Sick of seeing lovebirds plastered everywhere this month? Take a look at these books and media that embrace our other most important relationship - our friendships! Galentine's Day takes place each year on February 13th, but feel free to reach out to your besties and let them know how much you care any day of the year! First coined by character Leslie Knope on the NBC sitcom Parks and Rec, we hope you'll find love and laughter in this Galentine's Day-inspired list.
Movies
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Judy, Violet and Doralee are tired of trying to make a living in a male-dominated world. Bolstered by their newfound friendship and a little marijuana, the women take matters into their own hands – and prove that misogynistic men better watch out when you mess with a group of smart, imaginative girlfriends. |
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During WWII, sisters Dottie and Kit join the women’s baseball league, becoming fast friends with their teammates despite a strong sibling rivalry. The teammates support one another through personal crises, lending a shoulder even though there’s “no crying in baseball,” and rallying around each other through difficult decisions. |
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It’s hard being a working mom, trying to be a perfect worker, perfect wife, perfect mom and perfect PTA member. Overstressed moms Amy, Carla and Kiki are determined to retake control by challenging overzealous PTA mom Gwendolyn, eventually proving that “bad moms” make the best friends. |
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Books
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Big friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close by Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman Big friendship keeps us going when everything else feels weird or lousy or just plain wrong. Big friendship gets us through our major milestones with laughter and tears (and sometimes even some swearing). Big friendship demands couch time but survives physical distance. If you’ve listened to Aminatou and Ann’s podcast, Call Your Girlfriend, you know how much these women celebrate their long-term friendship — and the work that goes into keeping it growing and going and alive. Their book Big Friendship is both a celebration and an honest look at what is hands-down the best thing that could happen to any of us. |
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Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney If you loved Normal People — or just watched the Hulu series based on the book (no judgment!) — consider this your next obsessive read. Conversations with Friends is a sharp and thought-provoking novel that explores the messy edges of female friendship. |
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Everything Here is Under Control by Emily Adrian Amanda is a new mother, and she is breaking. After a fight with her partner, she puts the baby in the car and drives from Queens to her hometown in rural Ohio, where she shows up unannounced on the doorstep of her estranged childhood best friend. Amanda thought that she had left Carrie firmly in the past. After their friendship ended, their lives diverged radically: Carrie had a baby the summer after high school, became a successful tattoo artist, and never escaped Ohio's conservative grid of close-cut grass. But the trauma of childbirth and shock of motherhood compel Amanda to go back to the beginning and to trace the tangled roots of friendship and family in her own life. Compelling and engaging, Everything Here is Under Control is a raw, honest, occasionally hilarious portrait of the complexity, conflicting emotions, and physical trauma of both modern motherhood and the intense, intimate friendships that women forge in their youth. |
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Firefly Lane By Kristin Hannah More than a coming-of-age novel, Firefly Lane is a story of love and loss, a story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It’s about those friendships that define our lives, a tribute to the person(s) who really, truly knows you — for better or for worse. This is one of those big-hearted novels that utterly breaks your heart and then fills you back up. It’s one you’ll never forget and the kind of read you’ll want to immediately pass on to your BFF. |
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Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flag Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who's in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode, who's telling her life story. Her tale includes two more women--the irrepressibly dare-devilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth--who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering good coffee, southern barbecue, and all kinds of love and laughter--even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present will never be quite the same again. “This whole literary enterprise shines with honesty, gallantry, and love of perfect details that might otherwise be forgotten.”—Los Angeles Times |
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The Girls From Corona del Mar by Rufi Thorpe A fiercely beautiful debut blazing with emotion: a major first novel about friendships made in youth and how these bonds, challenged by loss, illness, parenthood, and distance, either break or sustain. The lifelong bond between hard-hearted Mia and kind Lorrie Ann is tested by the challenges of Mia's dysfunctional family and the tragic losses that transform Lorrie Ann's personality in ways that make Mia question her views about family and loyalty. |
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I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloan Crosley *NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Reading this collection of essays feels like you're talking to your funniest girlfriend. Wry, hilarious, and profoundly genuine, this debut collection of literary essays is a celebration of fallibility and haplessness in all their glory. Crosby's strikingly original voice chronicles the struggles and unexpected beauty of modern urban life. |
