Dumped: Stories of Women Unfriending Women Edited by Nina Gaby Review!

New Book Offers True Stories of Women "Unfriended" by Other Women, A Powerful Collection by Established and Emerging Women Writers

There are 161 million women in America today, and our friendships are still as primary and universal as back when Ruth and Naomi, Elizabeth and Susan B., Lucy and Ethel, and Thelma and Louise made history. And that s what makes being dumped by a woman friend so excruciating: you expect romantic relationships to break up eventually but you don t expect it from your friendships. And when it happens, you feel as though there should be an Adele song for you but there isn t. Dumped: Women Unfriending Women fills that void, exploring the universal experience of being discarded by those from whom you expected more. The essays in Dumped aren t stories of friendship dying a mutually agreed upon death, or of falling out of touch and reconnecting years later to find you haven t missed a beat. These are stories by established and emerging authors who, like you, may have found themselves erased, without context. These, like your own, are stories that stay with you, maybe for a lifetime."

Getting dumped sucks—and no, we don’t mean by a significant other. We’re talking about the atom bomb of abandonment: Getting dumped by a best friend. Millions of women who know the universally-experienced-but-rarely-discussed trauma of being dumped by a close female friend can relate to the candid stories in Dumped: Stories of Women Unfriending Women (She Writes Press, $16.95 hardcover, March 3, 2015).

Twenty-five celebrated writers—including Jacquelyn Mitchard, Ann Hood, Carrie Kabak, Jessica Handler, Elizabeth Searle, Alexis Paige, and editor Nina Gaby—explore the fragile, sometimes humorous, and often unfathomable nature of lost friendship.

The essays in Dumped aren’t stories of friendship dying a mutually agreed-upon death, like falling out of touch. These are stories of suddenly finding yourself erased, without context or warning.

There should be an Adele song for this—and now, the millions of women who have cried over the inexplicable loss of a friendship can bond over the raw, charming, funny, and soul-baring stories of women who know how they feel. 

From teenagers to soccer moms, teachers to friends, Dumped is for women who enjoy Bridesmaids as much as Little Women, or HBO’s Girls as much Anne Lamott and Alice Munro. It will make women ages 16-70 smile, cry, laugh, and best of all, say “Me too!” as they learn that being Dumped by a close friend doesn’t mean going it alone.

NINA GABY is a writer, widely shown visual artist, and psychiatric nurse practitioner whose essays and fiction have been published by Lilith Magazine, Creative Non Fiction's In Fact imprint, Seal Press, Paper Journey Press, Wising-Up Press, The Prose-Poem Project, and on Brevity.com.

My Thoughts

I have never been dumped by a female friend as I really don't have any, I have been dumped by female family members for sure. Close female family, not because they moved away as children do but by a mother and sometimes it feels that my siblings have done that. Everyone has lives and these lives may create distances from them.

With that said, Dumped, is a book with stories from celebrated women authors who have experienced what it is like to be "dumped" by a female friend, whether by a note, an email or a face to face confrontation. Laced with humor and heartbreak, these are stories that all women should read. The stories are eye opening in that they tell the reader about lost friendships, betrayals and how these women overcame the loss of these relationships that are gone. I think as we get older we look back and think about how these kind of relationships that we no longer have as a very important part of our lives and how we even lived our lives after that point.

After reading this book of essays by women it may a lesson learned on how to treat our female friends and maybe rethink the reason why we may dump a close friend, giving us in insight on how we would also want to be treated. People always move on for many different reasons but a healthy relationship with another woman is a remarkable thing. This is an important book and I will be sharing this book for sure.

I received a copy of this book for review by JKS Communications and was not monetarily compensated for the review.