Unzipped: What Happens When Friends Talk About Sex--A True Story [Hardcover]

Courtney Weaver (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 28, 1999

The dark and dirty secrets of the mating and dating scene are exposed as Courtney Weaver hears all from her friends--and tells a few secrets of her own--in this true-life Bridget Jones meets Tales of the City.

Sexuality in the '90s is a different animal: While men and women have been given the tools to communicate, they haven't been given the instructions.  With audacious, witty, and sometimes scandalous writing, Courtney Weaver's Unzipped follows her life and those of her friends as they attempt to navigate the waters of intimate relationships without paddles.

Weaver, whose column "Unzipped" was Salon magazine's most popular feature, lends an indulgent ear to her friends as they wrestle with the lure of having sex with exes, predict bedroom prowess from kisses, and search for the most tactful way to reclaim favorite pieces of clothing left behind after messy breakups. Harriet is convinced that a concrete set of '50s-era rules is the only way to catch a mate, while Jemma turns to her own shocking set of rules in order to fulfill her desires.  Meanwhile, Weaver's single-mom hairstylist Marie lends a sympathetic ear and an acerbic tongue when she too uncovers a sexual scandal in her own backyard.

In the tradition of Tales of the City, but peopled with characters you might actually meet, Unzipped is a work of narrative nonfiction that explores all the complexities of sex in the '90s.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Salon Web site columnist Weaver brings her "Unzipped" column into print with this eponymous work, which chronicles her own and her well-educated, 30-something friends' search for love and the perfect mate (and the occasional one-night stand along the way). Surprisingly, this San Francisco-based cast is entirely heterosexual, although their stories are anything but traditional. From a not-quite-divorced, postpunk mother who rediscovers the thrills and pitfalls of sleeping around, to a nanny who finds satisfaction in S&M clubs, to men who are desperately searching for a woman willing to commit, the characters endure a slew of intriguing sexual misadventures. Weaver also offers a peek into her own often lonely life as a successful freelance writer, portraying herself in her darker moments as that most solitary of creatures: the Internet addict. As she examines the reasons why she has not found a partner and wonders what her life would be like if she did, the writing occasionally gets bogged down in maudlin self-analysis. Still, the bulk of this humorous narrative is well spun and will appeal to Gen-X readers with even the slightest of voyeuristic tendencies. (Dec.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This book eavesdrops play by play on the sex-and-love lives of the author and her friends as they share gossip, stories, laughter, and tears. By turns hilarious, banal, and rather sad, her chronicle shows women and men working valiantly at mating in a culture without universal consensus or rituals, where bottles, beds, and bodies are shared but rules and expectations are not. Her portraits are vivid, and the book is an entertaining read rather in the style of a nonfiction American Bridget Jones's Diary. Weaver, a journalist, wrote the column "Unzipped" for Salon magazine for several years. For libraries in large, cosmopolitan citiesAespecially New York and San FranciscoAand with collections specializing in contemporary culture and sexuality.AMartha Cornog, Philadelphia
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (December 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385494297
• ISBN-13: 978-0385494298
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,696,320 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delicious page-turner, January 31, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Unzipped: What Happens When Friends Talk About Sex--A True Story (Hardcover)

Utterly contemporary, intelligent and witty, Courtney Weaver's "Unzipped" is a delicious page-turner. Sex and mating rituals are explored with a clear, ironic eye, and though she boldly mines her friends' private lives, I never had the feeling she was exploiting them. As she reports from the front about what it's like to be a single woman in today's confusing world, she comes across as strong yet vulnerable, charming and good-humored. She is also pitiless and self-deprecating in chronicling her own neuroses, which makes her all the more endearing. Telephone dispatches from her diverse friends, from San Francisco to New York to London, were endlessly fascinating installments of their latest dramas. I've already given the book to two of my girlfriends and they also enjoyed it enormously. Weaver's fresh, insightful voice made me eager to read a follow-up.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wicked and wise, December 29, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (california) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unzipped: What Happens When Friends Talk About Sex--A True Story (Hardcover)

In the past, I have read Weaver's column in Salon and roared with laughter and sometimes recognition. Now she has finally gotten between hard cover (no pun intended) and we all get to enjoy her wit and intelligence. The New York Times said it true when they called her charming -- she is. Yet she also nimbly transcends the glib and offers an empathic look at the tangled world in which we triumph, frolic, and sometimes flail. Buy this book for every woman you know with a brain and a sense of humor. I await her next work with anticipation....

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An easy, fun, fast read, May 9, 2000

By 

"pam67" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unzipped: What Happens When Friends Talk About Sex--A True Story (Hardcover)

Reading Unzipped is like following someone around for awhile and just observing their life. It's written in a Helen Fielding/Brigit Jones type format although not as funny but interesting just the same. It's basically a bunch of girlfriends, some married some not talking about sex or lack there of. It's honest and sometimes a bit shocking,(as with main character Courtney's friend who leaves her husband to become a slave in the S & M culture) It's a very easy, fun read.