Certain Girls
By Christine Jacques, Special to the Rocky
Published April 18, 2008 at 10:51 a.m.
* Fiction. By Jennifer Weiner. Atria, $26.95. Grade: B+
Plot in a nutshell: In Weiner's new story, readers will be reintroduced to Candace Shapiro, heroine of the author's novel Good in Bed. At that novel's close, Cannie, single mother to baby Joy by dastardly ex-beau Bruce Guberman, was a successful novelist and dating her diet doctor Peter Krushelevansky. Thirteen years later, she and Peter are discussing a new baby, to be carried and delivered by a surrogate, and Joy is preparing for her bat mitzvah.
Of course, it gets complicated. Joy fumbles her relationship with the social-climbing Certain Girls at her school and with Tamsin, her best friend since babyhood. Offended by Joy, Tamsin pulls a stunt that leaves Cannie struggling with her future as a writer.
Cannie and Joy's battles over the bat-mitzvah dress and theme are nothing compared with their conflicts over estranged family members. And Cannie's little white lies about Grandfather Shapiro propel Joy to seek him out, with painful results.
Sample of prose: Cannie is considering using her sister as a surrogate: "Elle made perfect sense. She had the right body parts. I had cash."
Pros: Planners of special occasions will chuckle as the synagogue's event manager handles an etiquette question: "My son is getting a sex change, but my rabbi won't address him as a girl." Haven't we all been there?
Cons: Here's some bad news for Weiner: It's highly unlikely that a person could take public transportation from Philadelphia to South Orange, N.J., in three hours on a Saturday. The effect? Joy couldn't possibly get to a cousin's bat mitzvah and thus couldn't lie to her parents or steal her father's credit card. These may be good things for Joy, but the story would certainly suffer.
Final word: A good read, if a bit predictable.
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