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    The Wonder Spot
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    The Wonder Spot
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    The Wonder Spot
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Wonder Spot

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    3/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 2, 2005
    ISBN9780786554034
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Wonder Spot

    3/5

    368 ratings27 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Melissa Bank is one of my favorite authors; I love her writing style and her subjects. However, her second book is almost too similar to her first book, without being a continuation or companion volume. She still stands out as a great writer but I hope she will show more variety with future books.
    • 4/5
      Not so good to ok
    • 4/5
      At first I didn’t think I was going to like The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank, because I didn’t like its protagonist, Sophie. Sandwiched between a cute and popular older brother, and a hardworking genius younger brother, Sophie is the middling middle child. The book begins with Sophie at about age twelve and follows her into adulthood. Each chapter could stand alone as a short story, which is in fact how I first encountered the title story, in the collection Speaking with the Angel, edited by Nick Hornby.

      Sophie is not particularly good at anything, and doesn’t particularly want to be. She fails at school, at work, at friendships, at relationships. At times you want to shake her and say, “Just do something! Anything!” But what’s appealing about Sophie is her utter honesty. Not with others, but with herself. As she describes every pose she assumes, she shares her inner motivations, and we recognize ourselves. It’s a well written collection, funny and moving.
    • 3/5
      An enjoyable read, although not particularly remarkable read. One could easily relate to the one or the other episode from the main character's life and get lost along her in her world(s), while having a good laugh or two along the way.
    • 4/5
      This is really a collection of short stories with one central character, but entertaining nonetheless. I appreciate the author's sense of whimsy and wit. An enjoyable read.
    • 3/5
      It was... interesting. :p
    • 2/5
      Not nearly as good as her first book... I kept reading it to find out if anything was ever going to happen. It DID have a few good one-liners, but the story itself felt incomplete.
    • 2/5
      Didn't like as much as The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing. Combination novel/short story book in that all the stories are related but can stand on their own. Similar in structure to Girls' Guide. I enjoyed it as a whole, but I didn't like the title chapter because it was the last in the book and I felt unsatisfied.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book. As far as I was able to discern, the story has no plot. That's not to say it's not entertaining. Once I started it, I did not want to put it down. Bank has a wonderful way with words and it got so I was almost looking for lovely or clever phrases. More than that, her characters are real. They may be a bit too real for some, in that their lives simply are and do not seem to have a point. I liked them, however. Sophie, the narrator, seems so much like so many women I have known, taking life as it comes, trying to make sense of it and not having any really profound revelations. We watch her grow and come into her own sense of being. Her brothers aren't a whole lot unlike my own. It isn't the specific actions or events, or even the personalities, but the interaction between the siblings that I related to. Ultimately, I found myself considering how different events in my own life are from Sophie's and wondering how other women relate to to her. In a way it's a literary equivalent of a '50s-'60's coffee klatch, where women share their everyday lives.If you're not fond of 'literary' books, if you need fast paced action, you probably won't like this book. If you appreciate writing style, like getting to know characters, even though nothing remarkable happens to them, you will definitely enjoy this book.
    • 3/5
      It was hard to like this book, but it was hard not to like this book. This about sums up my feelings about The Wonder Spot, and sounds like something the narrator, Sophie Applebaum, would say. Her apathy is matched only by her dysfunctional approach to relationships (family, work, romantic, etc.). I listened to this as an audiobook, and I enjoyed Bank's reading of the book. I think an author can lend an authenticity that no one else can. The only problem I had with it was that it was CONFUSING! Characters came and went, and came back again, and I could never tell how old Sophie was in a given chapter. Sometimes it seemed that 10 years had passed, but was probably only 6 months. Other times, I realized that we had jumped ahead several years with no warning. I just couldn't keep track of everyone and everything that happened. Otherwise, the "day to day" of the book was enjoyable, and I liked Bank's depiction of looking for love in your 20s and 30s.
