Certain Girls: A Novel by Jennifer Weiner
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Book Reviews of Certain Girls: A Novel
Book Review: Certain Girls
Summary: 4 Stars
Good book, enjoyed her others more but it arrived in good condition and I was pleased.Book Review: There's nothing worse than catching up with an old friend, then being sorry that you did
Summary: 3 Stars
Reading Jennifer Weiner's "Certain Girls" was kind of like bumping into an old friend from high school or college on Facebook, getting excited about the possibility of rekindling a relationship with someone you thought was uber-cool in the past, and then being totally befuddled and oddly disappointed about the path their life has taken.
Cannie Shapiro, Weiner's heroine from her best-selling book "Good In Bed" has always been at the top of my list of fictional characters I'd love to be friends with if they ever decided to jump from the page. She was a feisty 20-something writer and self-proclaimed "big girl" that really touched a cord in me as a reader.
Needless to say, I was thrilled to pick up "Certain Girls" and rejoin Cannie on her journey 12 years down the road from where I left her. Unfortunately, Cannie seems to have kind of lost herself. After the thrilling success of her mostly autobiographical and largely scandalous book, "Big Girls Don't Cry," Cannie has taken herself out of the limelight to quietly raise her daughter, Joy, with her husband, Peter. She writes science fiction books under a pseudonym. She smothers her almost-teenage daughter. She's let herself go physically. Honestly, about halfway through the book (when I had conviced myself that I was too far in to quit now) I had a pretty vivid fantasy of physically shaking some sense into her.
Cannie and Joy are in the thick of the mother/daughter angst that most of us deal with as we're growing up. The book is written in a split point-of-view, alternating chapters in Joy and Cannie's voices. I liked this element, because I think it provided a good perspective of the complex issues facing mothers and daughters and how hard it is to communicate with almost-teenagers. But these exchanges were also hard for me to read. My little girl is only three, and my stomach still turned when I thought about dealing with similar issues with her in the future. "Certain Girls" was just an early reminder that, yes, someday soon, my pink-loving princess that adores me now will hate me with a venom I may not deserve, and will definitely not be prepared for.
As the final nail in the coffin, Weiner throws in an extremely sad event out of the blue at the end of the novel that completely took me off guard and honestly, didn't really seem necessary. I just didn't get it. Other than making readers cry (which I did - buckets) what was the purpoose? Did it advance the characters or the plot? Not really. And it kind of made me wish I had quit halfway through the book, when I was just annoyed and not yet depressed over Cannie's story.
I have to also note, the book is also spends a lot of time discussing Jewish life events, traditions, and uses a lot of traditional Jewish vernacular. Since I've had little exposure to this culture, a lot of that content was lost on me.
After this review, I'm puzzled about my own decision to give this book three stars. The bottom line is, I didn't really like this story, but I love Jennifer Weiner. I like her voice as a writer, and even though I think she might need a life coach and a good swift kick in the tush, I still love Cannie Shapiro, too. If you like chick lit or have a teenage daughter, you'll probably enjoy this book. Maybe I'll enjoy it more if I reread it in 10 years.
Book Review: Fun read, but I hated the ending
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm not a person who demands a happy ending: I loved the conclusion to "Gone with the Wind," and sequels be damned. But Weiner stretches a bit too far in bringing "Certain Girls" to a close.
The book is an enjoyable follow-up to "Good in Bed," which I also read and liked. Cannie Shapiro, happily married to her dreamy diet doctor, is now the mother of pre-teen Joy. The book alternates between the voices of Cannie and Joy - and while they're sometimes hard to distinguish, the pattern works fairly well. The normal chaos of teenage-daughter-and-overprotective-mother relationship ensues. It could have come to a very natural ending without the (SPOILER ALERT) sudden and completely disorienting death of Peter.
From then on, it's a different book. Frankly, the death of a spouse is so life-altering that it's hard to believe Weiner felt it could be dealt with in the last quarter of an otherwise light chick-lit novel. Though Joy and Cannie are brought together because of their loss, it feels like a very false and cheap way to achieve reconciliation between mother and daughter: as if the author couldn't figure out a more natural and real-life way to bring the relationship to a different place. If Weiner wanted to take on the death of Cannie's husband, she ought to have started a third book and given that topic a real go, instead of cramming it into the ending of this one. I agree with another reviewer who noted that it seemed as if she was trying to re-create the urgent ending of "Good in Bed," where Joy's premature and difficult birth changes the tone of the story. That ending worked; this one doesn't.
The first three-quarters of the book make it a worthwhile read. But, note to Weiner: next time, don't throw so much drama into the ending. Not necessary.
Book Review: Joyful No More!
Summary: 3 Stars
I have to say that after reading Good in Bed I was thrilled to know there was a sequel and because I didn't want anything spoiled I didn't read any of the reviews beyond the publishers discription. I really enjoyed the book up until the last few chapters. However, I think the book would have been better had Weiner kept it all from Cannie's view point and not Joy's. As for the ending it was simply a disappointement. Without giving it away, I am simply at a loss to understand why she wrote it the way she did. I cried for an hour straight as I read it. Part of me hoped for such a wonderful ending like that of GIB. However, even though you see a glimmer of hope at the end-the absolute sorrow of what occurs simply cannot be pushed aside. I am an avid reader and I really do not understand why authors think that we need such heavy drama all the time. This book didn't need it and I could have come up with 20 better endings than the one we got. I hope all those reading this do so with an open mind and a large box of kleenex-your going to need it.Book Review: Good but not THAT good
Summary: 3 Stars
I've been a huge fan of Weiner's work since the very beginning and I consider "Good in Bed" as one of my all-time favorite books, but Certain Girls just falls horribly short. The plot twist at the end was a horrendous thing to do to readers and more than anything it felt forced and unnatural, like Weiner needed to fill the pages with SOMETHING. It just didn't work.
Cannie's spirit is all but lost in this sequel and I couldn't believe some of the things she put up with from her own daughter. I liked the transition between Joy and Cannie, but it could have really benefited from headers to let us know who was who, like Patrick Sanchez did in "The Way it is"
Joy's character is believable at first and I liked that Weiner dealt with how the book effected Joy but her shenanigans became less and less believable as the chapter wore on and her random cross-country trotting pretty much deaded it for me.