Good in Bed - Jennifer Weiner

Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

'Cannie Shapiro never wanted to be famous. The smart, sharp, plus-sized reporter was perfectly happy writing about other people's lives for her local newspaper. And for the past twenty-eight years, things have been tripping along nicely for Cannie. Sure, her mother has come charging out of the closet, and her father has long since dropped out of her world. But she loves her job, her friends, her dog and her life. She loves her apartment and her commodious, quilt-lined bed. She has made a tenuous peace with her body and she even felt okay about ending her relationship with her boyfriend Bruce. But now this...'



Candice (Canny) Shapiro is the main character and the book is written through her eyes. She is approaching 30 and is a journalist on the local newspaper. We learn that Canny is on a break from her boyfriend of 3 years Bruce Gruberman who is also a writer in an affair that appears to be going rather stale. Canny is humiliated by Bruce when an article appears in a magazine about her stating how challenging it is to love a larger woman, she and those who know her realise it is about her. Canny has issues with her weight and the belief that no one really loved her and the book takes the reader on a journey of her self awakening and acceptance of who she is.

It started off so well, I really thought it was going to be fast paced and funny instead it turned out to be a lot more serious for me. Most of us have had had weight issues and many people can identify with that but it was just not the light read I had expected. Because of this it seemed to be heavy going in parts and somewhat difficult to pick it up and carry on to the end.

Jennifer Weiner has a great sense of humour which comes through well in this novel allowing Canny to make light of the hurt and betrayal she feels by Bruce. I did feel that the character was a little self-indulgent and she wallowed a bit in self pity but despite this it was a good read although predictable. It had plenty of laugh out loud moments and also some sad and poignant moments.

The first half of the book did dwell a lot on self pity but it livened up towards the second half thankfully making it overall an enjoyable book. I particularly liked her humour which made me want to continue to the end, without it I probably wouldn’t have wanted to finish the book.

When I did finished I had to think how it made me feel; I was glad it all worked out for her in the end and that she learnt to love herself but it didn’t have the ‘feel good’ factor, it didn’t make me feel I would rush out and buy another of her novels, it kind of left me a bit flat, it was OK, written well with good humour but a great chick lit? I think it was a bit too heavy for that.
Because it was well written and there were some really very funny moments I would rate this book as a 4 star, it didn’t quite have the light and carefree feel that it seemed to promise at the start which was disappointing.