The Guy Not Taken: Stories - Dark Publications

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Jennifer Weiner's talent shines like never before in this collection of short stories, following the tender, often hilarious, progress of love and relationships over the course of a lifetime.

We meet Marlie Davidow, home alone with her new baby late one 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 find Jessica Norton listing her beloved river-view 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.

Customer Reviews: Read 54 more reviews...

3 out of 5 stars

CERTAINLY NOT HER BEST........ September 17, 2006
42 out of 51 found this review helpful

....but then I am not a fan of short stories. However--since I am a Weiner fan, I thought I'd try her latest work. I have to say...although the stories are well-written, for the most part, I am beginning to find the author's work repetitive. The stories all revolve around women who are physically imperfect (fat, scarred, etc.); there is typically a familial struggle...and typically it is an absentee father (divorced and not involved with his children, or simply desertion). And although her latest in no way measures up to her first (Good In Bed), I was thrilled to see Cannie make an appearance in one of the short stories. And thrilled though I was...let's face it, there is a Cannie in everything that this author writes. Cannie Clones are everywhere; she was the dowdy Connecticut housewife in Goodnight, Nobody...she was the lawyer sister in In Her Shoes....she was the overweight doctor's wife in Little Earthquakes. The reality is that Weiner is a fabulous writer who uses her talent as the proverbial therapist's couch. I'd like to see a wider array of characters in her future work...so let's hope she works through her issues and can move on to something a little more creative.

DYB

4 out of 5 stars

Not her best, but still Weiner material October 13, 2006
18 out of 19 found this review helpful

Before you go comparing this book to Weiner's "Good in Bed", keep in mind that this collection of short stories were written before that book, "half a lifetime ago, [starting] when I was 18", she tells us. Many of these were written during her college years at Princeton, and she still had her professor's written notes "polish this up [and] publish it". Think of these stories sort of as rough drafts- not perfect, but the raw materials are there.

Many of Weiner's books focus around broken marriages, which tends to get repetitive. But Weiner admits that her parents spilt up when she was 17 and she was so hurt that all her stories, from freshman to senior year in college, revolved around divorce and broken families. In "Just Desserts", Josie Krystal and her family suffer greatly when her Dad decides to up and leave the family; meanwhile, Josie must deal with a Mother that is always doing laps in the pool and a younger sister who is spoiled rotten and somehow gets Josie to do everything she asks. All the while, we wonder wether this is Nicki's nature, or a result of abandonment issues. In "Swim", we find a girl who's parents died early on, forcing her to live with her grandmother. Now in her thirties in L.A., she makes a living rewriting college applications for spoiled rich kids. A chance encounter with a stranger in a coffee shop gives her the idea to also start a business rewriting personal ads for people, making them more "marketable". (Interestingly, Weiner tells us her editor really wanted this story for the book, but Weiner, who admits to being a clutter bug, couldn't find it. So, she had to rewrite it from her memory, changing it from a NY setting to L.A. She refers to it as "Swim 2.0"). The title story "The Guy Not Taken" was an idea Weiner got from a Stephen King short story about a guy who inherhits his dead nephew's computer and starts using the 'delete' button in a sinister way. In Weiner's story, a woman named Marlie, with a husband and 6-month old son, is purusing a bridal registry to buy a gift for her brother and sister-in-law to be when it dawns on her to type in her old flame's info. Bing! His name shows up, and Marlie can't help but be jealous. When she gets the crazy idea to switch her name with Bob's fiancee (she remembered his only password), she wakes up the next day next to Bob instead of her husband Drew. Now that Marlie's made a huge mess of things, can she ever get back to her old life?

The interesting thing about these stories is that they are told in a sort of chronilogical order- from the youngest person to the oldest, in a sense, creating a lifetime of tales. At the end of the book, Weiner gives a breakdown of each story and how it came about, which I found almost more entertaining than the stories themselves. Some have cried foul at Weiner publishing these, as though she were out for a quick buck. However, I think it incredibly brave of her to share her early work, something many writers would probably rather keep buried in their attic. If you decide to read this, go into it with an open mind and don't expect stuff resembling Weiner's later works. Be fair and give it a chance.

2 out of 5 stars

It's Pathetic September 9, 2006
10 out of 24 found this review helpful

I love Jennifer Weiner, I was thrilled to see she had a new book out. I thought even her shirt stories would be great. WRONG! I skipped a few, liked one that ended too quickly and all in all out right disappointed. She is so much better than this. I fell horrible about saying this about her but what happened to the woman who writes wonderful book?

3 out of 5 stars

Another disappoint by Jennifer Weiner... September 14, 2006
8 out of 15 found this review helpful

Last evening, I completed my fifth Jennifer Weiner novel, "The Guy Not Taken: Stories." I have been a Weiner fan since first reading "In Her Shoes" and have gone on to buy and read every other novel that she has written. That being said, I am again disappointed to say that Weiner's latest novel does not contain the same wit and humor found in her first three novels. I had hoped that " Goodnight Nobody" had been a fluke accident in which Weiner thought herself to be a mystery writer, and pulled herself away from the "chic" lit genre. However, this novel has the same dark feel as "Goodnight Nobody." "The Guy Not Taken" has that same less than put together feeling, as though someone had forgotten to write the other (good) part of the book.

Almost all of the short stories featured in this novel dealt with women coming to terms with something that was either devestating, disappointing, or unexpected. While the stories were good, I would not consider them to be great. Rather, some stories felt underdeveloped, while others felt too long and drug out. Many of the stories failed to provide me with the humor that is present in Weiner's earlier works and instead left me feeling said and depressed.

I'm beginning to tire of Weiner's new found darkness in her writing and would like her to return to the upbeat (but still sensitive) author who wrote "Good in Bed."

All in all a solid three stars.

4 out of 5 stars

great stories! September 9, 2006
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

I have to disagree with the previous reviewer. I may not be your typical "chick lit" (not that this is exactly chick lit) reader (gay man), but I read GOODNIGHT NOBODY and really enjoyed it. Someone gave me Jennifer's new book as a gift (because I'm a huge short story lover) and I have to say I really enjoyed these stories. Not only are they great stories, but it's interesting to see how well Weiner writes about different people and watching her style change over the years. Good book!

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