The Girlmance

We've all seen the buddy-buddy bromances that were made popular by such movies as I LOVE YOU MAN, but what about the girls?  Where are those books and movies with the girl friendships?   Where are the GIRLMANCES?

Girlmances are actually harder to find in literature than I thought they would be.  Most novels seem to focus on a budding romance than a friendship.  BUT that doesn't mean that I couldn't find any, so here are three of my favorite girlmances in novels.

Evie and Lish:  PARANORMALCY- If you haven't read the book, sorry, this is a spoiler.  When Lish died, I cried.  Just the raw emotion that Evie had for losing her best friend was enough to make me lose it myself.  Kiersten White created a friendship that ignored that difference in species and SHOWED you why these two were such good friends and made me believe it.

Katniss and Rue:  THE HUNGER GAMES - In a game in which everyone is your enemy, Katniss found a friendship that would show her just how real the games could be.  At first it may have looked like a big sister relationship for Katniss, but as the games went on it was clear that these two girls were equal and there to help each other out.  (yes another spoiler, if you haven't read the Hunger Games...uhhhh...then you may need to pick that up) When Rue died I felt the same fire that Katniss had.  The girlmance was so believable that I wanted to get into the games myself and fight for Rue.

Bella and Alice:  NEW MOON, ECLIPSE- I don't feel like the movies touched on this much, but I believe that the books really showed the budding friendship that had developed between Bella and Alice.  Their friendship may have started out rocky, but it seemed like once Alice accepted Bella then the rest of the Cullen clan followed.  It may not be the best example of a girlmance, but I could definitely see the life-long friendship that had developed between them.

For some reason it was pretty hard for me to find girlmances in YA literature.  I know there has to be more, but all I could think about were some friendships, but the focus was more on the romance than anything else.  With that said...it was a little easier to think of characters from television and movies who fit the "girlmance" bill.

The two that stand out the most to me from television would have to be The Sex and the City girls and The Golden Girls.  These were two series in which a group of four women's friendships lasted through rocky relationships, death, and everything else that you could imagine.  Instead of completely focusing on their romantic relationships (which seems to happen in movies or novels with the girlmance being on the side) the girlmance is the main focus on both of these shows.

Are there any other books or movies that you could think of that have a great girlmance?  Have you thought about adding a girlmance in your own WIP?  Did you know that when you google girlmance that my blog comes up?