The Guy Not Taken by Jennifer Weiner

I love Jennifer Weiner. She's the smartest of the "chicklit" set, if you can even count her among them, and I don't. Her girls have real troubles, and no deus-ex-machina saves them--they save themselves.

This collection of short stories is wonderful not just for a mother with a drastically reduced attention span or reading time. Each story feels real--esp. the trio of stories in the beginning that reflect the years following Jen's own parents' divorce. I was also cringing and dying to yell at the Jess, the central character in Buyer's Market--how could she NOT see how she was being used? How lonely and weak could she be? And I loved Swim, with its character who is used to being invisible or pitied or both discovering that she can be seen and appreciated as she is.

In fact, the story I enjoyed least is the title story. JW admits it's sort of a homage to Stephen King's "Word Processor of the Gods". It feels too sci fi/fantasy for me. JW has a great gift for fleshing out the lives of everyday girls--I would be happy if she stuck to that.