The Secret Language of Girlfriends: Talking Loudly, Laughing Wildly, and Making the Most of Our Most Important Friendships

By Nadine Schiff and Karen Neuburger

A joyful celebration of female friendship in all its wild, poignant, and inspirational glory Karen Neuburger has spent the past ten years collecting stories of love, laughter, and inspiration between girlfriends from the thousands of women she comes in contact with through her work as the founder of an immensely popular lifestyle company. Often funny, sometimes sad, but always enlightening and uplifting, these testimonials show that in a world where women are constantly being pulled in several directions, they can always rely on their girlfriends to be there for them.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1401301630
• ISBN13: 9781401301637
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 6.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

I now know what this girlfriend thing is all about

I expected one of those easy, fun, skim-the-surface reads when THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF GIRLFRIENDS arrived in my mailbox recently. Before even opening the envelope, I was already imagining something along the lines of those tacky TV "chick shows" about the pitfalls of Internet romance, the miracle of cosmetic makeovers, breathless tell-all forums on perfect love-making, how to shop for shoes, etc. etc. In other words, I was expecting style, self-absorption and perhaps some cynical wit. But substance? Soul-stirring inspiration? Genuine cosmic insight? After all, we're talking girlfriends here --- you know, the kind of relationships formed in high school washrooms, in shopping malls, over interminable phone calls that drove our parents mad. But now it's confession and celebration time. I was wrong --- and I was never happier to be wrong. You see, I couldn't actually reach the mailbox to get Karen Neuberger's wonderful revelation about female friendship. Thanks to some rogue bacterium, a minor leg injury went terribly wrong, leaving me miserably chair-bound, very sore, frustrated at my doctor's orders to choke down those antibiotics, and not a little worried about the long-term effects on my mobility. It was a visiting girlfriend who cleared my mailbox, made coffee, did my dishes, even fed the cat, and then sat down and kept me company all evening with some of the best conversation I'd had in ages. And of course she told all the other girlfriends. I had become a team project! A few days later, as I was deeply immersed in the anecdotes and insight of THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF GIRLFRIENDS, another brought over dark chocolate, flowers, and an unfinished knitting project. She insisted on doing my laundry while I sorted out her dropped stitches. Then we shared the chocolate, talked, watched a favorite Britcom, talked, laughed ourselves silly, talked.... Several others joined the relay in the following days, knowing exactly what to do, when to do it, and how much. Finally, I realized that this is what it's all about, the girlfriend thing. We were living what Neuberger has packed so brilliantly --- and substantially --- into every page. I also realized that who we are as befriending and tending women has got to be genetic, uniquely hardwired into every healthy feminine psyche from the dawn of creation. And so a week-from-hell that had begun with a fearful six-hour ordeal in the local hospital ER, ended in happy tears, gales of laughter, and above all, the indescribable grace of knowing I would never be alone when some dumb luck crisis suddenly strikes. As one of my long-distance "broad squad" members reminded me during a two-hour phone call across three time-zones, it just happened to be my turn to "get the treatment" --- to be spoiled, reassured, affirmed, propped up, accepted unconditionally in my worst moods, and loved into healing. I'm still spending a lot of time with the inconvenient leg propped up, but I'm beating the blues now by reading my fav

Best Gift!

A great read! I thoroughly enjoyed every page. In fact, I thought it was so much fun I purchased a book for each of my girlfriends and plan on giving the book as gifts on our annual summer road trip to the coast. It brought up so many memories of my own experiences...I loved it! Cherish your girlfriends...Thank you Karen.

A gentle Read

I have read half of the book in just two days. It is a great read. I felt like I could relate to a lot of what was being said. The tales are of everyday women in everyday situations. It is comfortable to know that others out there feel as you do during any stage of your life.