Girls in White Dresses

J. Courtney Sullivan is the author of two New York Times bestselling novels, Maine and Commencement. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, and New York magazine, among others. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Like a lot of women in America, I was awake at 4 a.m. on April 29th. But unlike the rest, I wasn’t waiting to see Kate Middleton walk down the aisle. I was reading Girls in White Dresses.

This hilarious, pitch-perfect debut more or less took over my life for three glorious days. I cancelled dinners, ignored deadlines and went without sleep, all because I could not stop reading it.

The author introduces an unforgettable cast of characters who navigate post-college life in the city. I laughed a lot while reading this novel, nodded knowingly, and occasionally wondered if Jennifer Close had been secretly reading my emails for the past ten years.

Any woman who has been a twenty-something can relate: There are first jobs (“Isabella knew [her boss] thought the Greek salad was super healthy, and for that she pitied him.”) First homes (“They hung mirrors on the walls to make the apartment seem bigger.”) First weddings (“You never want to be the first one of your friends to get married. If you are, just resign yourself to the fact that your wedding will be a sh-t show.”)

With wit and wisdom, Close captures every little detail of New York life in one’s twenties; that decade that so often begins with late nights out and ill-advised infatuations, yet somehow ends with bridal showers and babies and mothers-in-law named Button. Close leads her characters from the days of living together in cramped apartments straight through to a time when life has gotten hectic, obligations have increased, and a stolen weekend away at a beach house is the only bonding time they get.

Through it all--through drunken nights and hungover mornings, evil bosses, cancelled engagements, and that time Mary lost her mind and named her newborn baby Gertrude for three days--their friendships remain a constant.

Girls in White Dresses is reminiscent of Melissa Bank’s The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, but at the same time it’s a total original, perfectly reflecting the events of recent years: One character loses her boyfriend to a charismatic political candidate, campaigning on hope and change. Another gets married the same weekend that the King of Pop dies, and her wedding turns into a Michael Jackson tribute concert.

Only once in a very blue moon does a book captivate me as much as this one did. Read it immediately and prepare to be up all night.