Rating: 
Summary: another disappointed reader
Review: I too passed up this book many times but finally bought it after being bombarded with displays, magazine reviews, and bestseller lists. It was a quick, summer read but not the charming, witty read I thought it would be. Like others, I was looking forward to enjoying a great book after I read the first chapter, but quickly became bored and disappointed as I read further on. Each of the chapters themselves had cute anecdotes but the book as a whole seemed disjointed. I would recommend it for a light read to pass time but not for someone looking for a satisfying story that leaves you wishing for more.
Rating: 
Summary: something to identify with . . .
Review: After reading and falling in love with Bridget Jones' Diary, I raced to the book store and picked up The Girls' Guide . . . Jane is someone I can truly identify with: dry sense of humor and looking for love in all the wrong places. Melissa Bank lost one star for the nondescriptives of her characters and their surroundings - I couldn't picture them in my head. The author loses another star for the section about Jane's neighbor and family - neat concept, but it never comes full circle with the protagonist. An easy, enjoyable read but not one that you "just can't put down." However, one you must finish to see that you can find real love by tossing "The Rules" out the window and just being yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Depressing and missing a lot of detail
Review: Ugh. That's exactly how I felt after reading this book, which comes across as more of a collection of short stories from parts of one woman's life. The stories are from different parts of this woman's life, but its hard to tell, because there's so many gaps in between the major events in her life, that I actually thought this was about more than one woman. The stories about her life are depressing tid bits, and make her sound like she's continually searching for something in her life, and it comes across as her being desperate. If you enjoy reading about women who are seemingly never happy, then pick this up, you would enjoy it. If you were hoping for a unique and interesting way of telling a life story, you're better off writing your own book.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: After seeing this book prominantly displayed in my local bookstore time after time, I finally bought it. I was excited at first, but my excitement quickly faded as I muddled my way through the book. I kept hoping that the book would get better, but it didn't. I agree with another reviewer that there isn't enough character development here, even with Jane. She comes off very shallow, and she's not someone I would really care to know. Another mysterious section is one of the stories in the middle of the book. The narrator is Nina, not Jane, and it doesn't really fit anywhere in the book, except she is the downstars neighbor of Jane's much older boyfriend. I kept waiting for any of the characters in that section to reappear, but they never do. Something funny does happen in that section, but you never know what the resolution is. The best part of the book is the last section where she tries to live by the oft-mocked Rules. I wish more of the book was like the last section!
Rating:
Summary: Much Better Than Bridget Jones
Review: I didn't expect to like this book because I'm so tired of books by whiney women, so I put off buying it. However, one day at the airport I decided to give it a chance (as I did Bridget Jones months ago, and was hugely disappointed by that one.) The book starts off kind of boring, almost like the writer was trying too hard to come up with witty lines, but as I kept reading I actually began to enjoy the story. The chapter about Nina doesn't really seem to fit in, unless I missed something, because she was the neighbor of Jane's aunt, but it was still a good short story. I loved the last chapter, when she is trying to follow the rules from a dating self help book--absolutely hilarious! The flow of the story gets better as the chapters progress, and the writing seems to improve as well. It definitely isn't the best book I've ever read by any means, but was an okay way to spend the afternoon. This is a really fast read, I finished it in a few hours, but I would recommend reading it--I don't think it's worth the [retail] cost, so if you can get it used on Amazon auctions, that would be a better route.
Rating:
Summary: Not an exciting read...
Review: I read this book one rainy afternoon. I was not that impressed with Girl's Guide...The first story of Jane as a 14 year old was enjoyable and I was excited to see what would happen as she grew up. I thought her relationship with the man twice her age was boring. The middle of the book dragged on and I began to lose interest. I enjoyed "Otherwise Engaged" and "Bridget Jones Diary" more than this and would recommend reading them before picking this up!
