false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168475938m/33926.jpg 33926 33 Jane Rosenal, the narrator of <I>The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing</I>, is wise beyond her years. Not that that's saying much--since none of her elders, with the exception of her father, is particularly wise. At the age of 14, Jane watches her brother and his new girlfriend, searching for clues for how to fall in love, but by the end of the summer she's trying to figure out how not to <I>fail</I> in love. At twice that age, Jane quickly internalizes <I>How to Meet and Marry Mr. Right</I>, even though that retro manual is ruining her chances at happiness. In the intervening years, Melissa Bank's heroine struggles at love and work. The former often seems indistinguishable from the latter, and her experiences in book publishing inspire little in the way of affection. As Jane announces in "The Worst Thing a Suburban Girl Could Imagine": "I'd been a rising star at H----- until Mimi Howlett, the new executive editor, decided I was just the lights of an airplane."<p> Bank's first collection has a beautiful, true arc, and all the sophistication and control her heroine could ever desire. In "The Floating House," Jane and her boyfriend, Jamie, visit his ex-girlfriend in St. Croix, and right from the start she can't stop mimicking her beautiful competitor, in a notably idiotic fashion. "I'm like one of those animals that imitates its predators to survive," she realizes--one of several thousand of Bank's ruefully funny phrases. But even as Jane clowns around, desperately trying to keep up appearances, she is so hyperaware it hurts. Again and again, the author explores the dichotomy between life as it happens and the rehearsed anecdote, the preferred outcome. In <I>The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing</I>, even suburban quiet has "nothing to do with peace." Bank's much-anticipated debut merits all its buzz and, more to the point, transcends it. <I>--Kerry Fried</I> 33947 1999 The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing total:23065|5:3008|4:5776|3:8042|2:3983|1:2256| 23065 72492 31747 1053 1 7 false false Tue Dec 11 17:49:35 -0800 2007 Sat Jun 28 23:21:29 -0700 2008 5 3 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Fri Jun 29 14:56:05 -0700 2007 Fri Jun 29 14:56:05 -0700 2007
Her characters ...more...]]> 1 4 false false Fri Feb 22 12:21:03 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 22 12:22:27 -0800 2008 more...]]> 1 5 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Thu Jun 19 21:06:45 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 19 21:08:00 -0700 2008 2 5 false false Wed Jun 25 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 02 13:19:09 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 08 08:26:53 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 3 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Feb 29 08:25:47 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 29 10:23:56 -0800 2008
After realizing that the boo...more...]]> 4 2 false false Wed Jan 30 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 18 14:32:18 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 30 11:25:39 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 3 false true Sun Mar 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 24 19:25:57 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 24 19:54:32 -0700 2008 The Girls' Guide embraces a worthy theme but devolves into national geographic narrative, rendering the text completely (in my opinion) degrading. The easy to follow jumps in time are c...more...]]> 3 2 false false Sat Feb 14 07:48:46 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 14 08:03:37 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 6 false false Wed Feb 04 20:34:38 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 04 20:37:18 -0800 2009
Found in Last Word trash. A good place

Also someone edited in an extra, unrelated chapter]]> 5 1 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 21 12:21:33 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 21 12:29:11 -0700 2008
It's made up of short stories, snapshots of main character's life. Even though the stories were quick I felt like I got this wonderful portrait of the c...more...]]> 1 1 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 25 08:58:57 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 26 09:10:48 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 1 false false Fri Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Tue Dec 02 03:36:26 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 02 03:40:49 -0800 2008 1 4 1 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 04 13:32:13 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 09 08:44:47 -0800 2009
...more...]]> 1 1 false false Mon Apr 06 13:33:26 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 06 13:33:26 -0700 2009 5 1 false false Wed May 16 06:05:59 -0700 2007 Wed May 16 06:12:48 -0700 2007
My favorite story is the last one, from which the title of the book comes. In this story, Jane is reading one of those hi...more...]]> 2 1 false false Fri Mar 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 08 05:30:53 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 08 05:47:09 -0700 2009 Finding and Keeping Mr. Right type self-help books. The last chapter came the closest to fitting this description and even that was predictable and poorly done. Perhaps I had wrong information and am j...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Feb 03 11:24:33 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 03 11:24:44 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Sat Jan 03 11:12:57 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 03 11:15:58 -0800 2009 The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing is a compilation of short stories, mostly revolving around the character Jane Rosenal, a sarcastic yet unquestionably endearing New Yorker whose growth we see marked by different events and stages of her life. Each chapter/story leaves Jane with ideas and rev...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jul 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 10 08:13:04 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 10 08:22:43 -0700 2009
Enjoyable and interesting book, although I cannot relate to Jane's...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=33926