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    The Girls: A Novel
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    The Girls: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Girls: A Novel
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    The Girls: A Novel

    Written by Lori Lansens

    Narrated by Lolita Davidovitch and Stephanie Zimbalist

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Meet Rose and Ruby: sisters, best friends, confidantes, and conjoined twins. Since their birth, Rose and Ruby Darlen have been known simply as "the girls". They make friends, fall in love, have jobs, love their parents, and follow their dreams. But the Darlens are special. Now nearing their 30th birthday, they are history's oldest craniopagus twins, joined at the head by a pot the size of a bread plate.When Rose, the bookish sister, sets out to write her autobiography, it inevitably becomes the story of her short but extraordinary life with Ruby, the beautiful one. From their awkward first steps, Ruby's arm curled around Rose's neck, her foreshortened legs wrapped around Rose's hips, to the friendships they gradually build for themselves in the small town of Leaford, this is the profoundly affecting chronicle of an incomparable life journey.As Rose and Ruby's story builds to an unforgettable conclusion, Lansens aims at the heart of human experience, the hardship of loss and struggles for independence, and the fundamental joy of simply living a life. This is a breathtaking novel, one that no reader will soon forget, a heartrending story of love between sisters.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateMay 2, 2006
    ISBN9781594835186
    Unavailable
    The Girls: A Novel
    Author

    Lori Lansens

    Lori Lansens is the author of Rush Home Road, which was translated into eight languages and published in eleven countries, and The Girls, which was sold in thirteen territories and featured as a book club pick by Richard & Judy in the UK. She was born and raised in Chatham, Ontario, and now makes her home in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

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    Reviews for The Girls

    4/5

    947 ratings104 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a fictional memoir of conjoined twins, sad and sweet. It is also the love story of their adoptive parents. Each twin writes her own part and part of the fascination is how two people joined at the head can still see events so differently.
    • 2/5
      This book captured me at the beginning: a conjoined twin writing her autobiography. Then the other twin chimes in - can you write an autobiography of yourself, leaving out your other, vital, half? So both girls are writing their autobiographies as they get close to being the oldest conjoined twins. The book is interesting, but dragged on forever. It took me a long time to finish, and I’m a quick reader. I got bored and wanted to stop reading about a third of the way in, but there was some suspense there that made me want to find out what happened. The ending didn’t make the whole experience of reading the book worth it. Interesting concept, but not that well executed.
    • 5/5
      I am very late to the Lori Lansens party. All my Canadian friends read this book last year, and I had only heard great feedback. I was reluctant to read it because it sounded sappy. I was curious, in a "look at the car-accident" way, to learn about the day-to-day challenges of conjoined twins. Those details are laid out for the reader, but more than that is the wonderful story of sisters, a family, and a small town.

      The girls each have very distinct personalities, they venture out in the world and make a life in their town and, without giving away any spoilers, experience the joys and the heartbreak of growing up.

      This is a beautiful, but never sappy story, told by a wonderful writer.
    • 3/5
      Somehow I liked this book even with its lack of plot. Written as a memoir, from the separate points of view of each of the twins, The Girls moved along well, and was at times funny and at times sad. I would have given it a higher rating if more had happened... I suppose that makes it more realistic, though. Most of our lives are pretty everyday hum-drum with interesting bits here and there.
    • 5/5
      Well written and a great listen. Well developed characters and will broaden the reader's mind.
    • 5/5
      I usually do not leave reviews (even though I rely on them before choosing a book). But this book was so heart touching. It was like going on a journey with these 2 beautiful people. You experience all of their joy, sorrow, and life experiences. So well written, and very well read!
    • 5/5
      Everyone should read/listen to this book. Exceptionally well written with a well paced, haunting yet joyful story. Could not put it down!
    • 5/5
      This was an easy read, but not shallow. The characters were developed well. I recommend it.
    • 4/5
      The characters seemed so real. You never got the feeling that either girl was alone. I loved the narration.
    • 5/5
      It was a Beautiful story with very Lovely writing. I wish it would have never ended.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved this story! I had no idea was it was about until I started reading it. It was funny and sad at times. The story of conjoined twins but really with separate lives within their story.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      i loved this book from the first paragraph.

      i picked it up at the library because it was on a display entitlted "books with young protagonists written for adults" along with to kill a mockingbird and a curious incident of the dog in the nighttime...

      anyway, this book is a fictional autobiography written by conjoined twins, rose and ruby. the characters were quite beautiful and i loved the the different narrartive styles of each twin.

      the book was kind of typical for the coming of age, finding the meaning of life genre, but i think the fact that the characters were not typical kept it interesting.

    • 5/5
      Wow. Serious, funny, happy, sad - very well written and narrated. One of the best books I have read recently.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      An insightful and touching novel.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      this was an amazing read. I had to remind myself that it was fiction. It follows the ups and downs of life for Ruby and Rose who are conjoined twins. You really feel involved in their life and it certainly brought me to tears at the end.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I didn't realize until I was well into this book that had I not had to read it for book club, I'd have picked it up and read it only because of its weird hook-- the novelty of a book about conjoined twins. I would have read it because of its... ickiness, for lack of a better word (and to try here to be honest). So, illuminating, then, to realize and be ashamed of my shallowness when I fell in love with Rose and Ruby, and realize unforgiveably late the wonder of these characters. A truly heartbreaking and wondrous novel. I wish these girls were real.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      "Lori Lansens at her finest! An extraordinary story - with a blend of tragedy and comedy will demonstrate how to live life to the fullest no matter the challenges, capturing every moment! "

