Rating: 
Summary: Hunting and Fishing for Life
Review: I avoided this book for a year thinking , from the title, that it was another sweet potato queen epic, but was I ever surprised when I finally took the plunge and met Jane Rosenal! What a great character! Jane is so real that we can all relate to her and to the situations she encounters as she grows up to become an interesting woman. Here is a character who loves and is close to her family, who really enjoys being with her brother and sisters and parents, and who is obviously shaped by them, as well as an eccentric novelist aunt. For example, Jane is all too aware of how her family will feel--disapproval--when she moves in with a man her father's age, but is relieved when they are cordial to him. Only when close to death does her father tell her what he really thinks. Jane's story is also about growing up--and sometimes that takes longer than one might think. It is about searching for love and not finding the right one until "Mr. Right" does come along and half scares you to death. Ultimately it is about being yourself and having the confidence to be open and real and to accept the consequences if the real you doesn't make the grade every time. The Girls Guide is funny--Jane is funny--and the book has some great lines. It is also a serious and touching story about life and finding your place in it. This is a book you could easily read more than once, maybe just a favorite chapter here and there, and enjoy equally every time.
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Summary: Great Airport read!
Review: I bought this at SFO yesterday and polished it off in about 3 hours. It was a delight -- light reading and really lovely sentimental stuff about her father. I was sorry I was in a public place -- I could have had a good cry over that one!Buy it in paperback tho -- too slim a tome to spend hard back bucks on
Rating: 
Summary: a bit dissapointed.
Review: i thought this book would be much more than it was blown up to be. i dont believe that it is a 5 star book. interesting, in the beginning, but the ending completely threw it all off. i guess i just expected more.
Rating: 
Summary: This BOOK is the BEST
Review: Completely summerizes and grasps a girls world. every line i laugh at... ever word is carefrully laced and the stories are beautiful. i read it twice and loved it even better the second time. how melissa wrote this is a miracle... her humor and outlook is prescise and incredible. any one who hasnt read this book yet shouldnt waste another moment! i would never go BACK to a book ive already read and tell people how good it was... if i really didnt think it was amazing! thanks melissa!
Rating:
Summary: A good book; a great first effort.
Review: Reading The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing was an effortless pleasure. Melissa Bank's writing serves quite well as the novel's unobtrusive delivery mechanism. This, in my opinion, is one of the signs of a writer with considerable skill. More than mere vignettes, each chapter holds up as a short story in its own right, while together they work to provide the reader with a clear understanding of the book's main character, Jane Rosenal. While the gaps between each chapter a large, and the chapter focusing on the friend of Jane's aunt seems out of place somehow, I found myself captivating by the concept of only being able to uncover snippets of Jane's life, rather than being able to absorb a linear view of the entire period of her life that the book covers. More than a more traditionally written novel, this gave me the sense of being a voyeur rather than a reader, which I assume was one of the author's goals. The chapters deal primarily with snippets of Jane's life as a single women, ranging from when she was a precicious 14-year old through periods of difficulty (bad relationships; the death of her father) and finally arriving at the point where she discovers what might turn out to be the right man for her. I suppose this might be a book to be savored; to be read slowly over a number of days, a chapter at a time. Nevertheless, I could not resist reading it at one sitting which is another sign, in my opinion, of a writer with considerable skill. I am looking forward to reading more of the author's work.
Rating:
Summary: Totally entertaining!
Review: Thoroughly enjoyed this one! The characters were likable, fun and the story was engaging. It's a light and fun read.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed in S.F.
Review: What are we missing? Scratching the surface, but never had any depth. Who is coming of age in THIS America? In this book club of 30 - somethings we found very little to relate to. Jane never found, or even looked for, herself. We looked for her"self" as well. It's amazing what a good title, a Fargo-esque cover, and glowing big name reviews can do. Jane was very passive and accepting of what came to her. She may have been fishing but it was in a very shallow fishing hole. Melissa Banks offered us no real insight into who Jane was, how she felt, or what she wanted. The only time there was a hope of a connection with Jane was in the first chapter. Whatever happened to teenage Jane?
Rating: 
Summary: entertaining novel
Review: Of course this is to be compared with Bridget Jones, and many have compared it unfavorably. Although this one is obviously a more serious look at a woman's development, I don't find it to be a stronger book, just a different one. It is well written, sometimes a bit too self-consciously witty, but overall a rather realistic portrait of a young woman's lessons in life and love.
Rating:
Summary: A cute summer book
Review: It's been fun to read, but it's not what I thought it was about. My family hunts and fishes and so serveral friends gave me this book as joke thinking it was about hunting and fishing. There was a girl's guide to smoking cigars, that was really about the title. So just don't make the same mistake we did. It's about hunting for men, not animals.
Rating:
Summary: Cute book
Review: I read this book on a whim while flying across the country. At first I wasn't sure I would like it but it did quickly become very entertaining. I really like the progression of her life and seeing her change from a young girl to a young woman, trying to find the right relationship, stuggle with her parents, find meaning at work...all things we can relate to. I really wound up liking this book a lot. It was a quick read and I couldn't put it down until I was done. Thats always a good sign to me!
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