FRIENDSHIP TEST is as soothing and warm as a cup of Twinings English Breakfast Tea. What the whimsical cover lacks in style, author Elizabeth Noble makes up for with her delightful use of British terminology --- bloke, bonkbusters, bloody bop, pub --- and her insightful look at how friendship experiences its own "passage." I found Noble's British heritage prevalent in her writing and very enjoyable to read. Friends to lovers, lovers to friends, timeless friends, temporary friends, toxic friends --- friendship can take many directions. Freddie, Tamsin, Reagan and Sarah embellish their lives over a 20-year period with friendships that survive time, tragedy and betrayal. The bond of friendship the girls form as students at Oxford University in the United Kingdom endures the passage of time and distance and proves to be an indelible part of who they are. They form The Tenko Club in their first semester. "Club rules were simple: men, children, work, shopping and chocolates --- important, but not as important. When they need you, you are there. No giving up." Freddie is an American student studying at Oxford. She is tall and beautiful and becomes instant friends with Tamsin. Her titled husband Adrian is a cad whose affair frees Freddie from a marriage that was "just not enough." Tamsin, the English mother hen, marries her college sweetheart and remains happily married throughout, naming her children after favorite authors and literary characters --- Willa, Flannery, Homer, Willoughby. Sarah is "the one men drooled over," and Reagan is the one who can't keep a man. Why? "It's no wonder, with that spiky attitude. I don't know why you make so many allowances for her, Sarah." "Because that's what you do for your friends." The reader is invited to share in the girls' memories of their beloved friend Sarah, who is tragically killed. "They talked about her (Sarah) a lot, too, which they hadn't lately. Not in the context of her death, but about the life they shared with her." Their memories of the summer they graduated from Oxford and the trip they all took together are poignant and heartwarming. "They had been the golden days." Anyone who has lost a dear friend to death will appreciate the message to remember the "golden days." Noble's simple, everyday conversations between friends about a new love, their children, the experience of giving birth, their fears and their joys are captured affectionately: "Love you, miss you, see you soon." "Love you miss you, see you soon too." "The air kissed loudly and hung up." A common conversation like this suddenly becomes more meaningful as we recall having it ourselves and remembering the friend we had it with. When Freddie's father dies and Adrian reveals his affair on the same day, the Tenko Club rallies to Freddie's side. They accompany her across the pond to Boston for the funeral and stay with her on Cape Cod as she meets her estranged mother for the first time. The possibility of a new friendship between m

Passed the test

The Friendship Test opens with Freddie having a real bad day. First, she had to drop her son Harry off at his private school. Second, on the way home, her husband Adrian rang her cell phone to tell her that he is having an affair and is leaving her for someone else. Third, she gets a call from the states and was told that her estranged father just died. Freddies two best friends, Tasmin and Reagan offer to go to the states with her to help sort things out with her fathers estate and just in time for the funeral, Matthew, the widowed husband of the fourth best friend, Sarah arrives. While these four people are in the US, several secrets, truths and betrayals are revealed and friendships are put to the test. If you enjoyed The Reading Group, I truly think you will also enjoy The Friendship Test. You will love Freddie, Tasmin, and Matthew and Reagan is someone you will love to hate.

Better than The Reading Group

I enjoyed Elizabeth Noble's previous novel, The Reading Group, but this one was even better. The characters here are more fleshed out and memorable. The novel is about 4 friends: Reagan (making American readers think of Ronald Reagan, but her name is actually taken and misspelled from King Lear), Freddie (short for Frederica), Tamsin, and Sarah. They meet at Oxford and swear to always stick together, putting each other above men, jobs, etc. Then the novel fast-forwards several years to their thirties. Sarah has died (the cause is never explained); Reagan is a prickly, ambitious lawyer; Freddie has a troubled marriage; and Tamsin is an earth mother. There's no real story line around Tamsin, and Sarah doesn't seem to have a plot function either, other than leaving her husband, Matthew, behind to get entangled with the others. The story is really about Reagan and Freddie, and Tamsin is just a listening ear to Freddie's problems. Reagan is difficult and hard to like, though not impossible, and it's easy to predict that problems in the friendship will begin with her. Therefore, the story is kind of predictable, but Freddie, Matthew and even Reagan are engaging characters, and readers will find themselves quickly drawn into their lives. Although the novel was long (over 400 pages), it went quickly. Noble develops her characters well and gives them engaging, if somewhat melodramatic, problems and lives. I'm looking forward to her next novel.

The next best thing to being with my best girlfriends!

I really believe that women are healthiest and happiest when they have great girlfriends in their lives, not just spouses, jobs and/or children. Elizabeth Noble has captured this feeling so well in The Friendship Test, and along with the hilarity and candor of women's friendships, I got a fix of British humor, which I've come to need almost as much as chocolate since the Bridget Jones books. Noble is adept at sorting out the sometimes complicated dynamics of women's friendships and does so with both pithy humor and great insight. I was charmed to by the romance of the story, too, and the sweet image of Matthew carrying a torch for so long. I read this book in two sittings, and wanted to host a Tamsin-style lovefest dinner for all my girlfriends when I'd finished. You'll love it, too.