Driving in cars with homeless men

This debut collection of short stories traces the visible and more subtle scars of four women: Serena, Frankie, Raffa, and Nat. At different points in time, the women are roommates in various combinations, inseparable friends, wistfully distant, and everything in between. What binds them above all else are their experiences of violence. Against the vivid backdrop of early 2010s Boston, their antics and heartbreaks are kept inside tiny apartments, spill onto the streets, and wander into dirty dive bars. In a particularly memorable story, one of the women is trapped in a downtown office with an abuser of a boss during the horrific explosions of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Other pieces follow the women through the overdose of a loved one, the births of their children, and the starts and stops of more than one marriage. It's GIRLS without all the privilege and a fictionalized version of Lisa Taddeo's Three Women (2019), if the three women were friends. Bringing to life some of the smaller situations that have colored the #MeToo movement, this is fierce and emphatic.--Courtney Eathorne Copyright 2010 Booklist