A groundbreaking and irresistible biography of three of America's most important musical artists -- Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon -- charts their lives as women at a magical moment in time.

Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon remain among the most enduring and important women in popular music. Each woman is distinct. Carole King is the product of outer-borough, middle-class New York City; Joni Mitchell is a granddaughter of Canadian farmers; and Carly Simon is a child of the Manhattan intellectual upper crust. They collectively represent, in their lives and their songs, a great swath of American girls who came of age in the late 1960s. Their stories trace the arc of the now mythic sixties generation -- female version -- but in a bracingly specific and deeply recalled way, far from cliché. The history of the women of that generation has never been written -- until now, through their resonant lives and emblematic songs.

Filled with the voices of many dozens of these women's intimates, who are speaking in these pages for the first time, this alternating biography reads like a novel -- except it's all true, and the heroines are famous and beloved. Sheila Weller captures the character of each woman and gives a balanced portrayal enriched by a wealth of new information.

Girls Like Us is an epic treatment of midcentury women who dared to break tradition and become what none had been before them -- confessors in song, rock superstars, and adventurers of heart and soul.

I truly loved this book and intend to buy it for all of my old high school gal pals. The contribution these three (and many others mentioned in the book) made to music was and is enormous. We all struck out with stars in our eyes and Joni Michell's 'Banquet' is as germaine today as it was then. It was fascinating for a boomer like me to find out that Graham Nash was "Willy". The book forces you to drag out every single piece from that era and just revel in it. I agree with the other reviewer who found it addictive- it certainly hooked me right away. The holidays are coming and if you have a female friend in her 40's, 50's or 60's- THIS is the book to buy. Along with a stack of Cd's or a pre-loaded ipod if you have the $$. Best read I've had in awhile. Just waiting for a new Alice Hoffman, Anne lamott, Anne Beattie or Lorrie Moore!

I don't understand the negative reviews! I love Carly Joni, and Carole. This book was definitely hard to put down. If you are a fan also do yourself a favor and buy ths book ASAP! It's fascinating.

My genre. My favorite singers. When I wasn`t confused I found myself drifting off. A real snoozer...

Reading this book was like a dream. I had loved all three of these women but I didn't know the twists and turns of their lives, or the stories behind each of the songs. The whole saga, and that's what it is, of their creativity and their relationships, within the vibrant wider world of the 1960s and '70s, reminded me of Julie Taymor's Across the Universe. A dream that I did not want to wake up from. An intelligent, throught-provoking dream. What a book to share with a friend. i'm so glad my best friend gave this to me. It is full of passion and a feeling for the era and respect for these extroardinary women and what they went through. I wish I hadn't finished it. I want to read it again.

This book is desperately in need of a good editor! The only reason I gave this book 2 stars is because of all the in-depth research the author did but she clearly does not know how to write. She tries to cram as much information as she can into every page using way too many parenthesis' and dashes, which gets so confusing you have to read the sentence over to get her point. If you want to get some good information about the 60's and can tolerate her poor writing, there are some interesting facts there. The author's insights are shallow and it is hard to really appreciate what Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon accomplished because of the negative interpretation of the material she collected about them. I got the feeling that she was not born in that generation, so she had a hard time synthesizing the information that she received.