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.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is FUN!
Review: How long must we fish?
How long must we hunt?Before we meet Mr. Sensitive, Mr. Right, Mr. Everything.
Must we be caught, swallowed, and spit out again.
Or be the bait at the end of the hook...
Dangling and waiting to be noticed. In "The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing"
Jane is doing the hunting in all the wrong places, meeting all the wrong men. But don't we need to be in the wrong places sometimes to realize where the right ones are? Jane plays the game as we all do. The mating game, that is...
Do what pleases him. Be funny, but not too funny. Do not, I repeat, do not, call him. He may think you're easy or eager to have a relationship. And by God, do not tell him what you are really thinking.
He may think your a dork! So... You wait, and date, and think the next man may be the real man.
The one true man, the prince, the one who you can be yourself with, the one who will listen, really listen. Jane takes us on her dating games.
And we have a good time even with the bad ones. "Hunting and Fishing" has a breezy, airy tone.
Segments of life, fleeting moments in time.
It's as if a family member is reminiscing about the past..
A family member with a witty, quirky, dopey, sense of humor. Not too deep, but deep enough to make us feel and laugh, and say out loud...
"Yes, I have been there. I've done that. I am still doing that!" How long must we fish?
How long must we hunt? Until WE are the one who begin making the rules...not following them...
Until WE are satisfyed with our catch.
Until WE get what we deserve. When Jane starts doing this, she becomes who she was meant to be. When she meets Robert, she says, "You are the man I didn't know I could hope for." Finally... One she didn't need to throw back!
Rating:
Summary: Very good!
Review: I loved this book. Although some of the chapters were confusing! I thought it was romantic, true, beautiful and sad. Read it!
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST BOOK EVER
Review: I have read this book a total of a million times, and I find something new about it everytime, it is funny, and sad, and beautiful, and true (and if you read it you will understand why) Girls' Guide is a masterpiece, and I suggest anyone to read it!
Rating: 
Summary: good, not great
Review: I thought this book was a breezy look at a single girl's experiences with family, girlfriends, and men. The main character was witty, insecure at times, and likeable. Some of the chapters, though, seemed to belong to another book. One in particular (the story out of nowhere about the aunt's neighbor and her son) seemed completely out of context with the rest of the novel. I kept on thinking these people would somehow be woven into the story, but they were never heard from again. What was that all about?
Rating:
Summary: I want to be friends with the main character
Review: I'm surprised this book received bad reviews. Several people I talked to said they felt like they could have written the book. I think that's why I liked it! I read it in two days and even read the last chapter several times, it was so funny and sweet. It was nice to finally read a "female" novel that didn't focus on weight, looks, or depression.
Rating:
Summary: Like reading Duras or de Beauvoir
Review: This is a book of vignettes of life in New York that, for me, (as opposed to many other reviewers here) did not need anything to tie them together. Her refreshing style recalls the work of Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir -- succinct but never terse. The stories unfold and reveal their characters gradually, and we don't get to know the narrator of each story entirely but just listen as she quietly experiences relationships with family, men, children, strangers, and work. It's kind of like Slaves of New York without the raunch, or Sex in the City without the desperateness.
Rating:
Summary: Good writing lacks an arc
Review: This book is a collection of short stories that lack an arc to tie them together. I guess they are supposed to be tied together because they are mostly about the same woman and her relationships (although there is one story in the middle about one of her neighbors). But the stories are all a little too independent for me, I would have liked to have seen them tied together more. Having said that, the stories do each offer an interesting look at relationsips. Finally, it must be said that every now then the author does turn a marvelous phrase or sentence.
Rating: 
Summary: A well-marketed first novel!
Review: I believe that this is one of those books where the publishers spent huge amounts of money on a marketing strategy. Otherwise, I can't imagine how it received those marvellous press reviews and turned out to be a number one bestseller; i don't understand how it even got published. Clearly, the publishers were trying to jump on the Bridget Jones bandwagon. The characterisation was non-existant. I felt that Jane had been painted by numbers; she was a flat, shallow creation lacking warmth and did not delight me in any way. In fact, she bored me thoroughly.
Plot: where was it? Why doesn't it say on the cover that this is actually a string of short stories chronicling Jane's love life, with two episodes that have absolutley nothing to do with Jane's romantic life thrown in for good measure? AFter reading the Barney episode I thougth he would have to reappear somewhere but no.. he disappears into the mist and is never even mentioned again. Perhaps we will find him in a sequel? The Girl's Guide Number 2? How could the editor allow this chapter to stay put otherwise?
And then the cancer drama; written in the second person.. why? Was this Jane speaking or some stranger? If it was Jane how come we never hear about the cancer again, not one further word about it? Why bring it in at all, if it has no relation to the rest of the book, if Jane is not somehow influenced by it?
The dialoge was occasionaly witty. In fact, I found the first page rather intriguiing and I felt I was in for a good, but light, read, perfect for a long train journey. No such luck. There are some good one-liners sprinkled throughout the book but a novel does not consist of sound bites!
The style is incredibly flat, almost juvenile. Sparse and curt, and lacking any warmth, as do the characters. It sounds as if she is trying to be a second Hemingway? Who knows.
The only good thing about this book is that I did not buy it myself, it was offered free with a magazine I usually buy.
As I said, the publishers obviously invested lots of promotion money to make sure this novel took off with a bang, and they seem to have succeeded.
However, I do hope that publishers soon abandon this nonsense of trying to shovel novels that say nothing down our throats. And I wish the reading public would be a bit more discriminating, and demand more substantial fare in future!
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