Helpful Score: 5
This book is awesome.
The writing style is somewhat like riding as a passenger when someone is trying to learn to drive a stickshift, which I HATE. But I LOVED this book. It may have been a confluence of the right book at the right time in the right place in the right frame of mind, but once again, this book was awesome. Enough to make me break a vow to myself about not reading hyped up and oversold books as I am now going to request the author's other book "Girl's guide to Hunting and Fishing".
The writing style is somewhat like riding as a passenger when someone is trying to learn to drive a stickshift, which I HATE. But I LOVED this book. It may have been a confluence of the right book at the right time in the right place in the right frame of mind, but once again, this book was awesome. Enough to make me break a vow to myself about not reading hyped up and oversold books as I am now going to request the author's other book "Girl's guide to Hunting and Fishing".
Helpful Score: 4
This book changed my life.
Helpful Score: 3
I liked this book a lot. Quick read. It's even better than her first book "Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing".
Helpful Score: 3
If I wrote short stories, I'd want them to be like these. A very good book!
Helpful Score: 3
I liked this book quite a bit; however, I don't think it's particularly memorable. Readable, yes.
Helpful Score: 2
So, So. It is a running commentary of all the boyfriends she has had since she was 12. It just goes on and on. I really dont get her humor.
Helpful Score: 1
Sophie Applebaum is an everywoman who doesn't quite fit in anywhere. She's looking for a career but lacks a calling, looking for love but winds up with men who hold her off instead of pull her in. At cocktail parties, she feels like a solid trying to do a liquid's job. It isn't easy to find your place in the world, but Sophie's willing to work. With every misstep, she's closer to creating the life she wants to have.
Helpful Score: 1
Great read. I really liked her book The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing and was equally pleased with this book.
Helpful Score: 1
Interesting, but never really goes anywhere. Worth a read...
Helpful Score: 1
Well written contemporary story of young womanhood set in NYC. An engaging read.
Helpful Score: 1
Relatable journey through one very realistic young woman's late 20th-century journey from a uncertain childhood, through a self-doubting adolescence, to an aimless young adulthood and, finally, to some well-earned clarity about who she is, what she wants, and what growing up is for. I especially loved the episodic format, almost a series of connected short stories that comprise snapshots at key periods of the narrators' life. So, so wry and funny. Especially recommended if you enjoyed Melissa Bank's previous novel, _A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing_.
Helpful Score: 1
I've wanted to read this book for a while because I loved 'The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing'. It took me a while to get into this one, but by the end I didn't want to put it down.
Helpful Score: 1
I really enjoyed this book. There wasn't really a plot. There weren't any shocking twists. It was just...life. A very well written account of life. Very simple but fulfilling.
Helpful Score: 1
Disjointed but entertaining.
Helpful Score: 1
Wonderful short stories with one main character. Awesome!
Helpful Score: 1
Very good. Better than her first book.
I didn't really like this book. It is about a girl, Sophie, and all of the men she has encountered throughout her life. She lives in New York City. She works in advertising but doesn't like it. She is waiting for something better to come along, but doesn't try hard enough to change jobs or get something different. As I read the book, I kept waiting for something to happen, like her falling in love or actually liking the life she is living. I must have missed something because I really didn't understand what the book was about. In fact, it kind of depressed me.
Having read professional reviews of this book, I was so looking forward to the story. Huge disappointment .
I was not a fan of this book. Too predictable and I could not relate to the characters, and did not like her writing style.
Sophie, the main character in this book, is completely unlikable, annoying, and on an aimless journey of avoiding self-awareness. The book, written in chunks, almost like short stories about the various pieces of Sophie's life, mostly related to her ill-fated and failed romances and her dully average family, comes across as disjointed and pointless.
She narrates relationship after relationship with the men in her life with an astounding cluelessness and lack of ability to determine why each one ends unhappily. When she's not talking about boyfriends or family, she hovers around her issues with learning at school and at work, but we never learn what's wrong with her (and there is obviously something VERY wrong with this girl emotionally and intellectually). Is it dyslexia? Laziness? ADD/ADHD? Is she a late bloomer?
When the author doesn't provide the answer, the reader has to fill it in, and, ultimately, the answer is, I don't care.
She narrates relationship after relationship with the men in her life with an astounding cluelessness and lack of ability to determine why each one ends unhappily. When she's not talking about boyfriends or family, she hovers around her issues with learning at school and at work, but we never learn what's wrong with her (and there is obviously something VERY wrong with this girl emotionally and intellectually). Is it dyslexia? Laziness? ADD/ADHD? Is she a late bloomer?
When the author doesn't provide the answer, the reader has to fill it in, and, ultimately, the answer is, I don't care.
Pleasurable read.
The story of Sophie who is an everywoman who doesn't quite fit in.
The story of Sophie who is an everywoman who doesn't quite fit in.
This was a really fun read by an author with an unique writing style. I didn't know what to expect when I started this, but I thoroughly enjoyed it!
I loved Melissa Bank's first book "The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing" so I was eager to read this when I had heard she had written another book but I was not impressed with this one. I felt it had no plot, meaning or purpose, therefore no ending.
Good book. Entertaining.
I enjoyed it even more than her hit The Girl's Guide To Hunting and Fishing. Funny and thougthful.
This book chronicles 20 years of a womans life. Great contemporary literature and an easy read.
This book is by the author of "The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing" which I have not read but friends have loved. This book is a nice relaxing story following a girl named Sophie as she grows up.
Not quite as good as The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing but still an enjoyable read.
Wonderful book!
