Do you think Sally, Eve, Anastasia, and Trompette change over the course of the novel, or do they simply become truer versions of themselves? Is there a difference?

After they've known each other for several weeks, Eve tells Sally, "You've turned into someone else entirely." When Sally disagrees, Eve revises: "You are the person you've always been but that person is just rising to the surface." Do you think Sally, Eve, Anastasia, and Trompette change over the course of the novel, or do they simply become truer versions of themselves? Is there a difference?

I've been thinking about this one. My perceptions of these characters definitely changed as I read the book and got to know them better.

I think you can change some things about yourself but it's a mistake to marry someone and think they will change into what you want them to be! I think that sometimes we take a path in life because that is what is expected of us, but if you really don't want to be on the path, eventually you will find a way to get out of it.

I agree with ColoradoGirl. My perceptions of the characters changed as I got to know them better; however, I suspect they didn't, in themselves, change all that much. I think we often drop away the artifice we had to carry when we were younger, not change entirely. In that sense, we become truer versions of ourselves. I don't believe it is possible to change ourselves entirely. We can try, but our true selves will come through.

I don't know if they change, necessarily, but they all gain clarity on their path forward. They were all in a lifestyle rut, but I don't think they changed or became truer versions of themselves.

I agree with the folks who've said the women didn't necessarily change much, we just got to know them better. As far as being a "truer version," I think the lifestyle change stripped away a lot of unnecessary mental clutter for them, allowing their true selves to emerge, less encumbered.

I do think change is possible in some regards, but I also think true change can require a lot of deliberate work. For example, I tend to be a take charge/take over kind of person, but over time I've come to dislike that aspect of my personality and I've tried to tamp it down. It's taken work and reflection, but I think I'm getting better at being collaborative.

All three women grow and change with these new friendships and it is a summer adventure that alter their lives. At the end of the journey (and of the book) the three women seem to have a clearer view of their future and what is going to be their next move.

Do we really change? or do we expand our lives depending on the choices we make? Isn't life a series of experiences made because of these choices? We continually change from birth forward. How often do we think "what if"? we had taken this path rather than that?
I am not sure that Sally would have gone through with her plans to leave her marriage had it not become so convenient. All of a sudden, this opportunity from out of the blue presents itself and she is in such turmoil that it seems to be the answer and it appears to have been a good one. Was this a life change or a truer version of herself? I think neither is true and only time will tell if it was the right path.

I think people evolve into truer versions of themselves more than fundamentally change. The women all faced life challenges, made choices, moved forward and evolved to handle the choices they made.

Poniesnpearls said it very well. I look at the women's evolutions a little bit like Dorothy's realization that what she was looking for (going home), she had all along. She just had to make the journey to discover it.

I think as Sally and Eve experienced life on the canals and let attitudes and expectations adjust to the simpler lifestyle they became more comfortable in their own skins.

I think they all became more themselves, more self reliant, each in different ways. Trompette realized she did not need Billy, Eve realized that her job was not everything and Sally realized she could make her own decisions and rely on herself no matter what anybody thought, including her hair dresser. So what if she decided pink highlights weren’t for her. There was an easy fix.

I feel as if facets of their characters are brought to the fore when those facets may have been obscured before this narrowboat summer. It’s like when you’re writing (or reading a memoir), you are presenting your narrator (yourself) as a persona — the you that best fits the greater truth of the narrative.