false 69433748 561225 6198731 067002077X 9780670020775 26 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6198731.Miss_Harper_Can_Do_It_A_Novel 3.21 70 A winning debut novel about what happens when a young woman finds her life on hold

Twenty-four-year-old elementary school teacher Annie Harper is left behind in Tacoma, Washington, when her boyfriend David, an army lieutenant, is shipped overseas. Struggling with the complex emotions tied to his absence, she begins writing a confessional memoir, imagining it as a moving account of “the woman at home.” But instead of devolving into a tear-jerking tale of integrity and patience, Annie’s life goes on without David in ways she didn’t anticipate. She spends more time with her best friend, Gus, begins volunteering at a local retirement center, and adopts a pet chicken. Even as she misses David enormously between his sparse e-mails and choppy phone calls, she struggles with conflicted feelings about their long-distance relationship, her own identity and family history, and the ideological underpinnings of a war that’s exerting such a force on her life.

Told through the draft chapters of Annie’s memoir-in-progress, Miss Harper Can Do It is a funny and poignant story of what it means to be loyal versus what it means to be in love. In Annie, Berentson has rendered a quirky young woman who copes with loss and stress in unexpected ways, only wavering briefly on the brink of self-pity and never losing her sense of humor.]]> 208270 3.21 70 26 4 0 false Tue Aug 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 30 08:29:42 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 30 08:40:49 -0700 2009
While the love story was predictable, it unfolded in a nice and natural manner. The chicken was inspired (and the source of two "oh no" moments for me). I liked it a lot.

The only thing that I didn't like - and this book is by no means alone in this regard (unfortunately) is the amount of "fat hate" that takes place. It's the kind of thing that probably was totally unconscious, and goes largely unnoticed by most readers (because the last thing anyone wants to be is fat, good god!), but the several instances where fat is mentioned - even as a simple descriptive tool, it does so with completely negative connotations. Fat=bad. And that's too bad, because it really did mar my perception of the book (and author).]]>