A review by offbalance80
Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner

2.0

What began as a bright, interesting sequel to Weiner's massive hit debut Good In Bed wandered wildly off track for me after 3/4 of the way through. What began as an engaging look at a mother and her daughter attempting to approach the fact that the daughter was not a little girl anymore took a completely incomprehensible turn in the end when the author (for seemingly no reason whatsoever) killed off Cannie's loving and patient husband. The book had plenty of dramatic juice to go on, and it would have made much more sense to leave Joy's unexpected trip to L.A. as the major moment of drama at the end that brings all of the families together. What's more, Peter's death deserved either its own entire book or at least more than the 15 pages devoted to it. I don't believe that the characters would have bounced back as easily as they did from his death, either. Joy seemed completely unaffected by it, and the cheap, weak "montage" of Cannie spending months at the kitchen table in her bathrobe or sobbing in the appliance store? Boring. What Weiner had started writing was far more original and interesting than what she ended off with. I was disappointed, but everything up to that chapter was great.