Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
While reading Carlin Flora’s book, I was reminded of a friend and roommate who was dear to me as the friendship with my now-husband blossomed into a dating relationship. I never invited her to our wedding and neglected to keep up our friendship. Our friendship faded away without any large blow up as we graduated and went in different directions just like those of high school with those folks who signed my yearbook "K.I.T Keep in touch." I've seen updates about her when I'm periodically on Facebook, and in the past, I had enormous guilt over the way our friendship dissolved. A nugget of truth from the research in Friendluence, though, has me feeling relief as I feel less and less emotional about our rift. Flora identified that in modern times with our networks spread out and less mutual support, we are apt to lose half of our close network members every seven years. I'm imagining my life in seven years, and it stands to reason that some of the people who I'm closest to now may not be there.Flora mentions friendship at pivotal life stages including childhood and adolescence. If you work with youth at all, I suggest picking up the book if only to read those chapters. I took notes and I'm passing it on to my former co-worker. I sent her the email with the phrase, "I'd like to buy the world a Coke and give them all a friend." Who our friends are at age 13 is a good predictor for how we function as an adult (which explains some of my ultra nerdy tendencies). With that Flora is able to transition into how our friends influence us and the benefits we gain from having friends. There is the power of social media and word of mouth. I may know of a product because a celebrity sponsored it, but I'm more likely to buy it because a friend recommended it. We are often inspired and get creative ideas through friends.I strongly recommend the book. Flora writes in a very approachable way about some unique aspects of friendship that I didn't get a chance to write about here, including how technology has changed friendships, how male-male friendships differ from female-female friendships, and how to maximize the friendfluence. There's lots of wisdom tucked into the pages like why it's a universal feeling to feel miserable and angry upon finding out your best friend doesn't think of you as her best friend and how you can befriend someone immediately upon finding out they too dislike Kanye West. Since I haven't read other books (that I can remember) specifically dealing with friends and friendship before, I expected this book to really blow me away. Friends are a huge influence in our lives, almost as great as families, and greater for certain age groups. Best things about this book are that it deals with a subject I haven't read other books about. The writing didn't get in the way, thoughts seemed to flow smoothly from one chapter to another. The book is easy to read, and that is not a criticism. Also, I adore the cover art.Worst thing about this book is that I really don't feel like I learned anything. Nor was I enormously entertained by fascinating anecdotes or examples. I love reading non fiction because I love talking about it to other people later. Friendfluence doesn't seem to have deep enough research. It felt more like a stretched-out magazine article than a book about social science. The title misleads. Nothing surprised me, and I don't feel as though I learned more about how friends make us who we are. In fact, there was only one page, page 217, that started to go into something that I hadn't thought about before, the 8 different types of friends "Connectors", "Energizers" etc. that made me sit up and feel engaged. But that was just one paragraph. Turns out it's a synopsis of another book by Tom Rath. Maybe I should read his book instead.There's nothing objectionable about this book, it's just not that informative.
What do You think about Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are (2013)?
BoringMuch of the information was not new, or thought provoking.
—ajq
Fun survey of research on friends unfortunately lacks depth.
—Chea
interesting topic overall and neat studies discussed. Nerd.
—Baya
Picked by KristaAte at Eli's in northeast.
—marce199669