    • 1/5
      I will start by saying that I was looking forward to reading this book. I was told that the author's previous book "The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing" was really good, so I figured this one should be too. I guess I counted the chickens before they hatched! I felt the book had major disconnections. From chapter to chapter, new characters are introduced haphazardly and seemingly like we knew them all along, or should have. The lead characters best friend from school wasn't even mentioned until halfway through the book. Let me explain that the book goes from childhood to early thirties in the life of Sophie Applebaum, so we should have heard about the best friend somewhere in the beginning. All of the sudden the best friend is there, just fell into the book like a ball dropped from 2 storeys above without warning, which left me confused and questioning...who is this person, where did she come from and why have I not heard of her before now? This happens quite frequently throughout this book, people drop in and drop out just as fast. I don't know how many times full areas of story just seemed to be missing, it was a confusing and disappointing. I can't say I will ever pick up another of Melissa Bank's books, but I won't say never. I may give her another chance in the future. Maybe her style just isn't for me. BTW...The Wonder Spot title appears to be an afterthought, formulated in the end chapter and in my mind not tying the whole book together.
    • 2/5
      Sopphie is a sardonic, often self-absorbed character who experiences many rites of passage in these pages. It is interesting to watch her transform into a member of the working world after going through the normal angst and excitement of adolescence and college life. She is somewhat lacking in ambition as evidenced by her living with her brothers, grandmother and friend while job hunting. I think that wouldn't envy that nomadic lifestyle that seemingly went on for a very long time. I wasn't convinced of the "truths" I found in this mediocre book.
    • 3/5
      I picked up Melissa Bank’s The Wonder Spot because I had seen copies of her novel, The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, and I thought, this might be amusing. And it was. The Wonder Spot is an episodic novel told in the voice of Sophie Applebaum. The first chapter introduces us to Sophie, a young Jew growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, sandwiched between two brothers, daughter to a judge and a homemaker. Sophie feels keenly her inability to fit in with her peers at school and at synagogue, and this lack follows her throughout her young adulthood and the novel. She goes to college, finds employment, and bounces around trying to find herself and her soul mate.Sophie is extremely likable, witty and sardonic. Some of her insights induced a laugh from me. Although her struggles, especially through young adulthood, resonated with me, at some point, I became frustrated with her very passive approach to life. Sophie rarely initiated any of the major events in her own life, though she always felt them deeply. Even the seemingly smallest moments were noted by Sophie in sharp and amusing detail. The best and most engaging parts come from Sophie’s interactions with her family, especially with her brother Jack and her mother (her younger brother and father aren’t as clearly drawn). In the end, the stories are enjoyable, but I could never say that they coalesce into a novel. Indeed, the book is missing an overall theme other than woman drifting through life and men. Almost nothing is resolved, though the final story appears to try to convince the reader that Sophie finally does find some conviction in herself, and thus, acts as a conclusion to the novel. Unfortunately it comes seemingly from nowhere, and is unconvincing. The novel is read by the author, which really gave me the feeling that I was reading a thinly disguised autobiography. She does an excellent job giving Sophie as strong a voice as Sophie could ever have.
    • 2/5
      I was not at all sure of the point of this book. It seems like a completely unremarkable story of an ordinary person. It had its funny moments, but that didn't make up for its having no purpose.
    • 4/5
      It's certainly well-written, but I don't know... It feels very distant and impersonal. I like that every chapter can pretty much stand on its own, though. I don't think it's a book I'll read again.
    • 4/5
      This was an entertaining read. The characters were full and descriptive, although in later chapters when new people showed up I felt I had forgotten a prior introduction to them and flipped back through the book looking for a reference that wasn't there. It was an odd way of introducing new characters: pretending they were there all along... The ending was slightly unsatisfying to me because of its lack of resolution, but that's a complaint I have a lot, and if you like that sort of thing, then you'll probably really like this book. I very much enjoyed it until the end didn't really end and that colored my opinion of the book as a whole.
