The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

This disjointed mess of a story was not funny OR sexy as the advanced praise on the back cover would have you believe. The portrayal of men and relationships in general is dark and made bile rise in my throat most of the time. Jane is a stupid little girl trapped in a twenty-thirty something body with the lifestyle of a granny. How she lets literally everyone walk all over her for her entire life with absolutely no character arc is mind-boggling. The chapters don't connect, the timeline is out of wack and it goes from using “I” to “You” in between one of the chapters, then right back to “I” again for the rest of the book. I say chapters when really each one is more of a vignette. I've read vignette style fiction before and loved it, so it's not the style that threw me, but Bank's approach to it. The title/cover art catfished me; the only hunting and fishing addressed in the book is in the very last vignette and it's talking about fishing and hunting for someone in the dating world. A depressing read that I will happily take to the used bookstore to make room for a worthwhile book.

A really quick read. The story was choppy and there was one chapter I didn't understand why it was in the book. It didn't really relate to the main character's story.

really enjoyed. very good first novel.

Oh, it was a pleasant enough “romantic comedy” that I only read because I'm researching collections of linked stories. Men can give this a miss, though; it's not for us.

Pretty good, considering I honestly thought it was about hunting and fishing before I read it. Another book about love, from a female perspective.