According to Worldometer, there are about 7.9 billion people on the planet. The United States population is about 4% of that, at around 330 million. Illinois, where I live, houses just under 4% of the U.S. population with about 12.7 million. Nearly 75% of Illinois’ population (9.5 million) is the Chicago metropolitan area, also where I live. So the area I live in makes up about 0.1% of the world population. Small world?

That’s a pretty small percentage, and yet, 9.5 million people doesn’t feel very small at all. So when I come upon “small world” experiences, they still kind of make me scratch my head and wonder how many of us are connected in the most random ways.

One of the families on our street growing up had four kids—one girl, three boys: Russ, Patricia, Randy, and Roger. Russ was older than all of us, and my sister and I spent a lot of time hanging out with Patricia. She was ahead of my sister in school. My sister was in the same grade as Randy. I was a couple years behind, and Roger was the same age as my brother four years behind me. With me so far?

Randy and I ended up attending the same college, where I met my best friend Stephanie and Randy met his future wife Carol Anne. Stephanie and Carol Anne were both in the same major and became good friends, so much so that Stephanie stood up in their wedding. When the wedding photos came in, Stephanie and I both wanted to see them, so we met Randy and Carol Anne at Russ’s house to look through the pictures together.

At one point in the middle of the conversation, Russ told us all to stop. He pointed to me and Randy and said, “I know how you two know each other.” Then he pointed to Randy and Stephanie and said, “I know how you two know each other.” But then he pointed to Stephanie and me with complete confusion and asked, “How do you two know each other?”

Small world.

Probably the best small world story I have started out a little embarrassing. When we were in college and for quite a few years post-college, Stephanie’s family had a summer cottage in Michigan where I happily spent a lot of weekends. I also used to spend a week at a camp in Michigan, just a few exits down the highway. One year, Stephanie suggested that I invite several of the other camp staff members to stay at the cottage the night before we had to be at the camp. We could hang out at the beach, build a bonfire, have a few drinks. It was a generous invitation and a great idea because it would save us a lot of time in the morning.

I picked up a couple of my fellow staff members and we headed to Michigan. When we arrived at the cottage, Stephanie came out to the porch to greet us. When my friend Kevin got out of the car, Stephanie pointed at him and blurted out, “You were the nerd!” I was mortified! This was so out of character for Stephanie, and it was the first time she had ever met Kevin. And then Kevin responded: “You’re Stephanie from the train!”

And then it clicked. I had known Kevin since we were kids going to the camp. Stephanie (and then Stephanie and I) rode the train downtown for work with Jeff, who Stephanie had gone to high school with. Kevin and Jeff did community theater together, so Stephanie went to the shows to see Jeff perform. Kevin had been the lead in a show called (you guessed it) The Nerd.

Small world.

I finished a book recently that had a couple of these small world elements, although not in a good way. But the book itself…well that was very good.

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Book Review

⭐⭐⭐⭐
4 Stars for One of the Girls by Lucy Clarke

432 pages
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication Date: June 28, 2022
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

Publisher’s Description

It was supposed to be the perfect weekend away. Six very different women travel to a sun-soaked Greek island for a bachelorette trip, to celebrate Lexi’s upcoming wedding. From the glorious ocean views to the quaint tavernas and whitewashed streets, the vacation seems too good to be true. But dangerous undercurrents run beneath the sunset swims and midnight cocktails—because each of the women is hiding a secret. Someone is determined to make sure that Lexi’s marriage never happens—and that one of them doesn’t leave the island alive.

Gripping, twisty, and full of sun-soaked suspense, this timely thriller examines the joys of female friendship…as well as the deadly consequences when a relationship goes wrong.

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Main Characters:

• Lexi – bride-to-be, former dancer turned yoga instructor, engaged to Ed with the wedding four weeks away
• Bella – Lexi’s self-appointed maid of honor, she planned the “hen party” as a weekend away, used to be a nurse and changed careers to work as a jeweler
• Robyn – Lexi’s oldest friend in the group, she and Lexi welcomed Bella into their circle of friends when Bella started at their school, mother to toddler Jack and in the process of getting a divorce
• Ana – Lexi’s newest friend, they became friends when Ana attended one of Lexi’s yoga classes, single mother to a teenaged boy named Luca
• Eleanor – Ed’s sister, a sculptor and struggling with the grief of losing her fiancé the year before, just prior to their own wedding
• Fen – Bella’s girlfriend, her aunt owns the house in Greece and is planning to sell it but allows the women to have their weekend away beforehand

     

This is my first book by Lucy Clarke, and the style reminded me a bit of Big Little Lies, which I really enjoyed. I’ll be reading more by her.

The story rotates points of view between all the women. Everyone has a secret. All of them are connected. Some of them don’t know they’re connected. Some of them know they’re connected but the reader doesn’t find out until well into the story. And all of them had a motive to kill someone.

I don’t want to give away anything in this review, but one reason I knocked this down a star is that the description is actually misleading. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out who dies in the first chapter and who is responsible for the death. I never did figure it out, and I don’t think you will either…because the description is misleading.

The other reason related to brief italicized sections interspersed throughout the book that feel like they were included to intentionally deceive the reader. I was not a fan. These sections felt like previews for TV shows that are edited to make you think one thing in order to distract you until you get to what really happens. Twists make for a great book, but they need to be genuine…something you didn’t expect versus something you were deceived into believing.

Oh…and there’s a pretty big argument between Bella and Fen at the airport as they’re getting ready to leave for the trip. There are a couple of reasons revealed for why they could have been fighting, but we never find out for sure, and I think it was a key element in the story.

All in all, I enjoyed the pace of this book. The characters were well-developed, and it definitely kept me guessing.

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