Ya-Ya Sisterhoods Stab You in the Back

According to today’s “Sex and the City ethos,” friends are there when romance falters. But in truth, female friendships “are just as complicated as marriages,” author Lucinda Rosenfeld tells Salon. That’s particularly true when it comes to envy, a theme of Rosenfeld’s new novel, I’m So Happy for You. We want to share our friends’ joy, but often can’t—and telling a friend you’re jealous can be “mortifying,” says Rosenfeld.

Writing her novel, Rosenfeld says she “was interested in the way that sparring female friendships, which people usually associate with grade school, seem to continue into women’s adulthood.” There’s the “weird power struggle to be someone’s best friend,” the self-deprecation, and the friendship breakups that can be just as “devastating” as the end of a romance. Real life isn’t "backstabbing" Gossip Girl—but it’s not Sex and the City either, writes Sarah Hepola.
(More friendship stories.)