What do You think about Certain Girls (2008)?
Our book club featured this book and when it was selected, I didn't care one way or the other, so went along with it. After reading it though, I HATED it. If you DO read it, don't read the ending. It's lazy and a terrible shame that the author did what she did, the conclusion adds nothing to the story and drags the events out for "dramatic effect." If it were a movie, the audience would say a collective, "oh come on." What I felt was a C- book used an F ending.To be sure: skip the ending. BUT - I would recommend not reading the book at all. The story flip-flops point of view between two protagonists: the mother and the teenage daughter. The daughter's point of view is so rude and disrespectful that I wonder what the author thinks of teenagers in general. It comes across as contrived and forced. There's a passage where the daughter describes her mother, who is sitting cross-legged, as having her "boobs in her lap" and it's comments like these throughout the book that would make the most normal of women self-conscious about weight, with her constant retorts about her fat mother. It's also very heavy with Jewish coming-of-age procedures - which was a little weird for me as a non-Jewish person, because a lot of the language was foreign and not explained and I didn't understand the relevance of the events. Probably cool for a Jewish reader, but for those not familiar with terminology, it's one more thing that makes the book difficult to become engaged in. All in all, I found the hype to be undeserved, and I wish I had spent my time reading something else.
—Laura
“Good in Bed” is one of my Top Ten Favorite Books of All Time. It’s funny, it’s all about various relationships and there are even lesbians in it. Over the years, I’ve wondered whatever happened to Cannie Shapiro and Joy? Well, Cannie turned into a scaredy cat housewife/closet writer and Joy turned into a typical teenager. “Certain Girls” takes place 13 years after the end of “Good in Bed.” Cannie is married to Dr. K and Joy is in middle school, preparing for her bat mitzvah. We find out in flashbacks how they came to be here: how Cannie wrote her book, how she married, etc. Cannie wrote a book right when Joy was about a year old and it became a best seller. Instantly, almost, she was famous. She had various problems related to that and never wrote another book under her own name. She did, however, write a series of sci-fi books for teens under a pen name. Now, it’s the 10th anniversary of her book and the publishers want to do some promotion. Add to that stress, Cannie’s relationship with Joy isn’t that great and then Joy reads Cannie’s book. Of course, Joy doesn’t tell Cannie or ask her about it – she tries to gather facts from Cannie’s friends and family and long-ago acquaintances. The book’s ending ticked me off but over all it was good. Not as good as “Good in Bed” but still good. It was funny and once or twice made me cry.
—Barbara
After every Jennifer Weiner book I seriously contemplate a move to Philadelphia. I was there a few years ago on a business trip and experienced the town that is always a background character in each of Weiner's novels. She allows the city to breathe, and rather than squash its idiosyncrasies she summons them forward to set the stage for poignant scenes within her work. Certain Girls employs the subjects that Weiner is best at creating - relationships between mothers, daughters, and sisters. She allows her characters to have faults and depicts heroines who are complex and delicately layered. Certain Girls picks up with the story of Cannie Shapiro which began in her earlier work, Good in Bed, and continues her story as well as her coming-of-age daughter, Joy. Weiner proves her range by switching perspectives between Cannie and Joy with each chapter, leaving the reader with a fuller sense of the lives of the characters she has created. I became quite attached to these women; they seem a composite of fierce females that travel in and out of my life, leaving me energized. How bittersweet to finish a book - to close its cover and put it back on the shelf - to characters who are so real.
—Kaarin
