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."

Another distinctively Bank read

There's no doubt that Melissa Bank has a distinctive voice. I loved her first book, the interconnected short stories were so unique and stark and personal to the character - which is why I thought it was odd that she'd choose to use the same form for her second book. And I have to admit, I didn't love Sophie as much as I loved Jane, even though at times they actually sounded like the same character (I even went back to Girls Guide and compared the young Jane to the young Sophie, they were that similar). But there's something about Bank's writing style that I love. It's sparse without lacking emotion or description. So even though I still enjoyed her first book better, I still enjoyed The Wonder Spot.

I couldn't make it past chapter 3

Like some of the other reviewers, I had eagerly awaited Melissa Bank's new book. "The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing" is one of my favorite books, and I've recommended it to friends and enjoyed discussing it.

"The Wonder Spot" failed to keep my attention and interest in the first three chapters. I can't fault the writing style, but the character development of Sophie is flat. The first chapter involves the family's attendance at a bat mitzvah, and it slightly ties in with the second chapter, involving Sophie's stint at Hebrew school. By the third chapter, Sophie is in college but as written, the story could be about a completely different character. There is no thread of continuity from the first two chapters to the third, and I found Sophie neither a sympathetic nor a compelling subject.

I am hopeful that Melissa Bank recaptures the magic of "Girl's Guide" in her next work.

Surely One to be Enjoyed

"Wonder Spot" features a sarcastic, self-deprecating young lady named Sophie as our main character. Sophie fills each page with a teenager's highly entertaining look on logic and life. There are elements of nostalgia and also just plain interest as Sophie muddles along. For instance, she uses Bob Dylan as her quotable source of logic in arguing against having to go to Hebrew school. "Wonder Spot" is surely a book that can be recommended in the same sphere of enjoyment as "Reading Lolita in Tehran", "My Fractured Life", "Memory of Running" and "The Kite Runner".