A funny and moving story told through the letters of two women nurturing a friendship as they are separated by distance, experience, and time. Close friends and former college roommates, Hilary Liftin and Kate Montgomery promised to write when Kate's Peace Corps assignment took her to Africa.  Over the course of a single year, they exchanged an offbeat and moving series of letters from rural Kenya to New York City and back again. Kate, an idealistic teacher, meets unexpected realities ranging from poisonous snakes and vengeful cows to more serious hazards: a lack of money for education; a student body in revolt.  Hilary, braving the singles scene in Manhattan, confronts her own realities, from unworthy suitors to job anxiety and first apartment woes.  Their correspondence tells--with humor, warmth, and vivid personal detail--the story of two young women navigating their twenties in very different ways, and of the very special friendships we are sometimes lucky enough to find. YA-College roommates Kate Montgomery and Hilary Liftin went in different directions after they graduated. Kate married and went to Kenya with her husband to teach with the Peace Corps, while Hilary attempted to conquer Manhattan. This book consists of their letters during the year they were separated. Kate's letters were full of life in Africa-the heat and disease, the lack of school supplies where she taught, the absence of personal and public amenities, and the political machinations of local authorities. Hilary wrote about the snow, the difficulties of finding a place to live, her attempt at a career that was never fully described, her family's complicated relationships, and her social life (or lack thereof). These two young women maintained their friendship and found comfort and sustenance in the letters they exchanged. For young adults, the appeal of this book lies in the contrasts of life in Kenya versus life in the Big Apple, in the importance of an enduring friendship, and in seeing the challenges that young people are apt to face as they make their way in the world. Pamela B. Rearden, Centreville Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. The year-long correspondence between two former college roommatesone a smart, utterly self-absorbed young Manhattanite, the other a droll yet stubbornly idealistic Peace Corps volunteerbecomes a funny, harrowing, heartbreaking meditation on life, love, suffering, and friendship. A few years after graduation, Hilary finds herself summoned to the City Hall wedding of her friend Kate, who embarks shortly thereafter for Kenya, where she and her husband will work as English teachers. The two friends pledge to keep in touch; the letters that comprise the book turn this promise into print. In the beginning, Kate pens breezy missives out of Africa, emphasizing the exotic and the comic, particularly the gastrointestinal consequences of existing on a diet of rancid goat meat and orange Fanta. But as the year goes on, Kate's letters turn darker in tone as she battles malaria, is sickened by contaminated water, and watches helplessly as her students, who are routinely beaten by school authorities, erupt into violence. In counterpoint to her friend's stories of real if temporary deprivation, Hilarys urban tales of woe round up the usual suspects of middle-class life: men she wants who don't want her, ``brutal'' commutes, endless business meetings, and, for good manure, a possibly psychotic downstairs neighbor. Though she sometimes becomes downright silly, Hilary is not blind to the ironies of her privileged situation. Instead, she champions the validity of everyday unhappiness. ``I realize how this may sound in context of the crisis in Kwale,'' she writes after a painful breakup, ``but love counts, even in warfare.'' Elegantly written, this correspondence reads like miniature essays on subjects as diverse as loneliness, clementines, the joy (and pain) of cybersex, and how to behave while one's concrete hut is being exorcised. Above all, this book affirms the power of friendship as expressed in the nearly lost art of letter writing. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. "One woman has the privilege of a happy, secure marraige while confronting the poverty of a Third World country. The other enjoys the luxuries of a big American city while struggling to find romantic happiness. In this humorous, touching, real-as-daylight collection of letters, former college roomates Liftin and Montgomery exchanged during their year apart, we see the support and humor two 20-something women can offer each other as they move down disparate paths....Many women readers will be reminded of their own intense college and postcollege friendships, and may be inspired to try to reconnect with lost friends. This is a smoothly sewn book that appeals on several levels: as engaging travel literature, as a witty exploration of modern women's lives, an