Rating: 
Summary: A quick and fun read tht also touches your heart
Review: I finished this book in record time and must say I was disappointed to see it end. A Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing was released last year during the "Bridget Jones" phenom and was highly lauded as being a Bridget spin-off which I don't think it is. While it deals with similar topics this book is different than Bridget and just a good. Girls Guide is written as short stories that link together. The central character is Jane Rosenal who we see as a tender pre-teen in the first chapter/story and then get to follow through much of her young adult life (until her thirties I believe). It is well written and each chapter takes a different tone, or as some people have said a different voice - I think this is wonderful as it shows the reader how Jane is growing up and maturing. We watch as Jane learns about love by watching her brother date an older woman and then we watch as she falls in and out of love herself and we pine with her over falling in love and losing love and desperately wanting to meet the person of our dreams. We also watch her struggle with her career goals and choices, we watch her relationships with her family grow and change over the years and we learn a little something about friendships as well. I think it is safe to say that most female readers will see something of themselves in Jane at one stage in her life or another. This book is funny, touching, warm and truly wonderful. I don't want to say too much for fear of giving something away. I will say that when this book first came out I fought reading it as I thought it would be just a knock off of some of the other popular books that came out last summer and when I finally picked this book up I realized a few things - first, that this book got fabulous reviews for a very good reason and second, that I was really glad that I finally read it. I can't wait to see what Melissa Banks writes next - maybe she'll write sequel!
Rating:
Summary: Deeper than "Beach Reading"
Review: Although some people have deemed this book great "beach reading," I think it's just as good -if not better- curled up on the couch or on a park bench. It goes deeper than simply recollecting the trials & tribulations of today's dating scene and cuts to some essential aspects of life -perhaps better appreciated without the sun, sand & surf in one's eyes! The only criticism I have was with the two stories that bore an ambiguous (at best) relationship with Jane. It's not the idea of injecting new characters and/or perspectives that bothered me, especially since the book's loose format lent itself to such exploration; it was the lopsided feeling that these choices gave to the overall work. The fact that the second of these two, "You Could be Anyone," was written in the second person added to the incongruity and potential confusion. It was a profound piece of writing, but just didn't seem to flow with the rest of the book. In spite of this problem, I would still have to say that it's a darned good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Slow Death in Seven Parts
Review: An excellent title wasted on a slow death in seven parts. Jane Rosenal is the most obnoxious, dull character I've come to meet in some time. Her quick wit is her most interesting quality, but her wittiness comes way too infrequently. Comments intended to be witty end up falling flat in the middle of Melissa Banks' boring prose. If there's anything interesting or charming about Jane, it's difficult to dig out. But even that doesn't manage to hold you to the story long enough to care. The biggest disappointment, however, is that you're never really told that the book is supposed to be a series of short stories. You're fooled into thinking that everything is intertwined somehow. You're waiting for it to all come together and it never does. Banks' writing is skilled enough to have pulled off an interesting and delightful story about Jane's coming-of-age, if she had known who Jane was and where she was going. The entire book feels like reading essays by middle school girls pretending to be fiction writers guessing what their lives might be like someday, some of the girls forgetting the assignment and writing about something else. The growth is never really there. The interest is never really there. In fact, there's nothing there at all. Except maybe the wasted hours of your life you spent trying to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing Read...
Review: The first time I saw this book, I picked it up and read the synopsis on the back. It was not intriguing to me at all, so I put it back down and bought some other books. But after weeks and weeks of seeing this book prominently displayed in bookstores, on posters and touted on television as a number one bestseller, I thought I must have missed something. So I bought it, read it and came to the conclusion that I should have followed my first instinct. This book bored me. I was very frustrated with the underdeveloped characters and the jumps in the narrator's life.To reveal just snippets of major parts of this person's life left me unfulfilled and not very connected to her as a person. Although I could relate to certain circumstances she went through, I felt nothing for her because I wasn't allowed to get to know her better. I was not able to even create mental pictures of her as she matured. I like to see stories fleshed out in some sort of way and the superficial, glossed over, underwritten touch given to these short stories (not a novel), just exasperated me to no end. I feel like I wasted my time, really. Spend your time and money on something else.
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