Jennifer Weiner's debut novel, Good in Bed, was one of THOSE novels.
You know THOSE novels...you figure it will be a cute little read, and you plan on reading a page here and there throughout your week, but suddenly you are only a few pages in when you have to cancel your plans, ignore the ringing of the phone and all the chores around you and curl up until every page is done and the back cover closed with a satisfying snap.
Good in Bed is still one of my all-time favorite novels - chick lit though it may be, it had heart, depth, character, super writing, characters I yearned to know better, and made me laugh and cry all in one.
Luckily, lightning strikes twice.
Weiner just released Certain Girls yesterday, and already I have read every page, staying up past my bedtime and ignoring my piles of laundry and bills that need paying in order to do so.
I don’t regret a single unfolded sock.
Certain Girls revisits Cannie Shapiro, the unlikely heroine of Good in Bed, though it is now 13 years later. Cannie is now a loving wife to Dr. Peter Krushelevansky and an overprotective mother to daughter Joy, settling into middle age in Philadelphia, content to ghost write science fiction novels and tend to her family. Joy is about to be bat mitzvah'ed, and this forms the basis for the novel, and for the tension throughout. Weiner uses alternating voices in every chapter - first Cannie, then Joy. Her characterization of a teenage girl embarrassed by her mother, struggling to fit in with her friends, and seeking to find herself is cringe-worthily spot on.
And as for Cannie - the unlikely heroine strikes again.
From the minute I picked up the book, I felt like I was back with an old friend, as though we were never apart. Though I didn't go back and reread Good in Bed (and it's been years since I first read it), I knew her right away - her comic voice, her loving nature, her body image issues, and her fierce determination.
Weiner packs a lot into this novel - both diverse characters and different plots. This novel is a smorgasbord of characters - lesbian grandmothers! surrogate mothers! absent fathers! nutjob sisters! rebellious daughters! - but never does it lose its focus on Cannie and Joy, mother and daughter, as they find their way in their own worlds, and within each other's. Cannie must come to terms with Joy’s teenage status, and with the bombshell that Peter yearns to add another person to the family. Joy must come to terms with not only her mother, her natural father, her step father, her friends, and her grandparents, but ultimately with herself.
Though Weiner is considered one of the dames of chick lit, this doesn’t have the typical formula one would expect: Cannie is not a size 2. Cannie is not struggling with her career in a big city. Cannie is not searching for her “one perfect boy”, and there aren’t multiple tumbles in the hay in the search to find him.
Instead, Cannie is fuller-figured, living in the ‘burbs, and has already found “her one”. And that’s what makes this chick lit novel even sweeter a treat. A smart, sassy heroine who’s on her way to having things figured out – almost.
This novel made me laugh. This novel made me teary. This novel made me long for it to be twice as long as it is. This novel made me want Cannie in my life as a next door neighbor, co-worker or best friend.
Or maybe all three.
This novel has it all - it may be chick lit, but it is truly the finest kind.
If you enjoyed Certain Girls, be sure to read Weiner's other bestselling books: Good in Bed, In Her Shoes (which was made into a smash movie starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Colette and Shirley MacLaine), Little Earthquakes, Goodnight Nobody, and The Guy Not Taken.
Weiner is also the author of the frequently updated blog on her website, titled “A Moment of Jen”, and found here: http://jenniferweiner.blogspot.com/
If you enjoy reading Weiner's novels, you may also enjoy novels by Jane Green, Emily Giffin, Marian Keyes, Adriana Trigiani, or Meg Cabot.
Looking to ask the Loud Librarian a question or comment on one of her reviews? Email her at marissa.priddis@crucialpop.com.
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