Helpful Score: 13
I was not a huge fan of Girls in Trucks. I picked up it because it sounded really interesting. Unfortunately I found the writing to be rather weak. The story jumped around in time without any sort of rhyme or reason. The author would explore side stories with secondary characters, but they were never really fleshed out. I thought the side stories were rather out of place and pointless. Overall, the book just felt like a jumbled mess.
Helpful Score: 12
I didn't find much about this book to really like. The overall concept was interesting and had potential. The author is certainly very capable of writing an intensely interesting book. But I expect more from story.
Perhaps it is the aura of 'literature' that really makes this book lame. Or at least this author's vision of literary fiction. The abundance of hopelessness gets wearing. I didn't enjoy watching this 'good gir' make so many 'bad choices'. The book cover boasts the word 'charming....', this is anything but.
Perhaps it is the aura of 'literature' that really makes this book lame. Or at least this author's vision of literary fiction. The abundance of hopelessness gets wearing. I didn't enjoy watching this 'good gir' make so many 'bad choices'. The book cover boasts the word 'charming....', this is anything but.
Helpful Score: 9
Very strange book. Choppy sentences, etc. Skips around a lot and just kind of ends things abruptly and starts something new. Main character isn't that likeable, drinks a lot, smokes a lot, sleeps around a lot, a bit clueless, not even sure what she was doing or where she was going or wanted to go. A topic would be brought up and then resolved in a paragraph or two. Very hard to explain, but it was just overall an odd book.
Helpful Score: 8
This book was depressing. Lots of "F" bombs, drugs & drinking and an overall gloom. If this is pitched as real life...then maybe I'm sheltered. As someone that lives in the South...I don't usually run into people this sad. Enjoyed the style of writing and how the author moved from future to past. If you are reading this book to get a glimpse into Southern "Debs"...then pick another unless you like to read about nameless "one night stands" and alcoholics. One only truly enjoyed one chapter, "Bitsy's List" (think that's the name). I took me by surprise the way it was written but is so true...you can't simply replace someone.
This was a beach read for me and it definitely fit the smutty/ brainless list.
This was a beach read for me and it definitely fit the smutty/ brainless list.
Helpful Score: 6
Sarah is a debutante from South Carolina. While she has the title, shes never really fit well into Charleston society. As she grows up and away from her southern life, by moving to New York, she experiences the ups and downs of becoming an adult. We get to follow her through all of this, from a young child to a mother.
I really liked this book. It was witty and comforting in a weird way. I did find that it jumped around a bit, and there were some things that I would have liked answered that werent. But I loved the story. Crouch has a way to make you laugh at a situation that you really shouldnt be laughing at. I think that most women have been in bad relationships, and so on some level we can all connect with what Sarah is going through.
A truly great piece of Chick Lit. One that is easy to read and really makes you think.
I really liked this book. It was witty and comforting in a weird way. I did find that it jumped around a bit, and there were some things that I would have liked answered that werent. But I loved the story. Crouch has a way to make you laugh at a situation that you really shouldnt be laughing at. I think that most women have been in bad relationships, and so on some level we can all connect with what Sarah is going through.
A truly great piece of Chick Lit. One that is easy to read and really makes you think.
Helpful Score: 4
Depressing, the ending is rushed and seems like the author gave up.
Helpful Score: 2
Girls in Trucks is funny and sad all at the same time. The main characters are all Charleston Debutantes, daughters of the Camiellias who have left home and tried to make it outside of their mothers' rules of the south. Sarah seems to always make the wrong choices and finds herself trying to survive in New York City. Some how, she always ends up back with her "sister" debutants. The characters are well developed and the book is very entertaining.
Helpful Score: 2
While the author is skilled, the material is dark, dreary, sad, and depressing. Essentially, a young girl grows up in the south, moves to the north and becomes a druggie and an alcoholic going from one abusive/violent relationship to another. From losing her virginity as a teenager to someone she met twice to having her head smashed against a headboard during "intimacy" with her boyfriend to being coerced into a threesome to cheating and being cheated on - she has a miserable life. To top it all off, dad commits suicide and mom becomes a lesbian. It is hard to imagine people choose to live like this...and not uplifting at all. It just goes to show - you really cannot judge a book by its cover. The cover is beautiful, the inside is disgusting.
Kind of slow and very predictable.
Helpful Score: 2
I really did not enjoy this book. Not one character was a likable person. I felt like they were all over-privileged, spoiled and had no moral character at all. I finished the book hoping that the main character would become a better person along the way, but sadly she did not.
Helpful Score: 1
I tried desperately hard to get into this book. It just didn't grab me so I had to stop reading before I even finished the first chapter.
Helpful Score: 1
If I was a Southern girl, I would be insulted by this trah.
Helpful Score: 1
I wanted to know more. I enjoyed reading this book, she is witty and 'Bitsy's List' really struck me, but I wanted to know more. I tend to fall into a book as a whole and let it consume me while I read and I hate wondering why and what happened. I wish she had spent less time on some of the drug descriptions and more time on explaining bits and pieces of other lives.
This book started out really slow and never really picked up the pace but yet I found it very difficult to put down. It was refreshing, in my opinion, to read how even though girls are sent through the steps of being a lady, they still jump off the path and head in the opposite direction. Her life sounded a little bit like mine to be honest.
Excellent read... very entertaining!
