Erin S. (nantuckerin) reviewed on 8/24/2009 + 158 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

Reading Jennifer Weiner's "Certain Girls" was kind of like bumping into an old friend from high school or college on Facebook, getting excited about the possibility of rekindling a relationship with someone you thought was uber-cool in the past, and then being totally befuddled and oddly disappointed about the path their life has taken.

Cannie Shapiro, Weiner's heroine from her best-selling book "Good In Bed" has always been at the top of my list of fictional characters I'd love to be friends with if they ever decided to jump from the page. She was a feisty 20-something writer and self-proclaimed "big girl" that really touched a cord in me as a reader.

Needless to say, I was thrilled to pick up "Certain Girls" and rejoin Cannie on her journey 12 years down the road from where I left her. Unfortunately, Cannie seems to have kind of lost herself. After the thrilling success of her mostly autobiographical and largely scandalous book, "Big Girls Don't Cry," Cannie has taken herself out of the limelight to quietly raise her daughter, Joy, with her husband, Peter. She writes science fiction books under a pseudonym. She smothers her almost-teenage daughter. She's let herself go physically. Honestly, about halfway through the book (when I had conviced myself that I was too far in to quit now) I had a pretty vivid fantasy of physically shaking some sense into her.

Cannie and Joy are in the thick of the mother/daughter angst that most of us deal with as we're growing up. The book is written in a split point-of-view, alternating chapters in Joy and Cannie's voices. I liked this element, because I think it provided a good perspective of the complex issues facing mothers and daughters and how hard it is to communicate with almost-teenagers. But these exchanges were also hard for me to read. My little girl is only three, and my stomach still turned when I thought about dealing with similar issues with her in the future. "Certain Girls" was just an early reminder that, yes, someday soon, my pink-loving princess that adores me now will hate me with a venom I may not deserve, and will definitely not be prepared for.

As the final nail in the coffin, Weiner throws in an extremely sad event out of the blue at the end of the novel that completely took me off guard and honestly, didn't really seem necessary. I just didn't get it. Other than making readers cry (which I did - buckets) what was the purpoose? Did it advance the characters or the plot? Not really. And it kind of made me wish I had quit halfway through the book, when I was just annoyed and not yet depressed over Cannie's story.

I have to also note, the book is also spends a lot of time discussing Jewish life events, traditions, and uses a lot of traditional Jewish vernacular. Since I've had little exposure to this culture, a lot of that content was lost on me.

After this review, I'm puzzled about my own decision to give this book three stars. The bottom line is, I didn't really like this story, but I love Jennifer Weiner. I like her voice as a writer, and even though I think she might need a life coach and a good swift kick in the tush, I still love Cannie Shapiro, too. If you like chick lit or have a teenage daughter, you'll probably enjoy this book. Maybe I'll enjoy it more if I reread it in 10 years.

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