Grown-up Girlfriends by Erin Smalley & Carrie Oliver

Finding and Keeping Real Friends in the Real World.

Even when life is hectic and harried, every woman has a God-given longing for relationship, and her female friends play an important role in filling that.

Oliver and Smalley help women distinguish between self-centered, insecure, childish relationships and other-centered, healthy, “grown-up” relationships. Using personal anecdotes and scriptural principles, they explain ten characteristics of a grown-up friend and offer ideas on how readers can develop these attributes in themselves.

Finally, they tackle the tough issues of friendships, such as how to support a friend in crisis, how to work toward forgiveness when a friend has injured you, and how to determine when it is best to let a friendship go.

My Review:
Using anecdotes, Bible verses, and word pictures to describe a myriad of complex relationships, these two authors guide women toward a better understanding of how friendships grow. A Focus on the Family book.

I checked this out of my church library. I felt that with my recent move, I could brush-up my friend-gathering skills. Although comprehensive, with plenty of information gleaned from other works about the subject, I felt the material was pretty much what anyone should already know. The reader is encouraged to grow-up by becoming more like Christ.

Each chapter sums up with Reflection Questions.

If you would like to read the first chapter, click here.