Book Review: A Few of the Girls

I happily stumbled upon the audio version of this short story collection by Maeve Binchy. A Few of the Girls contains a variety of stories, all with Binchy's signature touch for fleshing out characters so you feel they are real people. Many of the stories focus on love, friendship, and adventure. I think my favorite one for character development was "Sandy's Suitcase," a story about a trendy woman who goes on holiday and mourns the loss of her luggage until others rally around to salvage her experience. Another sad story, of a young boy who doesn't understand what is going on around him but thinks his family is preparing a "custardy case" for his birthday, also tugged at my heartstrings. I delighted in listening to the four excellent narrators give the stories flair with their Irish accents. If you've never encountered a Binchy book before, do start with the novels published during her lifetime (Tara Road, especially, or Minding Frankie,  A Circle of Friends, Quentins, etc.) and, if at all possible, listen to them in audio form so you feel like you are right there in Ireland with the characters.