The Guy Not Taken -Jennifer Weiner
Good in Bed Author's New Short Story Collection
This collection of 11 short stories showcases Jennifer Weiner's quick wit and sharp writing.
Jennifer Weiner’s latest release, The Guy Not Taken, is now available in paperback. The book is a collection of 11 short stories, some new and some written when she was a teenager. A common thread runs through them all – they delve into serious relationship issues and rise above the label of “chick lit.” The stories – and the characters in them – are realistic and relatable ones that readers have come to expect from her books.
The content varies from a young woman struggling through her parents’ divorce to a mother and son attending college admissions interviews to a friendship shared by two new mothers. It is a compilation of stories about relationships, and one that does not disappoint.
The first story, “Just Desserts,” introduces the reader to Josie, a college student returning home for the summer. Her father has taken off with no forwarding address, and her mother spends all of her time in the family’s swimming pool, while Josie and her brother are sister are left to cope in their own dysfunctional ways. In the next story, “Travels with Nicki,” we meet up with Josie as she prepares for her wedding. Her father is still missing, but her mother has moved on – with a man less than half her age. The night before her wedding, Josie asks herself, what is there is no such thing as happily ever after?
In “Buyer’s Market,” the reader meets Jess, who inherits a plush Manhattan apartment from a beloved aunt. She decides to sell it as a way to strengthen a fizzling relationship with a real estate broker, but finds herself single when he breaks up with her after the closing.
The title short story is about Marlie, a sleep-deprived stay-at-home-mom who, one day, decides to key in her ex-boyfriend’s name on a bridal registry. After picking apart the registry with her best friend, she ponders what her life would be like if she had married him instead. The story has been optioned by Dreamworks.
“Good Men” and “Oranges from Florida” are written from a man’s perspective – a departure for Weiner – and are as entertaining as the other stories.
The book pairs Weiner’s quick wit with sharp writing, and each story is to be savored. New readers and fans of Weiner’s previous work will find the same delightful style and thoughtful narrative as can be found in her novels, and new readers are sure to become fast fans.
Jennifer Weiner’s next novel, the sequel to Good in Bed, is set to be published in spring 2008. It is titled Certain Girls.
Weiner, Jennifer
The Guy Not Taken
New York, Simon and Schuster, September 5, 2006
