Good in Bed

If I had read this when I was younger, I probably wouldn't have liked it. Actually, I probably would have gotten mad and thrown it across the room because I would never have believed in the possibility of such a happy ending for someone like Cannie--a woman in a weight loss program, "a larger woman," a woman who wears size 16 (and someone like me). But reading it now, in my late 30s, it's incredibly striking, humbling, and satisfying to see a life like mine on the page.
Despite its title and pink cover, Good in Bed is more than "chit lit."

The semi-autobiographical recollections Jennifer Weiner writes of the character's father gave me pause. Particularly these lines:

I had no explanation, no answers. When you're on a battleground, you

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don't have the luxury of time to dwell on the various historical factors and sociopolitical influences that caused the war. You just try to keep your head down and survive it...

What might living like that do to a person? How might being told all your life by society, your peers, and your own father, that you're not good enough and you're not worthy of love, affect a person?
And then there was the pregnancy:

But it was my situation. I saw it then... This was going to happen--I was going to have this baby... It felt like the right choice. More than that, it almost felt like my destiny--the way my life was supposed to unfold.

Like Cannie, when I found myself single and pregnant, I felt exactly the same way. And then, when I held my baby for the first time, everything felt right in the world. It was the way my life was supposed to unfold.
And although I didn't miss my ex the way she did, I understood it. I know how it feels to think that, no matter how underwhelming the guy is, maybe no one else will want you, and how that makes you feel like a failure to your child.

The depression, anxiety, or maybe even PTSD that she felt was also very real to me. Worry doesn't seem like a strong enough word when applied to your child's life. It's a different kind of worry because it's a different kind of love.

I look forward to seeing this story unfold on screen. Cannie deserves it, and so do we.
Representation matters. show less

I won't lie, at first, reading this was a bit of a roller coaster. I'm a size 20 and I hate my body. So at first, I was excited. A plus size woman as a protagonist! One who I could relate to...until I found out her size. Somewhere along the line I stopped considering anything under a size 18 plus size. But as I kept reading, I was entranced. I really could relate to her! On some level at least. I'm married, and I was at my heaviest on my wedding day. But I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, how can he love this? Look at me. I'm so FAT. I'd tried the weight loss programs. I'd had problems at work because of my weight. It was so refreshing to read about Cannie and her internal struggles with her weight and love and life in show more general. Cannie is a heroine that all girls and women, no matter their size, should and can look up to... This book is revolutionary for me, and I plan on sharing it with my friends and family!

I received a free copy in exchange for a fair and honest review. And if I'm being totally honest, had I stopped after learning Cannie's dress size, I probably would have given this book 2 stars because I felt so much fatter. But I'm glad I kept reading, or I would have missed out on an amazing story. show less

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 show more 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. show less

This book is an emotional roller coaster. I love that the MC is not some size 2 blonde airhead complaining about life. No, the MC is a woman who struggles with her weight, her relationships and self image. She grows over the book from that into a strong independent woman who finally learns what is important in life. Grabbing that little dangling carrot of happiness that we all strive for. This author draws you in and makes you want to cry and cheer this heroine on. I would definitely read more of this author.

Essere una donna abbondante non è molto semplice oggigiorno, soprattutto se una persona tende a non chiudersi a riccio e cerca di vivere la vita in maniera partecipativa con il resto del mondo. La società impone certi canoni estetici e non rispettarli, per scelta o per cause di forze maggiori, comporta sempre un prezzo da pagare.
Per Connie, la protagonista del romanzo Brava a Letto di Jennifer Weiner, essere abbondante non era mai stato un grosso problema. A parte le solite amarezze adolescenziali sul come si vorrebbe tanto indossare quella minigonna o quell’adorabile vestito fasciante, per Connie il proprio peso non aveva mai rappresentato un deficit così invalidante dal limitarla nella vita di tutti i giorni. Fidanzata da anni, show more solare, simpatica, piena d’amici e dal carattere forte, la sua vita sembra andare avanti a gonfie vele, almeno fino a quando Bruce, il suo quasi ex-fidanzato giornalista, non decide di mettere in piazza la loro vita sessuale.
“Brava aletto. Amare una donna abbondante”. Il titolo della nuova rubrica di Bruce getta letteralmente in pasto alle chiacchiere la vita privata di Connie, e il confronto con chi la conosce, o la conoscerà da lì in avanti, sarà inevitabile. La chiusura, già ponderata da tempo da parte di Connie per altri motivi, sarà il passo successivo, e da quel momento per la protagonista inizierà un periodo riabilitativo fatto di incertezze, dolori, insicurezze, diete, paure e bruschi risvegli.
La terapia per dimagrire, i problemi da troppo tempo ignorati, il pentimento sulla rottura con Bruce, la porteranno verso un vortice di problemi che la Weiner tratta con tutta la leggerezza tipica di un chick-lit, ma con la delicatezza che necessitano questi argomenti, sentiti da moltissime donne. La nostra Connie, un misto fra Bridget Jones e Ally MacBeal, con il peso di entrambe messe insieme, affronta tutta una serie di problematiche che la maggior parte (tutte?) le donne grasse debbono affrontare: discriminazioni, compatimenti e incertezze. Non si ama più da quando ha rotto con Bruce, o probabilmente non si è mai amata.
Andando avanti con il romanzo, apparirà chiaro per le lettrici che l’amore ritrovato dopo la rottura verso Bruce non fosse che frutto del vortice di paure che sembravano aver avviluppato Connie, inclusa la paura di restare sola, che può portare una donna a compiere uno degli errori più gravi che si possa mai compiere: accontentarsi.
Perché puntare a qualcosa di più? Perché aspirare a qualcosa di meglio e non accontentarsi? Dopotutto chi potrebbe mai amare qualcuno di così grasso?

