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Summary: A cute adaptation of young life and young love.
Review: I thought that this novel was well worth the read.It was a quick, well-executed tale of a girl and her experiences in young love and in her young life. I enjoyed the way the narrator believably grew up. It is often easy to forget the way we thought about things as teenagers, or as younger adults. Through this book you can relive the memories. While conflict isn't readily available in this novel, it is still captivating. Jane is a great character that you will understand and love. I would definitely recommend this book.
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Summary: Mr Invisible
Review: Is love like a butterfly - short-lived and with a fluttery flightpath? Heroine has various learning moments, heartbreaks, and generalised brouhaha. A nearly but not quite wonder. Perhaps the problem for me was that the early chapters, with a teenage narrator watching her brother's girlfriend, were moving and evocative, whereas as soon as she takes partners of her own then, well, it seemed like a road we've been down once or twice too often. Key weakness: Mr Right at the end is practically Mr Invisible, so lightly is he sketched, which is the perennial problem of books filled with varying degrees of Mr Wrongs.
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Summary: Girls Guide lacks direction
Review: Melissa Bank's book was partialy engaging, but lacked fluidity. The "Girls Guide" needed to give readers directions to follow each storyline each time a new chapter began. I found the content to be drab and without laughter. I appreciated what the author was trying to do, but I would rather have actually gone hunting and fishing - than sit through this one again.
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Summary: An easy read
Review: If you are looking for something light to read - this is it. The main character is amusing and while at times most women will find something in her with which they can relate, the story itself isn't all that interesting. The characters could have been more flushed out and at times the dialogue seemed forced. Fun for a rainy Sunday afternoon though....
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Summary: What a surprise
Review: Given its bestseller status and fluffy-sounding title, I had no real desire to ever read this book. But one night, desperate to read a late-twentieth-century novel by a young writer, I called my neighbor to ask what she had and she lent me this. The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing is a sweet, charming, and intelligent book. The structure is unusual: seven long chapters that could each stand alone as a short story. This format is well-suited to the phenomenon of serial monogamy familiar to most of us currently in our twenties and thirties. Though each chapter (but one) is narrated by the main character Jane, they all vary subtly in tone, voice and style. In "Advanced Beginners," sixteen-year old Janie observes her older brother's relationship with his first serious girlfriend. "The Floating House" is a deft examination of jealousy and what it's like to deal with your lover's ex. "My Old Man" is the story of Jane's relationship with Archie, an editor 28 years her senior. "The Best Possible Light" is the only story that doesn't deal with Jane directly, though the characters are tangentially connected to her. "The Worst thing a Suburban Girl Could Imagine" has Jane simultaneously faced with her father's death and Archie's health problems. In "You Could be Anyone," Jane's obsessive lover loves her perhaps more than anyone else has, but in the end she realizes that he doesn't really know her, and never will. The title story is the funniest story in the book, and the one where our heroine finally finds true love. What each of these stories has in common is an underlying sense of humor and intelligence. It's refreshing to follow a character who grows and learns from her life. Highly recommended - light reading with substance.
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Summary: An enjoyable book with a point - can you find it?
Review: I read this book for my neighborhood book club. When it was chosen I was initially disappointed. I had looked at it in the book store and assumed it was just a light fun read. But I sat down to read it anyway in preparation for the club meeting. It is an easy read, but it is much more as well. The main character, Jane, is likable and tells a good story. I totally disagree with the other reviewers that say the chapters do not flow, that they did not know at what point in Jane's life the events happened, and esspecially that the chapter about the dinner party is just dropped in out of place. This is essentially a book about the nature and meaning of love. Each one of the chapters explores a little bit about what that is. In the end, yes just in time, Jane discovers what it is to love and be loved, and how loving oneself is central and key to that. What is the key that Jane finds? What is the message that the author is trying to get accross? What is it that Jane finally discovers, after years of searching in jobs and relationships that allows her to find fullfilment? Read the book and see if you can figure it out!
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Summary: A nice light read for beach or airplane ride...
Review: I bought this book used, in paperback, and as such was not disappointed. It's not "literature", it's not Austen, for goodness sakes, but it was entertaining as I sat by the pool and watched my kids splash during Spring Break. The book is a collection of short stories, thrown together to arc throught the life of one "Jane", a frustrated preppie who tries for years to get her life together, (especially her love life) and finally succeeds at the end of the book. Saved by the bell, she meets, and despite her best efforts to sabotage herself, wins her dream man, and they live happily ever after. This book was nowhere near what I'd consider deep. It had some nice moments, some good dialogue, some clever imagery. Sometimes I wanted to give Jane a little shake, and tell her "get over it!" and get on with it, but all in all it was a worthwhile read. Buy it in paperback to read at the beach this summer.
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Summary: the first girl book since austen that is not offensive
Review: Good beach / cafe / theres-something-I-don't-want-to-think-about reading. It's nice, and it's funny. It's about a girl/woman and what she learns about people/men/relationships. It's been compared to sex and the city - it's more intelligent, sweeter, and less raunchy than that; but that's the general idea. It's book candy, but much less offensive than normal stuff in the genre. I think that the reason is because the heroine has other important relationships in her life other than Men, and that she is able to maintain her dignity most of the time. On the other hand, there is nothing more profound here than can be found in girl magazines. I don't really mean to compare her to Austen. I was disappointed when it ended and there was nothing more to read.
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Summary: The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing
Review: Worth the hype, although it is more a book about the main character's life experiences than single's life as you are lead to believe. It is a great collection of short stories about a wonderful girl/woman you will be able to relate to and completely understand. With the exception of one short story (I have no idea what it had to do with anything) this was a great book. I would definitely recommend if you have fallen in the Bridget Jones trap as well.
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Summary: Cold as Ice
Review: This is a thin little book comprising of seven short stories. They are all, with the exception of one, written in the first person by Jane Rosenal, a female New Yorker in and out of psychoanalysis. They take place during various periods of her life; the first one when she is fourteen and the last apparently when she is in her mid-thirties. Her stories consist of observing the human beings in her life, and the events which occur to them and her, and making sarcastic comments about them. She doesn't really like anybody except for her father, who appears only intermittently, then dies. She has a boyfriend who is 28 years older than her but she doesn't like him either. She doesn't like her boss. She doesn't like her first boyfriend's ex-girlfriend, who was kind enough to invite them to her Caribbean estate. She doesn't even like her first boyfriend. The reason we know she doesn't like these people is that she remains aloof and distant from them, and makes cynical and bitter remarks both to them and about them. In the middle of the book there is a story written in the first person by Nina, who is a downstairs neighbor of Janie. She contributes nothing to the Janie mystique, and all she does is recount an unusual dinner party. Why this story is contained here, I do not know, but I should stress that this is a very thin book. The type-size is huge--just this side of Cat in the Hat material--and there are four blank pages of filler between each story. If the type-size were normal and the Nina story were eliminated, this book would be about ninety pages long. In the last story, which shares the title of the book, we finally get a glimpse of what this collection could have been. It is about Janie's efforts to attract and finally hang onto a man by a using a self-help guide which encourages her to play coy. Ironically, by using these techniques, she almost loses the man of her dreams. It is only by reverting to her own personality that she is able to keep him. This story is unique in that it is the only one where she allows herself to come out of her shell. For once, we see her vulnerabilities, and she becomes human to us. We begin to empathize with her; and her jokes, instead of being brittle and prickly, become funny, and touching. The story is symbolic of the book as a whole: like Janie, when the author finally opens up to us, we respond. But unfortunately, it is much too little, and much too late. Despite its being well-written and occassionally clever, there is no depth here, and, except for the last story, no warmth.
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