Certain Girls is the sequel to Weiner's Good in Bed, a book about an oversized, increasingly bitter and acerbic young woman, Cannie Shapiro. Now it's thirteen years later and Cannie is happily married to her former "diet doctor" Peter and the mother of thirteen-year-old Joy. Joy's premature birth resulted in hearing loss, and her hearing aids and low voice are the banes of her existence. Well, that and her mother, of course (she is in seventh grade after all). Cannie stresses that her daughter doesn't like her anymore; Joy stresses that her mother loves her just a little too much.While the story revolves around Joy's bat mitzvah, it is more about the relationship between mother and daughter, and all the family history that has played a role in forming that relationship. I found that part of the book perfectly believable. I remember being thirteen and mortified that my parents existed at all. I teach fourteen-year-olds and see many of them still doing the same thing. At the end of the book, though, there's an event that brings mother and daughter closer together. I found the event contrived. It forced the natural, slow evolution of the relationship to accelerate simply because it was time for the book to end and the book apparently needed to end on a rainbows-and-puppy-dogs kind of note.
No comments:
Post a Comment