Wednesday, January 12, 2011

IN HER SHOES by Jennifer Weiner (2002) Simon and Schuster



If I happen to be online while Jennifer Weiner is live-tweeting episodes of THE BACHELOR, I am sure to be amused by her wit and snark, which is why I ordered this novel from her chick lit canon last week.

I have not seen the Hollywood movie adaptation starring Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette, so I happily leapt between these pages without any expectation other than being entertained by the story.

Rose and Maggie Feller are sisters with not much more in common than their shoe size and DNA. Rose is a Princeton-educated (like Weiner herself) attorney making her way in a Philadelphia law firm and her younger sister Maggie is a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants 20-something stunner who makes most hetero men's heads swivel when she enters a room.

When Maggie yet again oversteps her mark in Rose's life, this time her transgression is not so easily forgiven. Yet, Maggie is a survivor and manages to find her way into the Florida retirement community where her estranged grandmother Ella lives and there discovers truths about herself and a way back to the present where she is able to make amends with Rose after all.

I enjoyed witnessing Maggie's emotional growth through her service to Corinne, a blind woman who lives near the Princeton campus where Maggie is squatting in a library and through the rapport she builds with the retired folk in her grandmother's community. It is amazing what we are all capable of when we finally find the courage to be ourselves.

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