Dreams of Significant Girls is by Cristina Garcia. It's the story of three girls who become friends over the course of three summers spent at a boarding school. Viviene struggles with her Cuban background and her parent's crippling relationship. Ingrid has no expectations, doesn't follow the rules, and tries not to get caught with breaking them. Shirin is an Iranian princess who looks down on others as uneducated fools, mere commoners. I enjoyed watching as the girls grew and their struggles, but there were definitely some things that bothered me about this novel. I don't think that I need to state those reasons here, but if you read this novel, you might understand why. I liked the cover, and the names. Ultimately, the biggest problem I had was that these girls...are they really SIGNIFICANT? Ingrid certainly turns out to be. I think I enjoyed her the most, then Vivien, and lastly Shirin. As I found out, it is their friendship that made them significant. I liked the Arabian horses, Ingrid's photography, Vivien's cooking contest and her crush on Omar.
Here's a quote: "When Shirin, Ingrid, and I clasped one another in our own victory circle in the middle of that swanky hotel kitchen in Lausanne, laughing and crying and making impossible promises to one another, I believed the feeling would never end. We hugged so hard and so long that we knew we'd stay together no matter how far afield we went. If you'd asked any of us where our dreams might take us, our answers wouldn't have been as certain as knowing, in our hearts, that our friendship would last forever" (from Vivien's perspective).
