Book Review: Toxic Friends The Antidote for Women Stuck in Complicated Friendships by Susan Shapiro Barash

I recently received a copy of the book Toxic Friends: The Antidote for Women Stuck in Complicated Friendships by Susan Shapiro Barash to review.


I don't know about you, but over the years I had accumulated a handful of friends that could definitely be classified as toxic. One in particular I had been friends with since elementary school (we joked we had survived being the non-cookie cutter kids there), and things were fine when we were kids... but as we got older, the insanity grew. I've posted about my biker bar flashback before, but that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. Take our border incident: girlfriend smuggled a whole bunch of Cuban cigars in the car across the border, a definite no-no back then. I have customs issues (which she knew) so of course we were going to be stopped for a random search. I spent 15 minutes saying Hail Marys in my mind discussing OSU football and NHL hockey with the customs agents while we (what am I saying we? HER!) narrowly escaped being busted when they were searching our car. To this day, I have NO clue how they missed that big box - the dimwit actually left them in the box they came in because "it was a great souvenir".

*pound head, pound head* Did I cut her off from my life after that? Nope. I seriously could have used a copy of Toxic Friends back then. Maybe I would have seen things clearer, and save myself a few more headaches.

Toxic Friends: The Antidote for Women Stuck in Complicated Friendships is a book that describes ten types of friends, then goes on to show you how you got stuck with that kind of friend in the first place - and how to get rid of the ones who are toxic from the ones who are "true" friends.

Now I'm not going to say reading this is going to cure all your lousy friendships - far from it, because you still have to have the guts or desire to walk away from the friendship - but it's an entertaining read, and a look into female friendships. (maybe that's just all the cultural anthropology classes I took, lol) It's interesting to see the differences between being The DoorMat to the User (and I'm sure we ALL have a least someone in our life who is that person - chances are, they're in your family too! LOL) to The Frenemy, and importantly, The True Friend. (I vote that The True Friend is the friend that comes and helps you bury the body.... LOL I'm kidding, I'm kidding) The book actually starts off with a little quiz you can take, kind of like a popular fashion magazine - in fact, I'd say this book is geared to the 20-30 crowd, maybe a little older too, but more for them.

If you're curious, I finally cut that friend up there out of my life right after I was married and she made yet another not-so nice comment about my husband. I hit my breaking point. Do I miss her? Honestly - no. I can't even imagine her in my life anymore. Whether that's a product of just the complete 180 it seems like my life has taken from when I was 18, for instance, I'm not really sure. But I definitely am sure that things are lot less drama filled without her around! ;)

Toxic Friends: The Antidote for Women Stuck in Complicated Friendships retails for $24.99, and can be purchased at your local bookstore. Amazon has it on sale right now for $16.49.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of the above book for free to review, but the opinions expressed are my own.