Good in Bed

Good in Bed
Jennifer Weiner
375 pages
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Source: PaperBackSwap.com
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary of Good in Bed here.

It took me a few months to get around to reading this one; I kept passing by it on the shelf thinking it was a lighter read, some chick-lit that would be good to read after I read something heavier.  So I finished The Help and decided the time had come for me to finally read Good in Bed.  And this book is definitely chick-lit, but it wasn't all light and fluffy like I thought it would be; instead it got pretty deep towards the end, tackling some serious issues.  I wish I could tell you what those issues are, but that would seriously spoil the whole thing for you should you decide to read it.

Cannie Shapiro is an overweight journalist struggling to get over her ex-boyfriend.  Along the way she joins a weight loss study, meets celebrities (as part of her job), travels to Hollywood to sell a manuscript, still struggles to get over the ex-boyfriend, tries to make sense of her father's abandonment, and then some bigger things happen.  Remember the issues I can't tell you about?  Well, it's big and serious, and executed excellently.

Weiner is a great writer.  And I don't just mean in the "good descriptions and character development" way, though she does that well, too.  More importantly, Weiner knows how to write a humorous novel while simultaneously tackling a serious woman's issue and have the ending wrap up in a satisfying, not cliché way.  In case you haven't guessed, I was very impressed with the way Weiner took a traditional chick-lit topic and used it to tackle a more serious plot.

The book is almost ten years old (omg, where did this last decade go!?) so the references are outdated, but it was fun to look back at them.  Overall, I'm glad to have finally read this!