The Guy Not Taken

I recently read The Guy Not Taken by Jennifer Weiner. I love her books and this one is no exception.

It's a collection of short stories that Weiner has written throughout the years, since she was in college. Her fiction falls into the category of Chick Lit, which is one of my favorites because I don't have to think, yet it's not romance sappy, which I find hard to stomach at times. 

I learn stuff when I read Weiner's books because she's just so dang smart. In this particular book I learned a new vocabulary word, oeuvre, although I'm sure I couldn't pronounce it to save my life, even after spending 5 minutes with the pronunciation key in my expanded dictionary. It's French, I know that.

Because I know you're dying to know the definition, I'm going to tell you. If  you know, just pretend you don't, okay? An oeuvre is a substantial body of work constituting the lifework of a writer, an artist, or a composer. Now that I think about it, I think I've heard it before in reference to classical music.

Here's how Weiner uses oeuvre: I mowed my way through June and July, reading the entire oeuvre of Judith Krantz in my spare time in the air-conditioned library . . . I find this pretty hilarious as oeuvre sounds like such a snotty word and doesn't really partner well in reference to Judith Krantz novels. I think this was Weiner's intention.

The other thing I learned is what JDate means. When I first read it I thought to myself, What are the young kids doing these days? Because I'm so old, you know. I had to Google it because it sounded kind of kinky, and I didn't want to embarrass myself by asking someone.

In case you are as clueless as I,  JDate is a Jewish Singles Network.

Anyway, since there are so many stories in this book, I can't really sum it up easily. What I can do is recommend it to you. It was a quick read and very enjoyable. Check it out.