Melissa Bank - Blog Posts

The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing

I got this book at a thrift store–which is a great practice on its own, just got a school textbook for less than $5.00—I didn’t get it thinking it was about Hunting and Fishing, but as I believed that it would be about raising strong women; but that it wasn’t either and I’m not going to lie, the reviews are right, this book is a bit of a mess but overall it reminds me a bit of Freaks and Geeks where it’s messy and authentic.

First on the mess, it doesn’t help and is unnecessary, the majority of the story is believed to be from one person’s point of view, but two chapters (one told from a character connected to the “main character”, and one not) are told from different people’s points of view. As the “main character” who actually isn’t depicted as the main character or is always portrayed the same but has memories from the earlier chapters—it’s the best you can go. This is confusing, and when I read this book the second time it was early in the second chapter that I remembered—oh right, this is why this book was annoying and confusing. But while poorly formatted and executed, that’s not really all that important, overall the story is snippets of most girls struggles with her personal romantic relationships, navigating different adult relationship as she gets older and changes, figuring out what she wants with her relationships and her changing relationship with her family.

What’s also crucial, and does make it a good story for young adult women and older, is that the love stories aren’t fairy-tale, they’re realistic. Loving someone you broke up with, how much pain can one handle or one should handle in a relationship, the weirdness of not wanting what you know is probably best for you, breaking up with your best friend; it’s not some dramatics of other books: woman finds herself after divorce, found her fiancé cheating, just got a makeover and became the ‘hot girl’ in school. It’s all the other parts of love, the common and more dramatic, heartbreaking and confusing stuff that there is no right answer for.

I’ve read this story a few times—and I still don’t get the title (really, it does not come up in the book, I’ve checked) but what’s great about it is that it’s accurate, and how you do feel the mess you’re in, isn’t unique to you—you’re not alone in feeling alone, even if no situation matches yours.