Connie, piano piano, inizierà a prendere coscienza dei propri limiti, ma anche dei suoi punti di forza e della sua bellezza, che non può essere certo quantificata in kg persi o da perdere. E sarà la scoperta di essere in dolce attesa che la spingerà a velocità supersonica verso la risalita e la guarigione. Non potrà più tentennare e crogiolarsi nell’autocommiserazione, una nuova vita le sta crescendo dentro e sta a Connie il dovere di prendersene cura imparando a volersi bene e ad accettarsi veramente. Testarda, forte solare e abbondante com’è. Nonché bellissima.
Nonostante sia un romanzo da ombrellone, come è stato più volte definito, la bellezza di questo romanzetto sta proprio nel saper affascinare e trasmettere messaggi importantissimi solamente a chi ha gli occhi, il cuore e la mente abbastanza aperti da sapervi leggere qualcosa oltre le avventure di una donna soprappeso simpatica e pasticciona.
La scrittura della Weinar è brillante, fresca e scorrevole; ugualmente i dialoghi, che sono accattivanti, divertenti e ben dosati. Il romanzo scorre bene, in equilibrio fra momenti comici e seri, mentre accompagniamo Connie lungo tutta la sua tragicomica avventura. Un lungo volo di Fenice, che rinasce dalle sue stesse ceneri per tornare al volo più forte e bella di prima.
Sicuramente molto autentico, ma anche scherzoso e ironico quanto basta per rendere una argomento, in genere piuttosto doloroso per molte donne, a prova di risolini. show less

I picked up Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner from Netgalley because it is been recommended to me as a modern classic. It was originally published in 2001. I was 39 years old in 2001. I wish it would have crossed my radar then instead of discovering it at age 54. While only 5' 2 1/2", I am considered a larger woman, a plus size woman, rubenesque, or according to health standards obese. That is how I had thought of myself and like Cannie, the main character in Good in Bed, that was the first and sometimes only attribute I saw in myself: fat.

Cannie, the heroine of Good in Bed, learns that her weight is not who she is or what she is. She learns through hard experiences and the love of her family and her friends. There is a huge wall she has show more to break down to believe in herself. The wall was built by her son of a bitch father who told her at age 12 she was fat and no one would ever love her. In the novel, as in life, karma does not always show up when it should so we do not get to see Cannie's father suffer as he made her suffer or ever acknowledge that he has caused any pain to her or her siblings. If karma was a character, the man would have lost everything he held dear, twice.

Cannie is single and dealing with an ex-boyfriend who wrote an article about loving the larger woman. It humiliates Cannie because although she is not named in the article, only referred to by her first initial, everyone who knows her or the ex know the article is about her. She reminds me a lot of me at that age, late twenties. Although I was already married by then, I still had no confidence in how I looked. My self worth was very much tied to how I perceived others saw me.

The book is excellent. The characters are fully formed, not two dimensional, even the side characters. The dialogue flows like a normal conversation. Cannie does not need a man or a diet to rescue her and make her complete. I wish I had discovered this book when I was younger. It really opened my eyes about how I still see myself. show less

I'm not at all sure why this book was so captivating. Cannie Shapiro is a regular person, sharp, funny, fat. She's just dumped her no-good boyfriend and then learns that she's featured in his magazine column under the title of "Loving a Larger Woman". The story starts there and takes twists and turns that make it pretty much un-put-downable. It's one of those books that I wish I hadn't read so I could read it now.