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Summary: A real "must not read" of the summer.
Review: I rarely read fiction but bought this book because it was half off. After reading it over the weekend, I couldn't even really tell you what it was about. Pointless and non-engaging. This is not what being an unmarried gen-xer in your late 20s is about. I was blinded by the reviewer's hype in two women's magazines I subscribe to and only blame myself for this purchasing mistake. I'll stick to non-fiction.
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Summary: A great beach read..
Review: It's not the great American novel, but it is a great picture of single womanhood during the mid- to late-90's. Funny, breezy and poignant. It reads so true to life, I wonder if Ms. Banks has any friends (or old boyfriends) left who'll talk to her. I loved it and have passed it on to all of my girlfriends, sisters and my mother.
Rating: 
Summary: Really wonderful.
Review: I wasn't sure if I would like this book, but I really did. I would characterize this as light entertainment, but it's extremely well-written and funny and the heroine of 5 of the stories, Jane, is very likeable. However, note that there are two stories in the book that are NOT about Jane; the breast cancer story, "You Could Be Anyone," has a different heroine altogether. I wanted to emphasize that because in the past two days I have read two published reviews indicating that Jane survives breast cancer in the book. That story is not about Jane, okay? It's not. But it's still good. I highly recommend the whole collection.
Rating: 
Summary: GOOD FOR THE BEACH OR PLANE-- an easily digested read
Review: I was really tripped up with one of the middle chapters which was about the son who had 2 pregnant lovers? What the heck was that included in this book for? Do tell! I did love love love the ending though. It was v.good!!
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Summary: Incredibly insightful and witty
Review: It has been years since I have been so captivated by a book. Every suburban North American female will feel a connection to the story, and most men could learn a thing or two by reading it.
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Summary: Very absorbing writing; similar to Fitzgerald's work
Review: This book has been a pleasure to read because it's so fast and funny, and at other times it can be emotional and thought-provoking. There are a few choppy moments when the author chose to use some swear words, but overall, the book was a real page-turner. I was reminded of F.Scott Fitzgerald when I read this book, and I thought it was funny when the character in the novel talked about the Great Gatsby. The man who plays the part of the frequent alcoholic lover was somewhat like Gatsby as well. A good read for someone in the mood for a recent novel with a classic touch!!
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Summary: Girl's guide to airport delays
Review: I read this book on a looong three connections flight to the majestic Rockies. It was better than airplane food but not The Book of the summer. I don't mind stories that jump around in time, but space? How did our in-the-1st-person narrator become a different in-the-1st-person? Still, I will keep an eye out for Ms. Bank's next tome, as she does possess a wry wit.
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Summary: Rules of Romance
Review: I was surprised by how much I enjoyed "Girl's Guide". I had just finished Alice Hoffman's "Local Girls", which also uses a linked short-story format, and Banks' novel was the better of the two. This format does tend to sacrifice a bit in the way of character development and consistancy. For instance, it never does explain Jane's attraction for Archie, her much older and impotent boyfriend. And the chapter on breast cancer is a bit baffling. But I enjoyed Jane's witticisms, clever turns of phrases, and especially her grappling with the ridiculous rules of romance.
Rating:
Summary: Conflicted
Review: Argh. I wanted to hate this book. I really did. But I didn't hate it. At all. I tore through it and laughed out loud and was actually affected by at least two of the stories (the title story and the middle novella-esqe piece). It was absolutely entertaining as a whole. But 3 million dollars worth of entertaining? Word has it that's what Bank's advance amounted to, and THAT'S baffling. You have to sell a hell of a lot of books to earn back a 3 million dollar advance. I know the book is doing well, but is it even possible to do THAT well?So I wanted to hate it, and hate accordingly the industry that makes a book get hyped like this. I'm almost positive that if I'd come across this book on my own -- a little sleeper in the "staff picks" section of some earnest little independent bookstore -- or if I'd just happened across one of the stories in a literary journal or magazine -- I'd have been thrilled to come across such an ebullient new voice. Energy, wit, vitality. I don't think I'd have thought it profoundly moving or deeply thought-provoking, but I'd have kept my eye out for Melissa Bank, curious as to what she might produce as she got older, honed her voice, had a little something more substantial to write about. And maybe I still will. Maybe I should be glad that there's one less young fiction writer out there starving and struggling to get her voice heard. I guess I should be happy for Melissa Bank; why begrudge her her success? But there's a not-so-fine line between starvation and multi-millionaire and I can't quite get my brain around how the industry saw its way to make such a leap.Because she's good. Really good. She's like Lorrie Moore and Laurie Colwin rolled into one. But she's a little TOO much like Lorrie Moore and Laurie Colwin, and I find myself wondering if down the line we might find out what MELISSA BANK is really like. What will her voice develop into when she's written enough, and for long enough, to grow out of such a derivitive style and grow into her own.Lorrie Moore's wit, cynical and biting and hilarious as it is, is in the service of something more, something sad and awful and deeply moving. You laugh with Moore as you weep, because that's the way this world is. Laurie Colwin is sweet and precious and endearing, but in the service of insights that hit so sharply and so poignantly that I don't know how I got along in the world before I read "Happy All The Time." And to me, the difference between Moore and Colwin and Bank is like the difference between M*A*S*H and Seinfeld: humor that exists as a means to understanding and living in a truly despairing world, and humor for the sake of wittiness alone, for the sake of being the star of the party, dazzling friends, playing and winning at the Emily Post popularity game of life. Moore and Colwin, I think, make you love people a little more, make you understanding of their foibles and awkwardnesses and mistakes; they make you able to love yourself a little more. Right now, reading Melissa Bank makes you fall in love with Melissa Bank, and that's not enough, I don't think. But maybe it'll grow into enough. I hope the next Bank book aspires to more, takes on something more difficult to contend with. And I hope that the next editors aren't going to be so willing to let her get away with what she gets away with in the Girl's Guide. Seven linked stories? It's a link if you say that the cast of characters in a story happens to live downstairs from the main linked-story-line character? And can anyone explain the second-person breast cancer story? What's it doing there? These stories aren't all about "Jane Rosenal;" that's pure marketing contrivance. I hope that next time around it's literature -- character and story and prose -- that wins out over marketability and packaging. I hope Banks puts her 3 million to good use and holes herself up writing and doesn't come out until she's put her talent to the project it deserves.
Rating: 
Summary: Buy It While It's 50% Off
Review: I've been reading a lot of this popular genre lately (single woman's adventures) and a few observation come to mind. First, I wish so many people would stop comparing this book and every other book out there about single women living in big cities to Bridget Jones' Diary. It's unfair to Helen Fielding and the author that's being compared to her. Second, while GGHF is good, it's not great. The stories are flimsy and short, and the protagonist is hampered by a lack of character development. There's so much better out there that SHOULD be making the NY Times bestseller list, but for some reason, this one is getting the hype. Third, if you want to read some fabulous short story writers: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Cheever, Alice Mattson, Flannery Oconnor, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx, Alice Munro, Lorrie Moore, and Judy Budnitz come to mind or just buy the best American short stories of the century. If you want to read some good writers of the same light genre: Elinor Lipman, Sara Lewis, Lorrie Moore, Mahmeve Medved, Caroline Preston, Valerie Block, and Christina Bartolomeo, to name a few. There's a lot of good literature out there. This is not the best. Let's not treat it like's it's the Bible.
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