Good In Bed: It's Bad, But Not In THAT Way
Written: Apr 24 '02 (Updated Apr 29 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Many women can identify with the relationship aspects experienced by Cannie.
Cons: The author lost all control of her story line about 1/3 of the way through.
The Bottom Line: It doesn't live up to its own hype. Re-read that Marian Keyes book instead.
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| kristinafh's Full Review: Jennifer Weiner - Good In Bed |
It's almost Summer and you know what that means. Time to read those smut books. You know - books that don't add a lot of brain power to your noggin. Books that allow you to escape from the ho-hum, dull-drums of adult responsibilities.
Yep, just this past weekend, the sun was shining and I was ripe for a new read. When I saw this laying out on the featured table at Borders, I couldn't help but pick it up. The title, the description of the characters, and the thoughts behind the story line enticed me to lay down $13.00 for this pup.
What Its About
28 year old Cannie Shapiro has issues. Where to begin? Cannie's fat. Not just 10 pounds overweight, but fat. Her mother is now a lesbian and lives with a Marge Simpson sister soundalike. Her father, who abandoned her years ago, only gave Cannie positive attention when it was in his best interest.
Sure, she has a fairly successful career as a reporter for The Philadelphia Examiner but her co-worker Gabby stabs her in the back every chance she gets.
And then there's the issue of a boyfriend. For three years, she was with Bruce. Uncertain about whether this was the "forever" relationship, she and Bruce took a break. Since they were apart, she really didn't miss him. After all, she had her dog Nifkin to keep her company.
Just when she thought that her life couldn't get much worse, friend Samantha calls Cannie with the big news of the hour. Her ex-boyfriend Bruce, is now writing for the magazine Moxie. And most importantly, his first article is about Cannie. It's entitled, Good In Bed: Loving A Larger Woman. Although Bruce at least conceals her name by using just her initial, Cannie is flabbergasted by the liberties he has taken with reporting on what really happened in their relationship.
For some reason, this event shakes Cannie to the core and she begins a journey of mourning her past, facing her losses, and charting a new course for the future. Maybe.
Analyze Me Baby
I was absolutely in love with the story for the first 135 pages. Cannie was a character that had believable, human flaws. She was overweight, she had self-esteem issues, and most of her life revolved around her career.
When Cannie started confronting her issues around weight, I was still with the character. When she joins a weight loss clinic and participates in sarcastic remarks with the other patients, you understand that she sees the task of losing weight as nearly impossible. After all, she's tried every thing.
So, where do things start to fall apart? It's when she becomes pregnant, meets a new "best friend" movie star, and without much ado, makes it to the big time career wise. This starts on page 136 and lasts until page 375.
It was then that Ms. Jennifer Weiner lost all credability with me. Are we to believe that for 28 years, Cannie had a miserable life and then suddenly, without much change in her behavior or circumstances, every thing starts coming together?
Well, I didn't fall for it and I bet that if you were subjected to this book, you wouldn't either.
So you may ask, why did I stick with it? Because I thought that maybe, eventually, the author was going to have the entire deal fall apart and that we would see a rebuilding of Cannie from the ground up. Never happened.
If truth be told, reading those last 200 pages took forever because I lost interest.
I've ranted long enough about the main character, Cannie. Some of the other characters - like her mother were written horribly. I realize that her mother is a lesbian however, I'm disappointed that Ms. Weiner didn't take the opportunity to step outside of the usual stereotypes. I almost want to send her a copy of one of the episodes from Queer As Folk so that she can write a better lesbian character :).
Cannie's boyfriend, Bruce, is never redeemed which is okay however, I was bothered by the fact that even though Cannie "supposedly" is over him now, there wasn't any official resolution to their relationship. So how can I really buy into the fact that a) it's over and b) she's really going to be "happy"? I can't.
So can you tell I was disappointed in this book? Yeah, well, off to the library it goes. I would feel evil listing it on half.com.
The End
First time author Jennifer Weiner could use a lesson or two from the likes of Marian Keyes and Judy Blume on character development. Remember, skip this entirely. Take a nap instead. Your dreams are sure to conjure up something more worthwhile.
Recommended:
No
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kristinafh
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Member: Kristina Frazier-Henry
Location: Indiana
Reviews written: 1338
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