A review by madelinepuckett
The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank

5.0

UPDATE: Saw some of the other Goodreads reviews - why the fuck was this classified as Chick Lit?? That makes me so mad. Well, the whole concept of "chick lit" makes me mad...but this novel is so much more than a fun, escapist read like Sophie Kinsella or Helen Fielding's novels. People really hated on this book. But to me is seems like more a precursor to novels that are coming out TODAY that are being held in high esteem in the literary world, like Sally Rooney, Catherine Lacy, and Ling Ma's works. It really makes me wonder how this book would have been reviewed if it came out this year, rather than (jesus) TWENTY years ago.

This sat on my shelf for years after I picked it up in a used bookstore. I hadn't heard anything about it, but for some reason it vaguely intrigued me at the time. As I was sorting through old books I decided to read the first few pages before tossing it in the give-away pile.
Fast-forward to the next morning, as I am closing the book after reading it almost straight through.

This is the strongest narrative I've read in a while. It is framed as a collection of chapters that read like short stories, but most are from the perspective of our protagonist Jane (or at least connected to her, if not from her point of view).

The stories take us from Jane's adolescence through her adulthood and center around family, the male experience vs. the female experience in relationships, and love. There is a coming-of-age element to the novel as well, in Jane's growth and development.

We are first introduced to Jane at age fourteen, when her 20 year-old brother brings home his 28 year-old girlfriend. Jane is still coming to terms with puberty, her body changing, what kind of person she wants to be:

My theory was that if you had breasts, boys wanted to have sex with you, which wasn't exactly a big compliment, since they wanted to have sex anyway. Whereas if you had a beautiful face, like Julia, boys fell in love with you, which seemed to happen almost against their will. Then the sex that you had would be about love.

Jane is trying to navigate what it means to grow into womanhood, and determine what she can control and what will happen TO her.

Other chapters chronicle stories of her "first love", aka her first boyfriend, her romantic partnership with a much older man who is part mentor/part lover, and her coming to terms with a profession that will bring her fulfillment. Bank's writing clips along and I found it to be succinct in capturing the emotions, unspoken words, underlying tension, and atmosphere of the settings. This book was published in 1999, but I feel it would do well being published this year. Its themes remain relevant.

The final chapter centers around Jane trying to decide whether to "be herself", therefore risking all the mistakes that have tainted love in her past relationships, or follow a guidebook on how to win over men called How to Meet and Marry Mr. Right. (By the way, there is a real book with this title but the authors cited are different, which leads me to believe the book in Bank's novel is a fictional construct modeled after the many "self-help" books out there instructing women on how to entrap, er, find and marry men). I loved this chapter's humor and Jane's conflict with trying to decide whether she should follow a formula of what she THINKS men want or if she should be honest and real.

There are so many novels with the classic "you-don't-know-you're-beautiful" lead female who, as it turns out, was beautiful all along! But those narratives exist for a reason; women are instilled with the message "you will never be good enough" from a very young age. They are taught to disdain their bodies, compare themselves to other women, push themselves with physical regimens, spend stupid amounts of money on beauty-enhancing products....and to what end? To impress the opposite sex? To "beat" other women? I think the reason it persists even today is because women often struggle with being able to love themselves. They internalize the external message "be better", and never believe they can be good enough. I thought this novel did an incredible job exploring and ultimately overcoming this message.

One chapter, You Could Be Anyone, is told from second-person voice, with the "you" being a young woman in a relationship with a handsome, old-money, semi-dangerous man in New York City. She receives results back from a doctor's visit revealing she has breast cancer. Upon hearing this news she thinks:

Too late, you realize that your body was perfect-every healthy body is.

And in these circumstances, those words don't sound empty or trite like they so often do on inspirational quote art and Dove commercials. She also finds the strength to finally see her boyfriend as the self-centered man he is, and understand he will never love her.

But then you hear that he can't hear you, you see that he can't see you. You are not here-and you haven't even died yet. You see yourself through his eyes, as The Generic Woman, the skirted symbol on the ladies; room door...You will say goodbye for all the right reasons. You're tired of living in wait for his apocalypse. You have your own fight on your hands, and though it's no bigger or more noble than his, it will require all of you energy.

I thought Bank's writing, her narrative structure, and her thematic elements were all achieved beautifully. Highly recommend this book.