renwar96's review against another edition
4.0
So I've never read a Jennifer Weiner book before and decided to give this short story a try. I really liked it, it was very clever and the main character was so unlikeable but you can really feel for her and the things she's dealing with. I will be reading more books from Jennifer Weiner!
faerietxn's review against another edition
2.0
What did I just read?
I’m so confused on what I read. Maybe because I kept stopping and trying again. I wanted to see where the story was going but at the same time I was bored and then really confused. Laurel was such an annoying character but Tess was a bit much - which was the point I guess. What exactly happened though??
I’m so confused on what I read. Maybe because I kept stopping and trying again. I wanted to see where the story was going but at the same time I was bored and then really confused. Laurel was such an annoying character but Tess was a bit much - which was the point I guess. What exactly happened though??
curlybookowl's review against another edition
2.0
2.5 for me. I liked the plot because it was interesting and somewhat of a mystery. Older book critic is sent on a trip keeps finding a bubbly authors book in her things and room. What killed this the most was the body shaming. I don’t know how many times in the 1 hour and a half audio book I heard thicker women referred to as piglets or how there coat got tighter every year. It was repulsive. Also laurels character complained about everything. She was never happy just mad or upset at the littlest things.
esquiredtoread's review against another edition
5.0
I read this after reading "Too Slutty, Too Fat, too Loud." I look forward to reading some of this authors backlist!!
bumblebeekip23's review against another edition
4.0
Entertaining novella that had a thriller feel. I felt bad for the main character in so many ways until the very end!
karenika's review against another edition
4.0
This was a funny, ironic little story bashing both critics and mass-reviewers (in my opinion.) In fact, I feel like Weiner had fun with a bunch of different concepts in this short story. It's about the changing face of literary criticism, about critics themselves, about the changing ownership and perspective of publishing and how to cater to new audiences. It's about revenge, too. But most of all it read to me like Weiner was just having fun writing it. I had a lot of fun reading it.
robinreading's review against another edition
5.0
Weiner tackles a subject near and dear to my heart—gender disparity in literary unblushing—and it’s nothing short of a slaughtering of a broken system. A fun, smart, surprising short story that makes a pretty compelling case for widening the criteria for what constitutes literature.
sp3cia1j's review against another edition
2.0
This fell flat for me. Perhaps it would have been better as a longer story? I get the exercise Weiner is doing here, but it was a little too on the nose for me.
joschatz's review against another edition
1.0
Worst book I've read in years. I cannot understand why there are any positive reviews on this book. It was incredibly spiteful and fat-shaming, woman-shaming, anti-feminist, snobby, whiny, and angry. It was really just shockingly awful and infuriating. Nearly every single line was a complaint about something. I cannot get over how many times the author referred to non-skinny women as pigs or piglets and how many times she discounted the value of women by how their "coat has gotten tighter over the year" or "her dress doesn't fit as well as it used to". Sausage fingers, jiggling double chin, these are direct lines from the book. It was really shocking. It was as if I was reading a book by my bitter, hateful, misogynistic boomer uncle. Read this book if you want to be in a terrible fucking mood. Do not recommend!
katefm811's review
4.0
I love Jennifer Weiner's stories, long and short. Are we going to get a copy of The Comfort Diet soon??
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