Rating: 
Summary: A Disappointing read
Review: While I wouldn't say reading this book was a waste of time, it definitely wasn't the best book I have ever read. The main character, Jane, is very endearing. She reminded me very much of myself as a teenager. However, I found the book to be very misleading. I was under the impression that the was a novel; instead it is a collection of short stories, and not a very good one at that. The stories do not seem to follow any particular chronological order, and I found the second story to be completely misplaced. What was the purpose of placing this story into the book? The "book" seems to focus on Jane, yet there is only one reference to the main character in passing. I think Ms. Banks has the ability to capture her readers with her realistic portrayal of the characters, but her ability to write as novel definitely needs improvement.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining , although it has its pluses and minuses.
Review: Readers should not pick up this book with the expectation that it is a novel. Rather, it is a collection of short stories that were previously published elsewhere - and an exceedingly slim collection it is, consisting of but seven short tales. Because six of the seven concern the same heroine at various stages of her life, the seventh and middle story, dealing with another family and another set of relationships altogether, struck me as filler designed to stretch the collection to something approximating book length. The six stories of the one heroine show her from a young adolescent, where she tries to understand her brother's relationship with his girlfriend, to trying times in her own adulthood, where she tries to deal with a difficult boss, the loss of her father, and various disappointing boyfriends, young and older, until she at last lets down her guard with one who meshes with her.
Readers seeking good entertainment will enjoy this book. Melissa Bank has a gift for writing, and particularly for writing funny dialogue. She also has a winning way with the turn of a phrase. Considering the percentage of books written today that are sodden and dull, that is a very big plus indeed. If ever there were an undemanding, pleasant little beach book, this is it. You can easily polish it off in two sittings and go to sleep laughing in remembrance at the dialogue.
Short story writing is a distinct art, and each of the stories in this volume can, and should, stand on its own. They look at life in a specific here-and now, from the standpoint of the longings and maturity conveyed by the accumulation of experiences of the narrator up to that point. A problem arises, however, because six of the stories purport to take a single heroine from about age fourteen to her mid-thirties, but six shorts simply are not enough to flesh out a life over that span of time. Such a small grouping can give you but fleeting glimmers of the character, however good those glimmers are. A more effective device, it seems to me, would have been to show life at different stages in a woman's life, as seen from the perspective of different heroines. Doing this would have let the reader focus more fully on the situations, without being distracted by disconnected snapshots of the one character Bank chose to be her heroine.
I was at a loss when it came to rating this book. I entirely applaud Bank's writing ability. But at the same time, I wished for either a variety of characters to make their dilemmas unique, or for a more subtle and panoramic view of her one character. In confusion, I came down in the middle. A strong C-plus.
Rating:
Summary: I don't think that I got it
Review: Although I was a bit disappointed to discover that the Girl's Guide was more a collection of short stories than a novel, my main problem with the book was that the characters seemed flat. The first story was slow, but interesting in an old-fashioned kind of way. I had some level of interest in Jane, and was curious to see how she matured. The St. Croix story, however, was very disappointing. I thought that it wasn't very well written, and fairly shallow. Plus, I kept wondering how Jane, who seemed a promising young individual, had grown up to be such a bore. All of the chapters about Jane and Archie's relationship were tedious. I didn't feel the sense of pit-of-the-stomach, oh-Jane-what-are-you-doing dread that might have kept me interested in finding out if they stayed together. Instead I didn't really care; I just wanted something different to happen. The middle story about Jane's downstairs neighbor was more interesting. The characters seemed much more real than just about any that were previously portrayed. The cancer story was upsetting, frightening, and emotional. I think it was fairly well written, but confusing because I could never figure out if the 2nd person character was supposed to be Jane, the neighbor from downstairs (whose name rhymed with the fake name given in the café), or someone else. If this character was supposed to be an "everywoman," who just as easily could or could not have been Jane, then I think it would have been better placed elsewhere in the book, rather than back-to-back with the comedy piece. I spent too much of the next story looking for clues as to whether or not it was Jane, you'd think if it was her there would be some sort of reference other than a vague mention of France. That said, I did find the final story clever and chuckled out loud a few times. It was the most traditionally structured, and Jane seemed the more related to the girl she had been in the first story, than in anything since. I enjoyed the piece, but still would not rate it as great writing. It almost seems to me, when reading the other Amazon reviews, that most of the readers forgot almost the entirety of the book and remember only the final story. Howling with laughter? I must have missed something.
