The Wonder Spot [Hardcover]

Melissa Bank (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2005

Melissa Bank's runaway bestseller, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, charmed readers and critics alike with its wickedly insightful, tender look at a young woman's forays into love, work, and friendship. Now, with The Wonder Spot, Bank is back with her signature combination of devilishly self-deprecating humor, seriousness and wisdom.

Nothing comes easily to Sophie Applebaum, the black sheep of her family trying to blend in with the herd. Uneasily situated between two brothers, Sophie first appears as the fulcrum and observer of her clan in "Boss of the World." Then, at college, in "The Toy Bar," she faces a gauntlet of challenges as Best Friend to the dramatic and beautiful Venice Lambourne, curator of "perfect things." In her early twenties, Sophie is dazzled by the possibilities of New York City during the Selectric typewriter era -- only to land solidly back in Surrey, PA after her father's death.

The Wonder Spot follows Sophie's quest for her own identity -- who she is, what she loves, whom she loves, and occasionally whom she feels others should love -- over the course of 25 years. In an often-disappointing world, Sophie listens closely to her own heart. And when she experiences her 'Aha!' moments -- her own personal wonder spots - it's the real thing. In this tremendous follow-up to The Girls' Guide To Hunting And Fishing, Bank again shares her vast talent for capturing a moment, taking it to heart, and giving it back to her readers.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Six years after her amazingly successful debut, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, Melissa Bank rewards her fans for their patience with The Wonder Spot, a refreshingly honest interpretation of one young woman's journey into adulthood. As we follow heroine Sophie Applebaum through a comfortable, yet awkward childhood in suburban Pennsylvania to the challenges of finding love and a career in midtown Manhattan, The Wonder Spot is never guilty of the self-indulgent traps set by other members of the Chick Lit genre Bank helped launch.

We first meet the Applebaum clan on their way to cousin Rebecca's bat mitzvah in Chappaqua, New York, where Sophie ends up sneaking cigarettes in the woods with a handsome eighth grader one year her senior. Yet even this minor rebellion is more charming than anything else; as with most of her future transgressions, Sophie is less the instigator than the innocent witness. Defining moments in Sophie's life are revealed through her relationships: an almost mythical college roommate named Venice; her charismatic yet capricious older brother; her brilliant younger brother; her unpenetrable father; and her hilarious grandmother, who takes it upon herself to save her "Sophila" from "impending spinsterhood." Of course no real journey into young womanhood is complete without a series of committment phobic, potentially deliquent, overly nice men whose appearances seem less about love than about demonstrating our heroine's inability to ever truly be comfortable with herself. As Sophie observes during a seventh grade skating party, "I felt sure that everyone was looking at me and then realized that no one was, and i experienced the distinct shame of each."

Undeniably clever, occasionally hilarious, and often poignant, The Wonder Spot is captivating enough for readers to forgive Sophie's indecisive, self-destructive tendancies and simply bask in her sincerity. --Gisele Toueg

Wonder Woman: An Amazon.com Interview with Melissa Bank

Melissa Bank's bestselling 1999 debut, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, took readers by storm and heralded the wave of Chick Lit to follow in its wake. Bank is back with her new book, The Wonder Spot, a series of interconnected stories chronicling the bittersweet misadventures of middle-child Sophie Applebaum, from adolescence to adulthood. Amazon.com senior editor Brad Thomas Parsons exchanged e-mail with Bank to talk about writer's block, Curtis Sittenfeld's very public take-down in the Sunday Times, and the dreaded "c" word--Chick Lit.

Read our Amazon.com interview with Melissa Bank

Wonder Woman: An Amazon.com Interview with Melissa Bank

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Fans of the megasuccessful Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, rejoice. Bank is back with an equally entertaining first novel, starring Sophie Applebaum, a sarcastic, self-deprecating middle child from a suburban Jewish family who moves from a fish-out-of-water adolescence to a how-did-I-get-here adulthood. Likable Sophie's (mis)adventures in life and love include an attempt to use lyrics from Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me, Babe" to argue against the necessity of attending Hebrew school and a penchant for imagining her future life with men she barely knows (a potential beau's ability to cook fish becomes "a metaphor for the hard things we will face together"). A slightly cynical yet romantic optimism grounds Sophie—and gives Bank plenty of opportunities for clever quips: cribbing a career objective in publishing from a résumé handbook, Sophie diligently copies exercises found in the long-overdue library book 20th Century Typing, including "Know Your Typewriter," and she agrees to a blind date with a pediatric surgeon by noting that she possesses her own "pediatric heart." But this isn't just another urban chick-lit bildungsroman; Bank's work also features the intriguing transformations of the other Applebaums: a grandmother's slip into senility, Sophie's mother's dip into infidelity, a brother's turn toward Orthodox Judaism. Through it all, Sophie never quite escapes the sense of being a "solid trying to do a liquid's job," a feeling as frightening as it is familiar to those struggling to achieve a grownup self-awareness. Engrossing, engaging—it's a wonderful return for Bank. 12-city author tour. Agent, Molly Friedrich. (June 7)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1ST edition (May 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670034118
• ISBN-13: 978-0670034116
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (105 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,377,905 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars more of the same but somehow less..., June 4, 2005

