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Summary: The Same Shoes
Review: Thin and pretty Maggie Feller, and smart and successful Rose Feller are sisters, and they seemingly share nothing but the same shoe size. Or so they think. While the shoes we wear take us on different journeys, we must always remember where the feet who are wearing those shoes came from. And Maggie and Rose have a hard time doing this: They are as different as night and day:
Maggie is 28, drop-dead gorgeous, and unemployed repeatedly. She has a learning disasbility and envies Rose, the Princeton graduate.
Rose is 30 years old, has been on countless unsuccessful diets, and is dating a partner at the firm she is an associate lawyer at.
Rose and Maggie's lives are intertwined again, at 28 and 30 - as they were when they lived together with their father and crazy step-mother, Sydelle. They both remember losing their mother, and they both try not to think about it...until they are forced to by circumstances their choices in their lives bring them to. They are reminded that family is not only lateral, sister to sister, it is also generational, like mother to daughter and her daughter, and so on.
Rose and Maggie are thrown together and twisted apart in funny situations that will keep readers interested. As the sisters fight over men, careers, and of course, shoes, they walk in different directions....but the same size shoes and the same DNA counts for something. The lessons that Rose and Maggie - and other surprise characters - learn are very applicable to real life, and Jennifer Weiner once again really seems to have written in a wonderfully honest and sincere tone. Readers will be happy with this one - a light book, but very well written.
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Summary: Great READ!!
Review: I first stumbled to Jennifer's books by accident. I must admit Good in Bed was a very catchy title. The follow up book is just as good as her first. THe characters are so real and they are hysterical! I think everyone can relate to Rose and Maggie's relationship. We all have people like that in our lives. I couldn't keep my eyes off the book! This book was great! anyone who's read Good in Bed will definitely love this book also!Great for those long waiting periods, just makes the time fly!!
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Summary: Another refreshing look at lifes relationship battles
Review: I read the first book Good in Bed and loved all the aspects that book covered. In her Shoes did the same thing for me. You walk straight into a sisterly relationship and can't decide who to root for in the end. I read the book in a day and plan to read it again soon. Jennifer Weiner is hugely gifted when it comes to making you understand each characters worries and fears. She'll make you hate a character then in the next couple pages, you'll understand why. Its a great book to pull you out of a slump and be a part of someones elses problem for awhile, then yours dont seem so bad. Its a book that falls into the category "chick flick".
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Summary: Transcends the genre--Weiner has done it again
Review: Once again, Jennifer Weiner's title and cover art prove to be deceptive. In Her Shoes is no fluff novel; Tough issues are tackled and a range of characters are delicately woven throughout. I like the way the author handles the issues of body image and promiscuity--not as fatal flaws, but as lessons to be learned from. Sisters Maggie and Rose are completely different on the surface- Rose is successful and driven and Maggie is free-spirited and opportunistic. We learn, however, that the two really have much in common. Rose struggles with her self image, and Maggie struggles to be herself in spite of her sister's success. Both of the sisters are grieving for their mother who died when they were young and are angry with their father and stepmother (Sydelle) for erasing her from their lives. Also erased from their lives is a grandmother, who now lives in Florida and appears throughout the novel. There is no gushy happy ending here, and I find it fitting that Maggie and Rose do not have a tearful reunion after their falling out. In Her Shoes is an engrossing story of loss, discovery, and finding one's self in young adulthood. If you're a fan of, say the Red Dress Ink series but are looking for a little more substance...this is the perfect book for you.
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Summary: Fabulous Storyteller!!
Review: I read Good In Bed and loved it. I read In Her Shoes expecting the same type of storytelling...and there it was. Weiner does a great job of keeping the reader interested. I loved the story and I can't wait for another book from Weiner! I will definitely recommend these 2 books to all of my friends!
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Summary: I Loved this book
Review: This book made me laugh out loud and made my cry too. It made me grateful that I have sisters. If you have a sister, you both need to read this book - especially if your relationship has had problems in the past. The characters in this novel are believable because they are not perfect, but they all have heart. Don't miss this book - or the author's other book - Good in Bed (whose main character makes a brief appearance in this book)
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Summary: Hard to Put Down
Review: Jennifer Weiner has yet again writting another book that's hard to put down. You can't seem to help but figure out what will happen next to the two main characters, Rose and Maggie. If you are reading these reviews and trust what people are saying, pick up this book, whether you are to buy it or borrow it from a library, and you'll end up devouring it. I started just this morning, and I've finished. Not once did I have to force myself to pick up this book, because it has been in my hands nonstop.
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Summary: Great book, despite lame characters.