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Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus Set in 1960s California, this blockbuster debut is the hilarious, idiosyncratic and uplifting story of a female scientist whose career is constantly derailed by the idea that a woman's place is in the home, only to find herself starring as the host of America's most beloved TV cooking show. Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it's the 1960s and despite the fact that she is a scientist, her peers are very unscientific when it comes to equality. The only good thing to happen to her on the road to professional fulfillment is a run-in with her super-star colleague Calvin Evans (well, she stole his beakers.) The only man who ever treated her-and her ideas-as equal, Calvin is already a legend and Nobel nominee. He's also awkward, kind and tenacious. Theirs is true chemistry. But as events are never as predictable as chemical reactions, three years later Elizabeth Zott is an unwed, single mother (did we mention it's the early 60s??) and the star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth's singular approach to cooking ('take one pint of H2O and add a pinch of sodium chloride') and independent example are proving revolutionary. Because Elizabeth isn't just teaching women how to cook, she's teaching them how to change the status quo. Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist. "Irresistible, satisfying and full of fuel” (The New York Times Book Review) and “witty, sometimes hilarious...the Catch-22 of early feminism” (Stephen King). |
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More is More by Molly Baz Grab your besties and some ingredients, and get cooking! It’s time to crank up the heat and lose the measuring spoons because the secret to cooking is hiding in one simple motto: MORE IS MORE. With intoxicatingly delicious recipes, vivid photographs, and Molly’s one-of-a-kind playful guide and whimsy, More Is More will inspire cooks to embrace a fearless mindset to level up their cooking — for life. |
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The People We Keep by Allie Larkin Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a run-down motorhome, flunking out of school, and picking up shifts at the local diner. But when April realizes she's finally had enough-enough of her selfish, absent father and barely surviving in an unfeeling town-she decides to make a break for it. Stealing a car and with only her music to keep her company, April hits the road, determined to live life on her own terms. She manages to scrape together a meaningful existence as she travels, encountering people and places she's never dreamed of, and could never imagine deserving. From lifelong friendships to tragic heartbreaks, April chronicles her journey in the beautiful music she creates as she discovers that home is with the people you choose to keep. |
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Someone Else's Shoes by Jojo Moyes Nisha Cantor lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband announces a divorce and cuts her off. Nisha is determined to hang onto her glamorous life. But in the meantime, she must scramble to cope--she doesn't even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in. "Very few authors have the power to make you laugh on one page and cry on the next. Moyes is one of them." --The New York Times |
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Swimming Lessons: Poems by Lili Reinhart *Instant New York Times Bestseller Lili Reinhart sees the world with a sensitive eye. She speaks to the delicate balance of our lives with a soft voice and a strong heart. A tender approach that lets us both comfort Reinhart and be comforted by her. Accompanied by striking and evocative illustrations, this debut collection of poetry reveals the depths of female experiences. Lili Reinhart has long been an outspoken advocate for mental health awareness and body positivity, here, we also see the work of a storyteller coming into her own. |
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We Came Here to Shine by Susie Orman Schnall Set at the iconic 1939 New York World's Fair, Susie Orman Schnall's We Came Here to Shine is historical fiction featuring two bold and ambitious women who navigate a world of possibility and find out what they're truly made of during a glorious summer of spectacle and potential. "An ode to female friendship that pulses with momentum and left me breathless." --Fiona Davis, national bestselling author of The Chelsea Girls |
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The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Ruth Hogan Once a spirited, independent woman with a rebellious streak, Masha's life was forever changed by a tragic event twelve years ago. Unable to let go of her grief, she finds comfort in her faithful canine companion Haizum and peace in the quiet lanes of her town's swimming pool. Almost without her realizing it, her life has shuddered to a halt. It's only when Masha begins an unlikely friendship with the mysterious Sally Red Shoes, a bag lady with a prodigious voice and a penchant for saying just what she means, that a new world of possibilities opens up: new friendships, new opportunities, and even a chance for new love. For the first time in years, Masha has the chance to start living again. But just as Masha dares to imagine the future, her past comes roaring back. “Despite tackling such huge topics as bereavement and cancer, Hogan’s work is filled with hope and the power of friendship.” —Evening Standard |
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Yes Please by Amy Poehler When you think Galentine’s Day, you think Amy Poehler — and not just because Parks and Rec’s Leslie Knope made up the holiday to celebrate her gal pals. Amy is the living embodiment of women supporting women, and a fierce champion of female friendships. Throughout her career, and in her philanthropic life, she has time and again demonstrated the power of using your voice and showing up to help people in need. Yes Please is the perfect mix of memoir, personal essays, and advice. She gives her readers license to say whatever they want, and be whoever they are, and to that, we enthusiastically say, “Yes, please!” |