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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner was definitely a roller-coaster. I disliked the first half of the book because I just couldn't fathom ever being 13 and hating my mom, and disrespecting her like Joy did, but I mean that was 8 years ago.. and I've heard I was the queen of attitudes, so I'm sure I was exactly like her.. maybe that's why I didn't enjoy reading about Joy. I have to admit though, the last half of the book definitely made me laugh, cry, and eventually smile.
"As the days piled up into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, and fall slid into winter, I realized one of the great truths about tragedy: You can dream of disappearing. You can wish for oblivion, for endless sleep or the escape of fiction, of walking into a river with your pockets full of stones, of letting the dark water close over your head. But if you've got kids, the web of the world holds you close and wraps you tight and keeps you from falling, no matter how badly you think you want to fall."
11 years later, following Good In Bed, Joy is now 13 years old and getting ready for her Bat Mitzvah with her parents, Cannie and Peter. She knows that Bruce is really her father, whoever, she wishes she had a 'normal' family, like her friend Amber's. I feel like she compares herself a lot to her friends, and is always trying to appear normal, whether it's with her family, or her appearance, without hearing aids. I think at that age many young teens just want a normal family and to be seen as normal. Yet you learn, without a doubt, that being original is what makes your family unique. She learns it a rather hard way, but I won't ruin it for you. As for Cannie, she is as overprotective as she can be, and also discovers herself along the chapters. Should she write another book? Should she have another baby, this time with Peter? Should she tell her daughter everything, including that risque book she wrote years ago? Although all these questions prove to be difficult to answer, they are eventually answered... with time, and with signs.. everything happens for a reason, even if we are blinded by tragedy and cannot see this reason.
"As the days piled up into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, and fall slid into winter, I realized one of the great truths about tragedy: You can dream of disappearing. You can wish for oblivion, for endless sleep or the escape of fiction, of walking into a river with your pockets full of stones, of letting the dark water close over your head. But if you've got kids, the web of the world holds you close and wraps you tight and keeps you from falling, no matter how badly you think you want to fall."
11 years later, following Good In Bed, Joy is now 13 years old and getting ready for her Bat Mitzvah with her parents, Cannie and Peter. She knows that Bruce is really her father, whoever, she wishes she had a 'normal' family, like her friend Amber's. I feel like she compares herself a lot to her friends, and is always trying to appear normal, whether it's with her family, or her appearance, without hearing aids. I think at that age many young teens just want a normal family and to be seen as normal. Yet you learn, without a doubt, that being original is what makes your family unique. She learns it a rather hard way, but I won't ruin it for you. As for Cannie, she is as overprotective as she can be, and also discovers herself along the chapters. Should she write another book? Should she have another baby, this time with Peter? Should she tell her daughter everything, including that risque book she wrote years ago? Although all these questions prove to be difficult to answer, they are eventually answered... with time, and with signs.. everything happens for a reason, even if we are blinded by tragedy and cannot see this reason.
Good, upset a bit by the ending, but the mom and daughter were great characters who really drew you in.
An underwhelming sequel to a great book (Good in Bed)
so I listened to this in the car. It was a good sequel to "Good in Bed", but I hated the ending. I won't give it away, but I didn't find it necessary.... overall, I enjoyed it. just not the last disk and a half.
It was a cutesy book. It explores the complicated relationship between a girl turning 13 and her mother. Just when you think the book is coming to the gradual, typical close (for this genre) where everyone lives happily ever after, Weiner pulls a twist adding just a bit more to the story line.
I read Good In Bed a long time ago, maybe almost ten years ago, and hadn't realized this was a sort of sequel when I picked it up. But you don't need to read the first - the important details are recounted in this one for you. I really enjoyed this - my only gripe is that more had been made of Joy's hearing loss/hearing aids, something that you're reminded of every so often but not a whole lot is indicated by her behavior. It would have been nice to have more of a sense of her difficulty understanding people, reading lips and body language, etc.
Maybe it was listening to this as an audiobook, or maybe the fact that I read Good In Bed so many years ago, but I wasn't really impressed by this. It was okay, but not nearly as good as the first one, and Cannie was SO ANNOYING. I get that she was worried about her daughter, etc. etc. but seriously???? And then Joy does all this crazy stuff and her punishment is so minimal.... I wanted to reach into the book and strangle them both. Finally, Peter dying was just... I was sad, but not heartbroken. He didn't figure enough into the main part of the story to really matter, it was like he was a minor character. Too bad, because I have loved several of her other books and now I'm leery of reading her next one, but I'll still probably pick it up.
i read Jennifer Weiner's Good In Bed years ago and fell in love with the characters and the book. that book was a feel-good, uplifting, enjoyable read. i had high expectations for its sequel, Certain Girls, and the book fell short. the book was pretty good and definitely brought tears to my eyes and laughter to my voice. i can't pinpoint what i didn't like about the book or even if i didn't like it. that's why i gave it three stars. i'm kind of undecided. Jennifer Weiner is an excellent writer and i enjoyed how she weaved passages and a book within a book to her prose. it just wasn't what i expected and perhaps hoped for Cannie, the heroine from Good In Bed.
I thoroughly enjoy Jennifer Weiner's books. I think a lot of women can relate to her characters. This book continues the story of Cannie, from her earlier book, Good in Bed. It took me a little while to get into the book but after a few chapters I was hooked, as usual. I liked that she alternated the story's perspective from Cannie to her 13-year-old daughter in every chapter. SPOILER ALERT! (Kind of)-- The ending really threw me. It was sooo sad and had me bawling my eyes out. It really annoyed me, actually, and kind of ruined the story for me. I would have given it 4 stars without the ending. I would still recommend it, however. I would also suggest reading Good in Bed first, which is probably one of her best books.
Since I loved "Good in Bed," I was glad when I heard Weiner was writing a sequel. This novel starts 12 or 13 years after the events of the first novel, and the chapters alternate from the perspectives of Cannie and her about to be bat-mitzvahed daughter. Weiner did a great job of getting into a 13-year old's head, and it was interesting to see how Cannie had both changed and not changed. I also loved how near the end of the book, she used the Yom Kippur prayer to help express Cannie's emotions.