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by Elizabeth Woodrow Jennifer Weiner was born in 1970 and grew up in Connecticut. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in English literature and is now the author of six novels as well as a short story collection. There are more than 11 million copies of her books in print in 36 countries. Currently, she lives in Philadelphia with her husband Adam, their daughters Lucy and Phoebe, and rat terrier Wendell. Jennifer is a frequent public speaker and has been published in Seventeen, Salon, Redbook, Glamour, Good Housekeeping, and Elle. She likes sunsets, sushi, reality TV and long walks on the beach and dislikes fake people, humidity, and entrenched sexism in the literary world. Jennifer has been compared to Helen Fielding and her tremendously popular book Bridget Jones’ Diary. However, by comparison Weiner’s books feel a little more understated in an authentic way and therefore are easy to connect with and relate to. Her books are both witty and heartwarming with some profound messages at their core. Good In Bed  Good In Bed is the story of a plus-sized reporter, who has a past and problems like anyone else, but is thrown by a column written by her ex-boyfriend in a national women’s magazine which reads ‘Loving a larger woman is an act of courage in our world.’ Cannie Shapiro immediately takes offence and enroles in her local Weight and Eating Disorders Center. From there you learn a lot about Cannie, why she is the way she is and what she is becoming, all the while sharing the journey with her. Even if you only know a little about Jennifer Weiner, you can tell almost immediately that Cannie has a lot in common with her author. From the hairstyle Cannie wears to where she lives, her dog and her avid desire to sell her screenplay all allude to Jennifer’s personal experiences. She explores some deep themes throughout this book including rejection, anger, love and hope interlaced with witty observations and a light writing style which just seems to flow from head to paper in a daring yet likeable way. Buy now In Her Shoes  Jennifer’s second novel unpacks the poignant story of two sisters who claim to have nothing in common but the same shoe size and a tragic past. Maggie is twenty-eight and drop-dead gorgeous, though incapable of holding down a steady job, whilst thirty-year-old Rose is an attorney, plain and serious yet with a secret passion for romance novels. Throughout the book Weiner gradually reveals the reasons behind the sister’s aversion to each other and, through a series of shoves in the right direction, slowly recognise they are more alike than they thought. In Her Shoes was made into a successful film which was released in October 2005 starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, and Shirley MacLaine with Oscar-winning director Curtis Hanson. Buy Now Certain Girls  “I always knew I was going to come back to Cannie’s story,” Jennifer comments. “I wanted her to deal with different stuff.” Certain Girls is the sequel to Jennifer’s first novel Good In Bed. It takes place twelve and a half years later and introduces what you know is going to become a major theme right away. Cannie wonders in Good In Bed what kind of mother she will be and this book gives us the answers. When asked how she came to write the sequel, Jennifer said that she had visualised Cannie’s daughter to be a certain way, “closed off and buttoned up,” and then proceeded to imagine why she looked that way. “I wanted to give her something that was like a memento from her birth,” she stated, and proceeded to discuss how premature children can sometimes develop hearing difficulties and that’s what she decided Cannie’s daughter should have. Hearing and listening is intended to be a key theme throughout this book and also the idea of family and what that should look like or was expected to be by the characters. Buy Now Best Friends Forever  Best Friends Forever is Weiner’s lastest book and was published at the end of July 2009. It begins with a gripping scene where two best friends stand face to face with each other after fifteen years, one with blood on her clothes asking the other to help her. Jennifer’s characters always begin with a colourful history and this is no exception. Bravely exploring the themes of cancer, obecity and rape, Jennifer stated from the outset that she wanted to write about “a friendship that goes bad, an outcast girl, highschool, reunion and reinvention.” Best Friends Forever brings to light the girls’ external and internal journeys yet still infused with Weiner’s characteristic wit and style. Buy Now Jennifer On Writing Jennifer Weiner shares her thoughts about writing and how she gets inspired. When asked if she thought that her writing style had changed since producing her first novel Weiner remarked, “I hope I’ve gotten a little better!” She added that she had learnt more about plot and structuring her books since she began. “My ambition was never to be one of those writers where people were like wow that was some sentence,” Jennifer explains. She admits that the story is the most important part for her and fears she may lose part of it amongst “dazzling pyrotechnics.” “First and foremost I want to write entertaining books,” she asserts. However, she feels it is also important to ground her charcters in the real world, which certainly comes across in her novels. It’s clear that Jennifer Weiner gets her inspiration from aspects of her life and was asked where that fitted in when writing her books. “All of my books do have an element of sort of where I am in my life right now,” she stated. However, Certain Girls was the only book where she didn’t actually have the experience necessary; not having a 13 year old daughter. Jennifer explains that “it was a lot of sort of remembering what I was like when I was 13, it was a lot of reading young adult fiction.” She also admits that it was tricky to gauge how much insight she should give to Joy, the 13 year old, in order to keep the attention of an adult audience. All quotes were taken from the Simon and Schulster publishers website. To see interviews with Jennifer Weiner and hear excerpts read from her books visit her publisher’s website: http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Jennifer-Weiner/ |
| Posted: 02/09/2009 13:33:12 Last Updated: 02/09/2009 16:15:43 |
Chick Lit > Chick Lit Authors :: Jennifer Weiner