Certain Girls
by Jennifer Weiner
2 Stars
In this sequel to Good In Bed we pick up on Cannie's life 12 years after the birth of her daughter. Her daughter is turning 13 and having her Bat Mitzvah, trying to find a dress, trying to plan a party and dealing with friends consume both Cannie and Joy's lives. But this leads to fights, lying and coming of age struggles for Joy, and leads to Cannie wondering what she did wrong. Cannie is still struggling with the fall out from her best selling novel that was a highly fictionalized version of her life, while writing instead under a fake name the Lyla Dare series. Joy is dealing with typical middle school antics, making new friends and trying to be popular.
I struggled with this book, as a book itself it wasn't bad. But as a sequel it was terrible. Cannie isn't even sort of the same character I fell in love with in Good in Bed. The spunky, lovable character turned into a pathetic mess whose only concern was smothering her daughter and pretending she doesn't exist. Her daughter was also insufferable, clearly written as more of an idea of a 13 year old and not realistic to any actual 13 year old. Hating her mother solely because she had big boobs or said I love you, I understand teen angst (we've all been there) but this went to an unrealistic level. The book was slow, and almost impossible to get through. I only finished it out of curiosity if it would get better, spoiler it didn't. The end is needlessly depressing and makes no sense, just give Cannie a happy ending.