Rating: 
Summary: A Worthwhile Read
Review: Melissa Bank has crafted and assembled a wonderful collection of short stories that, taken as a whole, become a poignant and touching novel. The various stories move in a chronological progression, beginning with adolescence and moving through the various stages that women take on the road to acceptance and fulfillment as an adult. She allows us just enough of a glimpse into Jane's life to see what she is going through and, in turn, what we all go through. Read this book...you will not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: An incredible read
Review: I brought this book on a camping trip thinking it was appropriate...and it ended up being so! Like Bridget Jones' Diary wihtout the whining, Jane goes through many realizations that seem to make sense for my own life, even though I'm not a single thirty-something. It's compelling yet smooth, it reads easily and quickly but has much more depth than one would think. A definite must read.
Rating: 
Summary: HI MRS. CABRERA
Review: In our opinion, the novel, girls' guide to hunting and fishing, was considered an oxymoron in the sense that the stories' themselves were interisting yet,they lacked in enthusiastic anecdotes...for example, in our opinion, in order to keep a reader interested in a book, one should write about either fun, enthusiastic and exciting moments or dreary, sorrowful and depressing ones. When she talks about her times at the house, in the first chapter, it gets boring. There are some r5eally good chapters though, like " a girls guide to hunting and fishing, with bonnie and faith telling jane what to do. Another good chapter is " the floating house." The love affairs that begin to take place are exciting because it keeps you wondering what's going to happen. In other words, what makes a book interesting is sex scandels, and money. Although this book conains these elements, they do not have sufficient detail.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite book!
Review: This book is my favorite book ever - I have read it countless times and each time it is a new experience. I hope Melissa Bank writes another book soon!
Rating:
Summary: Hook, Line and Sinker this was a good book.
Review: This book is nothing of what I expected it to be. I expected a quick chick lit type book, but this book was much more deeper then that. Jane is a woman who is living NYC and trying to get her life together, from the men, to her job and in general her social life. In most typical books the woman is trying to seek out Mr. Right, find more reasons to hate her job and have a gaggle of girlfriends who will always be there to help her out when she needs it. But this book was different. Jane has a wonderful realenship with her father and is always looking for someone to be like her father, someone who will take care of her and be there for her. But with the men she is with she doesn't find that. She finds that not everything in her life is going to be right. This book starts out with Jane a teenager and spending time with her brother and finding out more about love and dating as a teenager and then it goes into her adult life. Overall this was a wonderful book from this author, although there were two chapters that had me confused and I just didn't get why the author had to put them in there. I felt that two more chapters about Jane would have been much better.
Rating:
Summary: What's all the fuss?
Review: I bought this book because I kept hearing words like "funny," "real," "engaging," and "life-affirming" to describe it. Maybe I missed something, but I didn't find it to be any of the above. I read the first two chapters wondering where the engaging part came in, but soon I had finished the whole book and still hadn't found it. The main character's affair with an older man, battle with cancer, and hardships over the death of her father made me cry more than anything.
Rating:
Summary: Hysterical
Review: While on a family vacation, I read this book and consistently evoked smiles and questions of "What, what's so funny now?" with every giggle or guffaw I let out from the back seat of the car. When my mom ran out of books and stole "Girls' guide...", she was even more disruptive, turning completely red as she howled and wiped away tears. A fun, raucous must-read.
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