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.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad but I doubt I'll remember it for long...
Review: Sometimes, I stumble with a book and never get back into it. I did finish this book over the course of a month. A few times a week, I would pick it up before going to bed. Yet, it wasn't one of those books that I would tear through in an evening. My gauge of a good book is to consider if I think the stories and lessons learned will stay with me. I don't think that I'll reflect on the characters or stories much in the future. I kept with the story, but would have rather got it from the library than pay the full hardback price.
Rating:
Summary: Good read, but a little inconsistent
Review: The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing was a good and maybe even great read. It kept me involved, however the chapters didn't flow very well. It seemed as though each chapter was written by a different person with a different writing style. Overall, I enjoyed the book. There were two chapters that I really think she should not have included. Every chapter in the book is about Jane Rosenthal, except one. It would have been nice to have at least a little bit of a tie to the rest of the book, but it was a random chapter thrown in about another family. The other chapter I didn't like was about breast cancer. It seemed to be thrown in to give the character depth, but it really just seemed out of place. Like an action sequence thrown in to keep the audience up close. Although much of my review has a negative tone, I really did enjoy the book. It is a great book about becoming an adult and dating in today's world. It deals with the many confusions of being a single woman today, and it was written well. Bank just needed to tie the chapters together a little better.
Rating:
Summary: may time swiftly dispose of this infantile genre
Review: One star solely for its sociological value: an insight into how pathetic today's young American women are, especially if they identify with this tripe. "Girls' Guide" is yet another example of the "woe is me, I'm an over-educated 20-30ish caucasian woman in NYC with so many choices in my life it's paralyzing me" style. "Animal Husbandry," "In the Drink", "Sex in the City", on and on and on, always the same puerile refusal to approach life and relationships with not even an atom of maturity. In conformity with her self-absorbed female-writer kin, Bank allows her voice to pervade her fiction to the point of distraction; she should have just dubbed her title character "Melissa Bank" and had her agent market the book as a memoir. It frightens me that this book is popular. Read Dorothy Parker or Sylvia Plath if you want writing that's finely-wrought, with genuine wit, angst, and pain. Or better yet, take an opposite tack with Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility -- refreshing, eternal foils to the transient noise emanating from Bank and her ilk.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Narration with a Relatable Female Narrator
Review: This is a great book, as it represents an unmarried female in a realistic manner. Unlike the flighty, wacky Bridget Jones, Jane is someone that is interesting, that you would really want to sit down with. The story is not completely new, but the style of narration is. With a fresh look at romances, this book gives a slap in the face to that ridiculous "The Rules" book, and many other "how can I snag a man" manuals. A great read!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic, I can't think of a woman who shouldn't read it...
Review: ...unless you've never struggled through a relationship. It made me laugh out loud and cry. If you've ever read or heard about The Rules this book makes perfect sense. Jane's struggle with the fictional "Rules" was hysterical. I disagree with the earlier reviews that say this isn't a novel, but short stories. I think the flow works and it is obviously a story about a woman maturing and finding out what she wants out of life. I read it in a day and wished there was more.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting read
Review: This is one of the better books that I've read recently. It got me really engrossed. The story line is simple yet enchanting. The character Jane might be plain but she's charming in her own way. This book is for girls who had been in love before yet not sure if he's the right guy... As enjoyable as it was,there was this part of the book which I didn't quite catch. It's the chapter "The Best Possible Light". It talks about "Nina's" children. It got me quite puzzled as I was not sure if the author was still talking about Jane. If so,why did the kids call her Nina? If anyone can clear my doubt,do feel free to e-mail me. Thanks!
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