[There are plot spoilers throughout this review, so if you haven't read the book and don't want to be spoiled, you might not want to continue beyond the first few paragraphs.]

In the interview at the end of the novel, Jennifer Weiner says that Cannie Shapiro, the heroine of Good in Bed is "a much more funny, and much more honest, version of me." Had I known that going into this book, I wouldn't have invested the time.

Twenty-eight year old Cannie is an entertainment reporter for The Philadelphia Examiner and she's dissatisfied with her life. She's a plus-size, she doesn't like her mother's gay life partner, and her ex-boyfriend is writing a column for a woman's magazine. That column is called Good in Bed, and its first subject is Cannie herself, referred to as only C.

If you were to ask Cannie, her ex Bruce has little going for him. He doesn't even get the facts straight in his column, whether they're about him or her. Bruce writes about "loving a larger woman," which humiliates Cannie and makes her mindful of why they split in the first place. When the other woman in Cannie's weight loss circle say the guy absolutely understands what it's like to be involved with a larger woman, Cannie begins to doubt herself.

It's clear to this reader that Cannie hates Bruce, yet she spends the novel pining for him. She goes on about how he wasn't good in bed by a long shot, how he's a pot head, how he's a human bidet when it comes to oral sex...and yet, she keeps longing and longing and longing. She wants things to work with him, though he seems to be the lowest life form on the face of the Earth.

After Bruce's father's death, Cannie and Bruce have pity sex, though Cannie mistakes it for more. Bruce, however, is moving on. He's tired of being hurt and pushed away. He loves her beyond her size, but Cannie can't see it, so Cannie gets angry and ugly and Bruce is tired of it. Cannie ends up pregnant after this encounter, and the book spirals into new idiocy.

Cannie has a screenplay she's been shopping around. After an interview with superstar actress Maxi Ryder is denied her, she runs into the actress in a bathroom. They become lifelong friends and Maxi sells the screenplay to the first agent she shows it to. Cannie's life becomes one of wealth and excess, though she still longs for her simple home.

Her life is actually one of coincidence, for everything seems to fall into Cannie's lap without effort. Her father left the family when Cannie was young, leaving Cannie with a lot of baggage. So, lo and behold, who happens to be the plastic surgeon Cannie finds at a clinic? Yeah, her father.

Just when you think the book can't top itself, it does. How much grief must Cannie bear? She's a heroine that everyone loves and doesn't seem to see the wrong that she has done Bruce over the course of events.

Just when you think Cannie can bear no more grief, she does. "Well, if you thought THIS was bad, just wait till you read THIS!" It's not enough that poor-put-upon Cannie is pregnant from her ex-boyfriend that she hates desperately but still wants. No, she has to have a petty-jealous-disgusting confrontation with his current girlfriend. That girlfriend pushes Cannie in a public place, causing her placenta to detach. Which also isn't enough; Cannie must also lose her uterus in the ensuing C-section.

Weiner calls Cannie "plus-size," but I found that hard to believe. And as her weight was a cornerstone of the story, it's one area you probably want the reader to totally believe. Cannie is described as 5'10" and a size 16. Considering her height, I don't see anything "plus" about her dress size. Isn't the average American woman a size 14?

If there was one honest thing in this book it's that we often don't see or recognize love when it's staring us in the face. That message was mired in too many over-the-top circumstances for me to enjoy Cannie's journey.