We know Jennifer Weiner can write, but she can share too. Hungry Heart is a funny, honest, thought-provoking memoir.
Jen Weiner is a great writer. She’s been a bestselling novelist for years, writing with humor and heart about personal issues. She’s also been very vocal about the second-class citizen status that women’s fiction writers, and women writers in general, have been given by the press, so I was curious to take in more of all of that information, and I was not disappointed.
“I am the proud and happy writer of popular fiction, and I would never argue that it matters as much as the award-winning, breathtaking, life-changing meditations on love and humanity and The Way We Live Now.” (page 3).
This book is not told in a completely linear way, which can be sort of confusing, when she mentions something 50 pages after she already told the story, but that’s because in addition to her own narrative about events in her life, this book includes articles that she has previously written about certain topics. Once I figured out that’s what was happening — the articles are clearly marked when and where they first appeared — it made it easier for me to sit back and just enjoy.
This memoir was so readable. I laughed and empathized and evaluated as Weiner addressed topics with her deft hand:
- abandonment by her father
- financial struggles
- sibling relationships
- feminism (“Want to make the world holler? Be female…then stand up and say This thing I created, this thing I made as a woman, for other women, is worth something.” (page 300)
- rejection, both personal and professional
- balancing work and family