    • 3/5
      I confess a bias against coming-of-age stories, largely because of the inevitable adolescent existential angst, but this one just barely escapes that. I liked how Bank told the story between the breakups and job changes, instead of during them. I generally don't have much sympathy for characters as clueless and mediocre as this one, but there was something still appealing about Sophie as she tried to find her place in life. And I can relate to the way people just come in and out of her life, and she's not sure where they belong in it.
    • 4/5
      Unlike most of the reviewers, I read this without ever reading Bank's first book so I didn't have any expectations. I found Sophie's story compelling and loved the little glimpses into her life. I am really drawn to characters like her who are not necessarily admirable or even likeable. On the debit side, the last chapter was easily the weakest in the whole book and made for a very unsatisfying ending.
    • 3/5
      I think that the reason for why I liked this book is for the same reason others hated it; namely, the fact that Sophie seems sort of lost and as if she is "floating" through life. I am 26 and I think that this is how many people of this current generation feel during their mid to late twenties. I think that Melissa Bank captured this feeling perfectly and that many people my age will be able to relate. The dialog between Sophie and her brothers is witty and endearing as is her relationship with her parents.
    • 1/5
      I hated this book and I'm not sure why I bothered to finish it. Sophie (the main character) just floats aimlessly through life - the book is divided into sections, but none of them seem particularly linked together. Sophie doesn't seem to get anywhere or do anything, I felt like wanting to throttle her by the end. I wish I hadn't bothered to finish it, it was a waste of time.
    • 3/5
      It was easy to read. It kept my interest. But it was a book that left me feeling like I'd accomplished nothing. There was no set happy ending and there was no real feeling of completion which well considering it told the life of a girl...not entirely without reason. It just isn't how I particularly enjoy my books. But again I state it was a nice easy read. Simple in way. So for me it was worth the read. So yay.
    • 3/5
      5 short stories that are about not knowing and searching in life......and everyone has been there. I think everyone would recognize a bit of themselves in this book. Pretty funny in places and an easy read.FAVORITE QUOTE: she admired how thin and delicate Rebecca was. "Like a long-stemmed rose", she said. I said "she's more like a long piece of hair with hair".
    • 1/5
      I liked this novel better the first time I read it, when it was titled /The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing/. I mean, given the format of the first novel - short stories, loosely linked - this easily could just be more stories in the same arc. Okay, there are minor differences, but both characters are struggling in the publishing world, lost in love, have close relationships with ailing fathers and more troubled relationships with their older brother (in this one, the brother becomes two brothers), live in new york, and so on. The two women have the same dry-clever since of humor and minimalist prose. I almost think I would have enjoyed this more if the stories had been interlaced with those of the first book--reading the two sets separately, the story arcs and characters were too redundant to be anything but repetitive. By the time I was halfway through the book, I mostly just felt sad.
    • 2/5
      After falling in love with "A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing" I anxiously anticipated the next book by Melissa Bank. Unfortunately, her next attempt left me with an air of disappointment. This book lacked the page turning interest of her debut novel. In fact, I lost the book for about 2 weeks and didn't miss it. Once I found it I reluctantly finished reading it hoping it to get better...it didn't.
    • 4/5
      I loved the way his book was written it flowed better than Bank's first novel (Girl's Guide to Hunting...). The end was a little blah but I enjoyed following the character's life so much it didn't matter.
    • 5/5
      Two complaints:1. To me Banks made the partents shallow & see through in the begining, and then tried to pump them up closer to the end. Maybe in an effort to get us to like them more.2. I also felt that she set Robert & Jack both up to be great characters then let them fall flat later on in the book. Sophie kept in constint contact with both brothers, but nothing more is known about them as "people" only the events that take place in their life. Other then these two complaints I really enjoyed the story and felt that Sophie was finally on the right path @ the end.
    • 3/5
      The writing and story are excellent, but the story keeps going back in time often and at odd times and was difficult to keep straight. I never was sure where we were in time.