Meredith, Lisa, and Ann like to tell people that they've known one another forever - and they have: their shared history began with a fifth-grade project on Incan civilization and a pledge of undying friendship.

Now, on the cusp of thirty, this unlikely trio still meets once a month at a Chinese restaurant for hot and sour soup and emotional debriefings. Meredith works in television and has fallen in love with the married host of a current affairs show. Ann toils thanklessly as an editorial assistant in a publishing house. Lisa is surviving a medical residency and looking forward to what promises to be a blissful marriage with a fellow doctor.

But none of these women can begin to imagine the ways in which life, husbands, and lovers can complicate what was once such a simple friendship. Crisp, intelligent, and hilarious, Friends for Life is a rousing celebration of female lives and the unpredictable vagaries of female friendship.