Certain Girls

Certain Girls
by Jennifer Weiner

I love me some Jennifer Weiner. She writes beautiful, believable stories that happen to be about women--good, smart, real women.

I just finished her newest book, a sequel to Good in Bed, picking up 12 years where it left off. I loved meeting Cannie again, and knowing that her preemie daughter Joy is 12 and beautiful, with only moderate after-effects to her calamitous birth. I loved seeing Peter, Ann & Lucy/Elle and Samantha and Maxie again (though I didn't get enough Maxie this time). And even Bruce, though I still wanted to reach through the pages and squeeze his Hairy Acorn for being such a bastard to Cannie the first time around.

This book is way sadder than the first. While good things happen in it, I don't think I could bear to read it again for a few months. (And I love reading JW's books over and over.) Part of me feels the big tragedy in the book is a bit of a cheat...a dramatic way to end the book, equivalent to the tragedy around Joy's arrival. But because Jennifer is as big a fan of Stephen King as I am (King writes about the idea of cheating in novels in Misery), I choose to believe that she wrote the story as honestly as she could, and that she was as surprised by the turn of events as I was.

But I'm certain that in a few months, I'll want to read this again. And again. Especially to savor the way she captured Cannie's relationship with Joy.

I doubt that Jennifer would ever write another sequel, but if she does, I hope she hires me as continuity editor. (At least, for In Her Shoes or Little Earthquakes, since I know those novels really, really well.) Some details in this book just didn't jibe with Good in Bed, and it makes me really, really crazy.