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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jun 1999, 274 pages
Paperback:
May 2000, 288 pages
One of the most eagerly anticipated books of the season - funny, sexy, wise fiction from the freshest new voice in women's writing.
I don't admit to myself what I'm doing when I put my bike helmet on and ride over to the bookstore a few blocks away. I pretend that maybe I'm just getting another Edith Wharton novel. But I bypass fiction and find Self-Help. I think Self-Help? If I could help myself, I wouldn't be here.
There are stacks and stacks of How to Meet and Marry Mr. Right, and I take my copy up to the counter as furtively as if it were a girdle or a vibrator ...
With a steadily growing cadre of readers who delight in her smartly comic and insightful writing, Melissa Bank is an event waiting to happen. The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing explores the life lessons of Jane, the contemporary American Everywoman who combines the charm of Bridget Jones, the vulnerability of Ally McBeal, and the wit of Lorrie Moore. As she works her way from defiant teenager to reluctant career girl, growing older and getting smarter, Jane maneuvers her way through love, sex, relationships, and the occasional perils of the workplace. She reluctantly succumbs to the questionable advice offered in a pop-psych book entitled How to Meet and Marry Mr. Right.
Accompanied at every turn by the ear-whispering authors (who bear an uncanny resemblance to two popular, hateful high school acquaintances) Jane makes a series of dating decisions that lead her in the right direction -- but for the wrong reasons. Wise, poignant, and full of the kind of laugh-out-loud insight you just have to share with your best friend, Melissa Bank is the kind of writer readers have been waiting for: an original voice telling a universal story through characters we all love and recognize.
Excerpt
The Girl's Guide To Hunting & Fishing
My best friend is getting married. Her wedding is only two weeks away, and I still don't have a dress to wear. In desperation, I decide to go to Loehmann's in the Bronx. My friend Donna offers to come with me, saying she needs a bathing suit, but I know a mercy mission when I see one.
"It might be easier if you were bringing a date," Donna says in the car, on the Major Deegan Expressway. "But maybe you'll meet somebody."
When I don't answer, she says, "who was the last guy you felt like you could bring to a wedding?"
I know she's not asking a question as much as trying to broach the subject of my unsocial life. But I say, "That French guy I went out with."
"I forgot about him," she says. "What was his name again?"
"Fuckface," I say.
"That's right," she says.
* * *
At the entrance to the store, we separate and plan to meet in an hour. I'm an expert shopper, discerning fabric content by touch, identifying ...
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