This read has gotten both good reviews and some negative. So when choosing this i chose to make up my own mind as it sounded like something that i'd enjoy. It was. I did like it. Sarah grew up in the south, in Charleston, segregated and slow living, southern rules to live by. She goes away to college and makes a life away, then a death brings her back home. She sees things differently now that she is older but life in the south for Sarah still has it's bumps, which made this book quite a good read for me. I enjoy southern reads and customs and in order to enjoy the book i just disregarded the reviews and judged it on it's own merits as i read. It did hold my interest and it was a smooth read. I enjoyed the story line it was interesting. You have to give it a try if you think you may like it--i did and won another good read.
If someone described this book to me before I read it I would have been sure that I wouldn't like it. I would have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. Because of my physical disabilities I have a lot more time to read than I used to. I read this book in one day. I couldn't put it down. Most of my reading time is at night, and quite often I put a book down after the sun has come up and the birds are chirping. Girls in Trucks brings the main character, Sarah, full circle. She goes from her Southern beginnings as a Camellia, to NYC, and back home. She loses friends along the way and makes some. This book doesn't have a clear cut "happy ending," rather it is more true to life and the ending is one of hope for the future. Don't let the review by Cosmopolitan on the back scare you away, this isn't a brainless book. Sarah is a survivor and she proves this over and over again. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.
The central character, Sarah Walters, grows up in Charleston and follows her family legacy by becoming a member of the Camellias debutante society. She learns the dances and attends the functions, but when it comes to the rules of etiquette, Sarah strays off the path. She is not the good cook and obedient wife her mother wishes her to be, and makes choices that go against everything she learned in debutante school.
Sarah attends college in the North, and moves to NYC with a fellow Camellia. Sarah's job is far from the glamorous journalism career she imagined, her relationships fail, and she sleeps with men she does not care about to fill a void she does not care to explain even to herself. Before she knows it, Sarah is thirty-five, unmarried, and going nowhere fast. However, through it all, Sarah's roots lie in the Charleston debutante society she fought hard to escape, and her most long-lasting relationships are with the Camellias she thought she had nothing in common with.
I thought Katie Crouch's Girls in Trucks was a delightful read - touching, complicated, a story many women could associate with. Sarah Walters was not a perfect character, but her faults made her more real, more believable, and I found myself rooting for her to finally find some peace and meaning in her life.
Sarah attends college in the North, and moves to NYC with a fellow Camellia. Sarah's job is far from the glamorous journalism career she imagined, her relationships fail, and she sleeps with men she does not care about to fill a void she does not care to explain even to herself. Before she knows it, Sarah is thirty-five, unmarried, and going nowhere fast. However, through it all, Sarah's roots lie in the Charleston debutante society she fought hard to escape, and her most long-lasting relationships are with the Camellias she thought she had nothing in common with.
I thought Katie Crouch's Girls in Trucks was a delightful read - touching, complicated, a story many women could associate with. Sarah Walters was not a perfect character, but her faults made her more real, more believable, and I found myself rooting for her to finally find some peace and meaning in her life.
Sarah Walters is a debutante and member of the Charleston Camellia Society as were her mother and grandmother. She attends cotillion class where she learns how to behave like a lady. Behavior which includes not being seen in inappropriate places but not reporting essentially getting raped in a coat closet by the boys in the class.
She cant stand the supposed propriety of Southern society and heads for New York for college and vows to never return. While there, she has to adjust to life in the north -- not wearing skirts and the cold seem to be the biggest challenges and make her own decisions about where her life is going.
I didnt find Sarah to be a likeable protagonist. She constantly makes bad choices, especially when it comes to sex and drugs. Rebelling against her roots is making her life worse not better.
Eventually she ends up back in Charleston, pregnant with the child of a man who was essentially a one-night stand and a mother who has decided to embrace a lesbian lifestyle.
Its not a face-paced book, but I enjoyed it.
She cant stand the supposed propriety of Southern society and heads for New York for college and vows to never return. While there, she has to adjust to life in the north -- not wearing skirts and the cold seem to be the biggest challenges and make her own decisions about where her life is going.
I didnt find Sarah to be a likeable protagonist. She constantly makes bad choices, especially when it comes to sex and drugs. Rebelling against her roots is making her life worse not better.
Eventually she ends up back in Charleston, pregnant with the child of a man who was essentially a one-night stand and a mother who has decided to embrace a lesbian lifestyle.
Its not a face-paced book, but I enjoyed it.
I was really excited to read this book and then I finally got it and was very disappointed. It was not what i expected at all and had really ugly language too.
A good summer read. Well written. Looking forward to her next book.
Katie has a practical sense of humor that shines in her writing, I really enjoy reading this timeline of events and bond with the main character instantly.
Great book! The author captures the characters and the changes in their lives well.
I absolutely loved this book, when I reached the end I wished it would have kept going. The story line is great and the characters are easily relatable. I read the book in one weekend, because I didn't want to put it down.
I related a lot to Girls in Trucks. Even though I am not a debutante, even though I have never nor will ever live in New York City, even though I don't have any Camellias that I will be tied to for life, I could just relate to the main character Sarah Walters and her trials and tribulations in this coming of age story.
It is a great story and not too long, so it was a quick read. Highly recommend it!
It is a great story and not too long, so it was a quick read. Highly recommend it!
It does skip around a lot, but I LOVED this book!
