As Young as We Feel

A Novel
The Four Lindas Book One
Melody Carlson
2010
Fiction/Contemporary
David C. Cook

Reviewed by Cindy Loven

Reunited after years apart, at their thirty-fifth high school reunion, four friends who all started school together forty seven years ago, were all named Linda.  To avoid confusion they started going by their middle names and never really used their name Linda, but they did start the "four Lindas club."  It was cute when they were little girls but as they grew up they drifted apart, but here they all are at their high school reunion.  Each one in a totally different walk in life than the other, but bound together by a thread of friendship.
The Lindas are shocked as a classmate dies of a heart attack at the reunion, and this draws them even closer.  As they discover, they are each dealing with hurts, disappointments and hardships in their lives.  Abby, while on the surface, seems to have a perfect life, with a big beautiful house by the ocean, married to her high school sweetheart,however she  deals with deep depression and feelings of never being good at anything.  Marley is dealing with a divorce, and an art career that just never went anywhere and is feeling like it is now or never to do something different with her life.  Janie, a big shot lawyer in New York City, seems to have a great life, she lives in a fancy apartment, wears designer clothes, but her life is hanging by a thread, fixing to unravel.  She is  dealing with the ache of loosing her husband to a quick illness, and then her parents both dying soon after her husband.  And if that were not enough to drag anyone down add on top of it all, a daughter strung out on drugs, Janie definitely does not have it all together.  Caroline, was always the pretty one, the popular one and the one who had gone to California to be an actress.  But the roles for a fifty something woman are few and far between now days, and the bills are paid by waiting tables in a swanky restaurant in California.  Her mother is suffering from dementia and she doesn't know what to do to handle that 
No the Lindas definitely do not have it all together.  A fun story of old friends catching up and discovering they are still friends.  You will not want to miss this book, the first book in a series, it is a fast paced book, easy to read, with a great story line.  Melody Carlson once agains wows with her story telling abilities!  330 pages $14.99 US 4 stars.

This book was provided for review purposes only, no payment was received for this review.