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The Guy Not Taken: Stories

The Guy Not Taken: Stories

by JenniferWeiner (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2006

    $6.13

  • Used

    Paperback 2007

    $3.25

  • New

    Paperback 2007

    $17.15
Synopsis

Jennifer Weiner's talent shines like never before in this collection of short stories, following the tender, and often hilarious, progress of love and relationships over the course of a lifetime. From a teenager coming to terms with her father's disappearance to a widow accepting two young women into her home, Weiner's eleven stories explore those transformative moments in our every day. We meet Marlie Davidow, home alone with her new baby late one Friday night, when she wanders onto her ex's online wedding registry and wonders what if she had wound up with the guy not taken. We stumble on Bruce Guberman, liquored-up and ready for anything on the night of his best friend's bachelor party, until stealing his girlfriend's tiny rat terrier becomes more complicated than he'd planned. We find Jessica Norton listing her beloved New York City apartment in the hope of winning her broker's heart. And we follow an unlikely friendship between two very different new mothers, and the choices that bring them together - and pull them apart. The Guy Not Taken demonstrates Weiner's amazing ability to create characters who feel like they could be your best friend (Janet Maslin) and to find hope and humor, longing and love in the hidden corners of our common experiences.

$6.13

Save:$15.08 (71%)

Quantity

1 in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 304
 Edition: 1st Atria Books Hardcover Ed
 Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 05 Sep 2006
ISBN 10: 1416535209
ISBN 13: 9781416535201

Media Reviews
Hilarious, heartbreaking, and insightful, Weiner shows she can write with exquisite tenderness as well as humor.

-- The Miami Herald


Weiner has a brilliant eye for social stratum, character sketches, and renderings of suburban atmospherics.

-- The Washington Post Book World


Weiner possesses a warm heart and a wickedly funny eye for social interaction. She writes to entertain, yes, but also to empathize and connect.

-- Baltimore Sun


A wonderful natural writer and storyteller, Weiner renders her characters and their messy, sometimes wrenching lives in details that resonate as the real deal...smart, loveable, and mordantly funny.

-- Publishers Weekly


Weiner balances romantic formula with fresh humor, deft characterizations, and literary sensibility.

-- Elaine Showalter, The Guardian


With keen insights into women's lives, Weiner takes the serious themes of commitment, self-esteem and identity and mixes in moments of laugh-out-loud humor.

-- The Philadelphia Inquirer


These stories range from an old lady held hostage to a New Yorker who gives up killer real estate for a guy. Weiner's fans will recognize the kooky-kid-sister sagas, but it's the new territory notably Swim and Dora on the Beach that shouldn't be missed. A-

-- Entertainment Weekly


The Guy Not Taken takes Weiner to next level as author...With her latest collection Weiner is proving that the masters of the oft-maligned chick lit genre are voices to be reckoned with. An accessible anthology that takes readers on a ride through divorce, heartbreak, insecurity and what might have been, The Guy Not Taken is a tender, thought-provoking read that puts Weiner on the map as one of her generation's best literary voices.

-- Boston Herald


These autobiographical stories suggest that Weiner is the kind of wise-cracking pal who makes a great lunch date. In Swim, a woman who left her TV job after her sexy writing partner led her on, then eloped with the show's star, helps a nebbish craft a personal ad. When he says he's picked 'Lonelyguy 78' as his screen name, she blurts, 'Was 'Desperateguy' taken?' Even a coda on the inspiration for the stories is a hoot. The heroines-hooked-on-bad-boys notion wears thin, but fans will savor Weiner's confidential tone and salty wit. [3 out of 4 stars]

-- People


The Guy Not Taken showcases a maturing Weiner... In Her Shoes author Jennifer Weiner is resigned to the fact that in some circles she is referred to as the 'Queen of Chick Lit.' But I challenge anyone who says her short-story collection, The Guy Not Taken, isn't serious women's fiction. Not that there's anything wrong with chick lit, but the women in these stories are a far cry from the Manolo-obsessed bubbleheads sometimes found in chick lit novels. These women apply healthy doses of self-doubt, loneliness and misgivings along with their lip gloss and mascara. All the stories in Weiner's collection have that 'Calgon, Take Me Away' quality to which smart women, whose lives are complicated by careers, men, babies, parents and siblings, can relate.

-- USA Today