Description
For twenty-eight years, things have been tripping along nicely for Cannie Shapiro. Sure, her mother has come charging out of the closet, and her father has long since dropped out of her world. But she loves her friends, her rat terrier, Nifkin, and her job as pop culture reporter for The Philadelphia Examiner. She’s even made a tenuous peace with her plus-size body.
But the day she opens up a national women’s magazine and sees the words “Loving a Larger Woman” above her ex-boyfriend’s byline, Cannie is plunged into misery . . . and the most amazing year of her life. From Philadelphia to Hollywood and back home again, she charts a new course for herself: mourning her losses, facing her past, and figuring out who she is and who she can become.
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Weiner’s book sadly still rings true today as much as it did 20 years ago. Cannie’s (Candice) self esteem took a nosedive around the time her father traded in his old family for a new one. Critical of Cannie’s adolescent body changes and increasing size, he once nudged her arms and stomach with his tennis racket and told her no one would love her with that extra weight. And she believed him. Betrayal #1
Betrayal #2 occurs when her ex writes about their sex life in his Cosmo-style magazine column, Good in Bed. He talks about “loving a larger woman”, refers to her as “Lewinsky-esque”, “succulent”, and himself as “a chubby chaser”. The remainder of the book is Cannie’s response to, and troubling consequences of her distorted thinking and her dysfunctional relationships with the two men in her life who seemingly held her self-esteem in the palm of their hands. I alternated between cheers and tears throughout the book – it’s that good and that real.
Weiner poignantly captures the angst of women who didn’t fit the mold of a size 4 body. In the book’s Introduction, she discusses the public response to her book at the 10-year anniversary mark of its publication. Sadly, some of the advances she speaks of have begun to wane. We are once again seeing fewer plus sized models on runways as younger and younger women are allowing themselves to be taffy pulled into unrealistic bodies with surgery, injections, and weight loss drugs. We can only hope that there is a resurgence of interest in the book and in others like it. 5 Stars
Thank you to #GoodReads, #JenniferWeiner, and #Atria Books for a copy of this 20th Anniversary Edition of Good in Bed. All opinions are my own.