In her eagerly awaited second novel, critically acclaimed author Jillian Medoff demonstrates once again her unique ability to tell an utterly original story. A hilarious tale of revenge and redemption, Good Girls Gone Bad celebrates the indomitable strength and ingenuity of the female spirit. Janey Fabre knows she isn't exactly the average thirty-something woman. After all, she has found herself stalking her ex-boyfriend on more than one occasion. But when she joins group therapy, she is convinced that the other women she meets are ten times loopier than she is. Suzanna aka "The Dream Weaver" prefers the company of her dog to human beings, Laura is a record-breaking gold medalist in the one-night-stand Olympics, and Bethany, a forty-year-old divorcee, still lives with her mother and shares her toe rings. Not to mention Valentine, a painfully shy beauty who binges on Dove Bars; Ivy, a sweet-talking southern belle who binges on Botox; and Natasha, who wears a face mask to protect herself against unseen airborne pathogens. Over time, however, Janey and the girls learn to trust one other, so much so that the outrageous scheme they concoct for asserting themselves actually begins to make sense. And suddenly they're embroiled in a reckless and exhilarating misadventure that wreaks havoc on their lives but ultimately illuminates for them the power of loyalty and the true meaning of friendship. As fiercely intelligent as it is laugh-out-loud funny, Good Girls Gone Bad showcases Jillian Medoff's dazzling and distinctive voice, and clearly establishes her as a writer of rare and remarkable gifts. Janey Fabre, a thirtysomething actuary, can't get over her ex-boyfriend, Tobias Teague, who had a fiancee the whole time they were dating. Unable to deal with her obsession alone, Janey joins a therapy group and finds six other equally neurotic women. Eventually, Janey learns to trust the group members and explore her feelings about her mom's death, her emotionally unavailable father, and Oberjerk Tobias. But when the women decide to assert themselves by getting revenge on the man who did Janey wrong, their plan goes miserably awry, and Janey is left feeling betrayed and wondering whether even these women whom she loves so dearly are truly her friends. But she comes out of it all a stronger woman. Chick lit fans will enjoy this well-written look at what happens when group therapy members bond a little too well. Medoff's second novel (after Hunger Point) is recommended for all collections of contemporary women's fiction. Karen Core, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., Baltimore Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. It is easy to think of Medoff's romp as a made-for-TV movie for seven 30-to-40-ish female stars of middling magnitude. It boasts snappy one-liners, a well-dressed Pekingese, an outlandishly funny plot line during the first two-thirds of the book, and a hairpin turn toward tragedy as the heroine, Janey, is betrayed but finally confronts the truth. Proceeding on the assumption that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Medoff shamelessly pulls out all the stops, especially after Janey is joined by six revenge-minded members of her psychotherapy group to constitute a "pussy posse" bent on righting any wrong any of their number has endured. Their self-righteousness is so funny that readers well may forgive, if they don't accept, how the mood darkens after an ill-conceived attempt to humiliate a former beau goes dreadfully wrong. Whitney Scott Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Acerbic wit and pathos distinguish Medoff's accomplished second novel...Another success, combining genuine psychological depth with humor and irony." (Kirkus Reviews) "Snappy one-liners...an outlandishly funny plot." (Booklist) Jillian Medoff is the author of the richly praised Hunger Point. A former fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the Blue Mountain Center, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, she lives in Brooklyn where she is hard at work on a new novel.