Review: In Her Shoes was a great book. Everyone is saying it wasn't as good as Weiner's debut, Good In Bed, which is true (GIB will be VERY hard to top), but you have to take the book for what it is. If you don't compare it to Good In Bed, it's a really fantastic read. I liked how the story unveiled itself through the viewpoints of diffirent characters, although I have to say my main complaint about the book was that I didn't like the characteres too much. I hated Maggie from the first page. She was selfish and mean. Rose was slightly more bearable, but a pushover and boring at times. I didn't see much depth in either character, and they both seemed stereotypical opposites. Even towards the end, when the characters supposedly "make peace" (as the back of the book says), the change in their attitudes seems completely cliche, like the ending of the book. But, bad characters or not, the plot and excellent writing makes the book. Regardless of what you thought of Good In Bed, I'd suggest this book to everyone.
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Summary: Wow! What a great storyteller!
Review: I'm amazed at the disparity in people's response to this book. I guess it's because Jennifer Weiner has such a personal style and vision, you either get it or you don't. I read a LOT of books. TONS of books, all kinds, and so when one stands out and makes me not want to put it down, I feel very blessed. So many books are trite, cliched, and only prove that the author needs to get a life before she tries to write about life, and really needs to learn her craft before she tries to get published. Jennifer Weiner is the type of writer I dream of and wish for with just about every purchase - someone who knows that a book should firstly, entertain, provide great characters and make you feel all kinds of emotions. I laughed, I cried, I sympathised, I was horrified, amazed, the list goes on. I will concede that you don't immediately fall in love with either sister when you meet them. Both Rose and Maggie require a lot of understanding and aren't easy to empathise with. Rose is competent at work, large but not fat, clueless about clothes and men and being popular, trapped in the box of always having to be the strong one who does the right thing. This kind of trap is not as obvious as most, it's subtle but still there. Rose is not as likeable as the main character in Weiner's first novel, "Good in Bed," a really great and hilarious read with a good heart. Perhaps that's why so many people rated this novel down. Weiner isn't trying to make us laugh with each and every line - the narration is more to the point, much less acerbic and cynical than "Good in Bed" since it's not done in the first person but rather third person omniscient. We get to feel what Maggie, Rose and the Grandmother are experiencing in turn, so it's really a book about 3 women, 3 separate worlds, not just 2 sisters. This makes it much more complex than "Good in Bed" and I applaud the author for taking this on. I think she did really well. Maggie, the younger daughter, is the problem child - basking in the glow of popularity at first, but then her learning disabilities catch up with her, and she's doomed to trying to live off her looks from then on. Since I have friends who are learning disabled - most of the housecleaners - I could really sympathise. Living off one's looks is a very common theme here in Southern California and the women who do it have major issues with self-esteem because of it. Weiner understands this very well. Maggie and Rose are complex characters, survivors of their mother's death at an early age, a stepmother with her own problems and her own favored child, a father who's in denial and distant. Then we meet their estranged Grandmother, who let their father deny her contact with her grandchildren after her daughter's death, and is dealing with that guilt and also new love in a retirement community in Florida. The road the characters travel to a happy ending is not easy, but they overcome every obstacle and make peace with their legacies. Both sisters travel a huge character arc and make a complete turn-around in their lives. I loved the book and wholeheartedly endorse it, but just to be safe recommend that you buy it used. If you're not used to complex characters that are way different than the usual chick-lit, take-it-to-the-beach-romance novel, this book will challenge you to like it. It's somewhere in between the typical summer read and "Ya-Ya Sisterhood." I think of Weiner as the Jane Austen of the new milleneum - she writes about love and money. What else is there?
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Summary: My two cents
Review: I agree with many of the reviews here, that this one isn't quite as good as "Good in Bed", but I believe "In Her Shoes" does have its merits.
Rather than say the same thing as everyone else, I'd like to address/respond to some of the negative comments in defense of this book:
1. There is also a "happy ending" in "Good in Bed", so I don't understand why it is considered disappointing or problematic in this book.
2. To the reviewer that said she thought Rose would have lost some weight by the end of the book, all I can say is, are you aware that Weiner has made it a priority to represent the plus-sized community in her writing, and that size 14 is at the bottom - the VERY bottom - end of that group? If anything, I was bothered more by the fact that Rose never spoke up and said it was nobody's business - not Sydelle's, not Maggie's, nobody - what size she wore or what she ate. And another thing, I don't think Maggie is automatically an alcoholic because she went through a phase of drinking and partying in her 20s.
3. Multiple reviewers said there was NO character development, and I think that's unfair. Maggie and Rose are well developed and interesting, which makes for this book to be a quick read,as pointed out by other reviewers. I think, as I mentioned before, that the problem lies in the excessive number of characters she tried to cover, so some key people were not as developed as they should have been (the father, mother, and grandmother being the main examples).
All in all, I think it's worth reading, and I'm excited to see what comes next from Weiner!
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