By 

reader (atlanta ga) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wonder Spot (Hardcover)

Bank has repeated her successful formula from "The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing" with stories of a female protagonist moving from teen years to adulthood. Let me first say that she is one of the freshest voices writing today. What is so disappointing about "The Wonder Spot" though is that the characters are so similar, they even hold the same jobs depicted in Girls Guide- editorial assistant, advertising; the family dynamics are the same, the setting is the same (Philly suburbs and NYC) but the magic Bank wove in Girls Guide with her succinct, brilliant sentences that one paused to read over and over have vanished to be replaced by longer less significant sentences (perhaps to go along with a longer book?)The magic is not there this time. While I read the Wonder Spot straight through in one reading, it doesn't have the same power, longing, sense of loss and realization that Girls Guide did. If you have not read anything by Bank, treat yourself to Girls Guide rather than this work, or you will wonder what all the fuss was about. How disapppointing that in the 5+ years that have elapsed since Bank wrote her first work, she was unable to do more with her second work than repeat formula and somehow, not make it work this time. This book depressed me. Girls Guide left one feeling the full strength of possibility.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I LOVED it!, July 14, 2005

By 

Jennifer (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Wonder Spot (Hardcover)

I am so surprised by some of the negative reviews. This book is certainly not meant to uncover any great mysteries or make a grand pronouncement about the meaning of life. I loved this book for its humor and reality.

Ms. Bank completely captured what it's like to be a somewhat insecure woman, and how those feelings of insecurity change as you get older. Sophie is so much like myself and people I know, and such a funny and true voice. I think women from the East Coast (particularly Jewish) will especially appreciate Sophie and her sense of humor. Any fans of "Girls Guide", or Susan Isaacs and Elaine Kagan, are sure to love this book. I wish I hadn't read it so fast because I already miss Sophie. I hope Ms. Bank's next book comes sooner than 6 years from now.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars She's not amazing, just decent. So we want Good Things for her, July 5, 2005

By 

Jesse Kornbluth (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wonder Spot (Hardcover)

This is not a book that belongs in the dreadful genre known as "chick lit." And what a relief that is! Sophie Applebaum never mentions "Manolo" or "Jimmy Choo" --- her roommate practically has to torture her to buy the used evening dress that might give her exquisite power over men. "I looked at myself for a long time," Bank writes of Sophie trying that dress on, "and I remember it as one of the only times in my life when I saw myself as beautiful." Is there one of us --- man or woman --- who can't relate?

She wears that dress three times. The last time, she meets an ex-boyfriend. She was glad she was wearing the dress; it put extra emotion in his voice when he asked if she remembered him. She had been waiting for this moment: "I'd pictured turning my back to him or slapping his face or pretending that I couldn't quite place him." And then, this killer line: "I'd had so many lovers since him, my first, and all of them so much more memorable." And then, the real killer line, the truth: "But when our eyes met and his look asked if I remembered him, my look answered that it did."

May I simply say: "Wow."

Out of college, and into the struggling years. A job happens, and an office, and the inevitable problems of people getting shoved into roles. But it gets better with the boyfriend --- could Sophie be Getting Somewhere?

New story. Shift. Her brother has the Girlfriend from Hell, and doesn't see it. New story. Shift. Her father dies, and she's living, with her mother, at home. There's a weekend in the country with her oldest friend and Matthew, her friend's friend, and a set of complications that give Sophie hope and end a friendship. New story. Shift. There's Bobby Guest, cloudy and lost, and, ultimately, not really available --- we've all had our Bobbys. New story. Shift. Her mother has a boyfriend, married, from her youth; family stories wrestle with last chance romance. A neurologist appears; he sure seems like The One. Her grandmother --- is this ironic? --- has a stroke. And dies. New story. Shift....

And at this point --- we're close to the end now --- you either care passionately about Sophie or wonder what all the fuss is about. Me, I cared. Not because Sophie is such an amazing woman, but because she's not. She's a good person, but not a great one, smart but no genius, destined never to achieve anything major. There are lots of women (and men) like that, moving through life, not quite getting anywhere, and if you have a heart, you root for them --- you want them to wrap their fists around something they can hold on to. Like a husband, a wife: a lasting commitment that actually lasts.

Of course they can never put those dreams into words, even in the middle of the night. That's too uncool, especially in Manhattan. But those are the dreams in back of all the clever talk, and Melissa Bank has you leaning in, hoping someone will whisper them to Sophie and she can say them right back. And all of that is between the lines, because Melissa Bank --- one of our sassiest, most clever writers --- is good enough to pull that off.

"The Wonder Spot" is a book at once funny and sad, irritating and satisfying. A book like life. And, in many places, a book that merges with life, that becomes life. Which is to say: a very good book indeed.

--- Jesse Kornbluth/HeadButler.com