The Eleanor Roosevelt Girls

By Bonnie Charles Bluh

The powerful story of Julia and Mallory, two friends from Sunnyside, Queens. When they are twelve they form a club named after their hero, Eleanor Roosevelt . Its members are neighborhood girls,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0966482018
• ISBN13: 9780966482010
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Lyrebird Books
• Length: 225 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.8" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

A book for intelligent readers

Bluh's book is delightful. It is a warmly rendered portrait of friends' lives, loves, triumphs and tragedies through various stages of their lives. It is beautifully and intelligently written. It requires the reader to be involved from page one-not a fluff book. Hard book to put down. I just bought 5 more for friends.

an excellent story of where life takes you

bonnie bluh has written a novel that is what i would call a "fast read". fast because after you've read the first few pages, you will find it hard to put down. the novel follows several woman from childhood to adulthood. reading about how thier lives are changed by marriage, work, and just plain growing up, is fascinating. this is the kind of novel they turn into a movie, but you refer back to the book to read the real story. bring this book on vacation or to the beach, and you'll be thinking about it for months. well written and a great story.

You won't want to put this book down.

The characters in this book are well-defined and come to life under Bluh's writing expertise. You will like Julia in spite of her focused assertiveness. She is the strong woman that urges the others to fight against injustices. Like Eleanor Roosevelt? Except these injustices center around women. Laugh,cry,and cheer with and for the characters in this book. You'll want your daughter to read it,or your mother, or your husband.

send the book to Hillary Clinton

Hillary will love this book.Maybe she can champion the book to a larger audience

Bluh is a great writer whose new novel should not be missed.

This book is a wonderful reading experience. The story moves through fifty years of contemporary life from 1942 to the present. It follows the lives of the two main characters, Julia and Mallory, and the other girlhood friends who made up their social club called "The Eleanor Roosevelt Girls". The New York City neighborhood that gives rise to this story is predominantly Irish Catholic Sunnyside, Queens. Julia and Mallory are Jewish girls there and the rest of the girls are a mix of diverse backgrounds, Greek, Catholic, Protestant.The author is keenly aware of the global injustices of the latter part of the twentieth century. The macrocosm that is the background of the Holocaust is reflected in the microcosm of the treatment of females by males. The experience of growing up in this environment intersects with the growing female consciousness. The club starts out as a "social club" that takes its name from the First Lady because of her progressive and humanitarian message. But, through necessity, the girls must find ways of attacking the injustices that befall any one of them. Mrs. Roosevelt's saying, "What one has to do usually can be done" becomes their motto.The story is told in the present but switches back in time throughout. The events and experiences of the past unfold and we see how these girls, now grown to strong women, have always come to each others' aid when they were needed, to protect a friend from an injustice.Bluh is a super writer who reaches down into your guts so that you are involved from page one to the end. Bluh is not a wish-washy writer. You will find yourself laughing hysterically, grinding your teeth in anguish, raging in anger, or wiping your tears because of the beauty of the writing and the ironies of life that are shown. Her strength is in the development of relationships between her characters. She doesn't shy away from those feelings between people that others might avoid. Her style is to the point and poetic. The exposition of material is in short scenes between the characters, almost like a play or a movie unfolding itself before you in the pages of the book. A great read.