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved this novel, written as the autobiography of Rose Darlen, a 29-year-old Canadian woman who was born in a small Ontario town (just across the border from Detroit) during a tornado, inoperably joined to the head of her twin, Ruby. Ruby writes some chapters, too. The girls' situation, as their adoptive mother Aunt Lovey terms it, is, indeed, rare and amazing and certainly very challenging. But not tragic. Not really. Rose and Ruby live lives that are, in many ways, full -- full of love and experiences and accomplishments. They have very distinct personalities and interests. Lansens' wonderfully written story made me think a lot about deformities and "situations" that seem almost impossible to contemplate. I found myself searching the internet for cases of conjoined twins, some of which were even stranger and harder to fathom than Rose and Ruby's situation. I felt sort of like a voyeur. But I couldn't help it. Rose and Ruby are characters who, I think, will stay with me. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them, and I was sad to let them go.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Read this 2 yrs ago! I'd had it for ages, read the blurb and started to read. Loved it ! About a set of cranio-pagus ( joined at the head ) twins called Rose and Ruby. Rose writes most of their story first then Ruby gradually takes over as Rose' s health deteriorate s. Loved their Aunt Lovey . So practical and strong. Wish I either knew her or was her. Got me through a really traumatic time... and after having rewritten this review from my notes think I'm going to try and get it again.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A very good book about conjoined twins and the competing desire for independence and togetherness all at once.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      An interesting story from the perspective of conjoined twins - but more focused on relationships and challenges. A little long but worth the read.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This completes my reading of Ms. Lansens books to date. I hope she has another one on the way soon. Rose and Ruby are conjoined twins born in Leaford, Ontario during “the tornado”. Their young unwed mother runs from the hospital and they are adopted by Aunt Lovey (the nurse who helped deliver them) and Uncle Stash (her down to earth slavic husband). Rose has always wanted to be a writer and decides that an autobiography of the sisters remarkable lives would be a good book. Rose chimes in that it cannot be an autobiography without her input … and this is the story. Told primarily from Rose’s point of view with snippets contributed by Ruby. Although (and I hesitate to even write this) it is my least favourite of Ms. Lansens books, it is definitely an excellent read and one I would recommend highly.
    • 3/5
      story of 4 elderly Jewish sisters in failing health in Miami beach. Quick read
    • 4/5
      Half friendship story, half family drama--because in this case it's the friendship and family dynamic between two sisters, who happen to be conjoined twins. Their respective personalities show through their writings (it's easy to tell, not just through the font changes, which character is talking at any point), and you really root for things to work out well for them. Heartfelt drama without being melodramatic.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      It took me a long time to read this novel. I was more than a bit skitterish getting into it, which says much about its power. I came to feel as though I really knew and cared about these two women, conjoined (crainiopagus) twins Rose and Ruby. Each was vividly drawn, along with those who peopled their world. I came to the end of the novel with tremendous sadness, feeling as though ending it deprived me of two dear friends. It's an excellent and worthwhile work of fiction.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The idea of a novel based on craniophagus twins (conjoined twins connected at the head) sounded fascinating. Fortunately, the book was as good as the idea of this story. Rose and Ruby are the twin sisters who narrate this story. Their combined tale is warm and realistic with its focus being love and respect for themselves and each other and living as normal a life as possible despite their situation. Somehow, I could see this as being one of those Oprah picks from her former book club. Anyway, the strength of the story comes from the fact that it shows the two girls so different that, in reading this book, one forgets at times that they are conjoined at all.
    • 5/5
      The girls are a set of conjointed twins at age 29/30 who remember their life and put it to pen and paper - or well, one to pen and paper and the other to her loved laptop. I kept forgetting that this is a fiction book while reading it. The stories are captivating. The girls seem so life-like with their thoughts and memories. Wonderful book.
    • 4/5
      Craniopagus twins, Rose and Ruby, are abandoned by their mother at birth and adopted by Lovey and Stash Darlensky. Raised in small town southern Ontario, the twins are known simply as The Girls. Their lives, simultaneously miraculous and unremarkable, are written about here in their own alternating voices. Rose, aspiring writer, observes:“I thought my story’s path would be a straight one. A simple one. After all, it is the true story of my life, to the point I have already lived it, and for which I know even the most incidental detail. But the story isn’t straight. Or simple. And I see now, as I begin to think of the next chapter, that even the truth can spin out of control. My story. Ruby’s story. The story of Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash. The story of me, and we, and us, and them. The story of then. And the story of now. How can the story of me exist without all of it?”The Girls is a difficult novel for me to review. I found large chunks of the story simply did not hold my interest. And I disliked that the girls’ “story” was really a long series of random reminiscences – too much randomness, I thought. Still, Lansens is so authentic that I felt surprised when I realized the twins are fictional. And her writing is beautiful – so gifted. The sensory language in this next passage just captivated me. “I was thinking of when Ruby and I were children, sleeping under the entwined-hearts quilt in the old orange farmhouse on Rural Route One. I was thinking of the soft bed beneath the open window. The lowing of livestock. The stinking sweet air. The mice in the corner under out chair The crows in the field. The kittens wet born. And the world beyond the whispering corn.”Recommended for the beautiful writing, with the hope that other readers will find the story more gratifying.
    • 3/5
      Different, frustrating, well written
    • 5/5
      Canadian lit at its best. A fictitious autobiography of two craniopagus conjoined twins written in two distinct voices, poignant, comic and very humane. Great storytelling.