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The Necklace: Thirteen Women and the Experiment That Transformed Their Lives | 
| Author: Cheryl Jarvis
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 3964
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 0345500717
Dewey Decimal Number: 302.340820979492
EAN: 9780345500717
Publication Date: September 9, 2008
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Product Description
The true story of thirteen women who took a risk on an expensive diamond necklace and, in the process, changed not only themselves but a community.
Four years ago, in Ventura, California, Jonell McLain saw a diamond necklace in a local jewelry store display window. The necklace aroused desire first, then a provocative question: Why are personal luxuries so plentiful yet accessible to so few? What if we shared what we desired? Several weeks, dozens of phone calls, and a leap of faith later, Jonell bought the necklace with twelve other women, with the goal of sharing it.
Part charm, part metaphor, part mirror, the necklace weaves in and out of each woman’s life, reflecting her past, defining her present, making promises for her future. Lending sparkle in surprising and unexpected ways, the necklace comes to mean something dramatically different to each of the thirteen women.
With vastly dissimilar histories and lives, the women show us how they transcended their individual personalities and politics to join together in an uncommon journey. What started as a quirky social experiment became something far richer and deeper, as the women transformed a symbol of exclusivity into a symbol of inclusiveness. They discovered that sharing the necklace among themselves was only the beginning; The more they shared with others, the more profound this experience–and experiment–became.
Original, resonant, and beautifully told, this book is an inspiring story about a necklace that became greater than the sum of its links, and about thirteen ordinary women who understood the power of possibility, who touched the lives of a community, and who together created one extraordinary experience.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 The story is better than the book November 29, 2008
The story begins with a woman's epiphany: the realization that she could have what she wanted if she just shared it. What Jonell McLain wanted that day in a Ventura, California mall was a $37,000 diamond necklace. She pitched her idea to some women who might want to join her in demystifying ownership and affordability by sharing the decadent jewels.
The experiment's challenge of conventional thinking and the dichotomy of diamonds and selflessness caught my interest. I had hoped for intimate details about the thirteen women, such as what they already had in their jewelry boxes and, particularly, what made them decide to join such a curious group. There is a chapter dedicated to each woman, containing interesting stories about them, but I found the emphasis on sentimentality of what the group has meant to the women cliched at times. Some explanations for joining the group were reduced to, "the idea appealed" to her or she "had known instantly that she wanted to buy a share of the necklace."
Did some of the women's admitted feelings of loneliness spark their interest in being part of the group? Did they wonder if the other women felt that same hunger for community as they did? This may have been implied, but the book seemed to lack full disclosure. I wanted grappling with deep-rooted psychological issues with selfishness or using the necklace as therapy to end someone's history of denying herself nice things because she had thought she did not deserve them. If more risks would have been taken, Jarvis' argument for the remarkableness of the experiment would likely be more compelling.
Perhaps if I was a chick lit reader, it would have been enough. But I wanted more. I found myself skimming through trite descriptions of the attire they paired with the jewels to get to the real gems, such as how Jonell McLain was finally ousted from her self-appointed leadership role by the group or how for the past ten years of her marriage, she and her husband have been living in separate homes. McLain humourously compared the arrangement to the necklace: Nice to have but you don't need it all the time.
At one of their group meetings, a desire was expressed to make the necklace mean something more. They raised money for homelessness and started to share the necklace with women outside the group. The women whom they shared the necklace with, reported feeling loved and included in the group even if only wearing it for as little as a few minutes. Some even felt a sense that they were being rewarded for sacrifices they had made in life.
The thirteen women may very well have wanted others to experience the same joy and satisfaction that the necklace had brought them. But if they had anticipated how the others' reactions would make them feel, on whose behalf would they really be acting? And of course their motives to participate in the experiment in the first place were far from altruistic. But their experiment taught them something about selfishness. McLain wanted to demystify ownership. I think she succeeded in challenging the boundaries of ownership and, at the same time, mystifying the concept of selfishness.
 For Mature Women November 21, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
It is funny how a simple but clever idea to own a piece of something can change the lives of so many, but that is precisely what happens when 13 women decide to invest in a piece of a diamond necklace. I say piece because they get to wear the whole necklace but they only have a month a year to wear it. However, as you read through the story you will learn that for many the purchase wasn't really about the wearing of the necklace at all. Through this story, you learn what motivates women throughout their lives, and also how even though their lives may seem very different or start out very different that they can come together to find ways to make changes in the world around them.
Each story shares some aspect of the life of each of these women. They are more varied than they are alike. However, because most of the women are in their 40's or 50's they do have a lot of life experience to share. I was very moved by many of them and saw not only myself in some, but also saw many of my friends in a way I had not considered in the past.
This book provides good lessons in how little it takes to make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate, how to maintain relationships with those you care about most, and changes you can make in the direction of your own life no matter your age. I recommend this book as a way to lift your spirit and renew your faith in your fellow sisters.
Pass It On! November 10, 2008
After reading and enjoying this book and all the women involved, I passed the book along to my best friend and encouraged her to read it, sign it, and pass it on as well. I think it will be fun and interesting to see and hear how the book travels (not pants!) I did think the book, and the idea of the necklace were both excellent!
good book but overdone November 9, 2008
This was an interesting idea about 12 women who share a necklace similar to a timeshare plan at a resort. Each woman gets the necklace for one month and then it moves on to the next one's turn. The stories of the ladies were interesting but the author kept repeating the emphasis on how the necklace had changed them to the point of ad nauseum. I enjoyed the shortened version in the Reader's Digest a lot more than the book because it was straightforward and not so overdrawn. But it is a good read if you're looking for something light and easy to follow.
Heartwarming October 21, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book tells the true story of a group of women who threw in money in order to buy a lavish diamond necklace, which they agreed to pass around to each other.
Jonell was the brains behind the idea. She fell in love with the necklace in a jewelry store window and started to question why things that we love are so expensive, and why only a few can buy fancy jewelry. She decided to work out an inventive time-share program with other women she knew.
At first many of the women were reluctant. They thought sharing a necklace would never work. Some of their husbands gave them a hard time about spending over a thousand dollars on something they wouldn't actually own. Some of the women were uncomfortable entering such a close relationship with others they barely knew.
After just a few months of passing the necklace around at group dinners, though, the women realized that not only was the sharing of the necklace working brilliantly, but they got more out of the group dynamics than any of them ever could have expected.
I liked that this was a true story of women who realized that companionship was an important part of life that they had been missing. As members of this group, they were able to grow in different ways than they had been able to before, and taking part in ownership of the necklace allowed them to do more in the community than they had expected.
This book was a bit simplistic, with a chapter devoted to each of the women involved in the necklace share. I only felt a surface connection to each of the women, and thought maybe the story could have been told with more depth if just one of the women had been the focus of the story, and the necklace's history had been explored through her viewpoint. Overall, though, the story itself was heartwarming and inspirational.
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