Short story collections are the audiobook equivalent of a sampler platter. Some bites are transcendent, others make you wonder why they're on the menu at all. Jennifer Weiner's The Guy Not Taken lands somewhere in between—and the dual narration situation complicates things in ways I wasn't expecting.
I started this one during a particularly brutal stack of junior essays on The Great Gatsby. (Spoiler: they all think Gatsby is "relatable." He's not. That's the point.) Weiner's opening story about Marlie Davidow scrolling through her ex's wedding registry at 2 AM while nursing a newborn? Now that's relatable. The specific detail of clicking through someone's carefully curated Crate & Barrel selections while your life feels like chaos—Weiner nails that particular flavor of modern melancholy.
The What-If Engine
Weiner understands something fundamental about how women torture themselves with alternate timelines. The title story isn't really about the guy not taken—it's about the version of yourself you didn't become. Marlie isn't mourning her ex; she's mourning the imaginary Marlie who has matching throw pillows and a husband who remembers anniversaries.
This is why we still read the classics, honestly. Austen knew this. Wharton knew this. Weiner translates it into Target registries and sleep deprivation. Mating in Captivity explores similar territory—how we construct fantasy versions of our relationships and ourselves, though Perel comes at it from a therapeutic angle rather than Weiner's wry fiction.
The story about Jessica Norton listing her apartment to catch her broker's attention? Delightfully unhinged in the best way. The narrator understands that pause is punctuation here—the desperation needs room to breathe. And the friendship story between two new mothers navigating class differences and the brutal honesty of postpartum life? That one stuck with me through an entire faculty meeting. (Principal Martinez was discussing something about standardized testing. I was thinking about how Weiner writes female friendship with the complexity it deserves.)
Two Narrators, Uneven Results
Here's where it gets complicated. Mary Catherine Garrison handles the female perspectives with warmth and appropriate pacing. Jordan Bridges gets praise for the one male POV story—and he is good there, bringing a different energy that the collection needs. But his voice has this slightly nasal quality that some listeners find grating. I noticed it. Didn't ruin things for me, but I understand the complaints.
The bigger issue? These are short stories, which means you're constantly meeting new characters, new situations, new emotional landscapes. With a novel, you settle into the narrator's rhythms. Here, just as you're getting comfortable, the story ends. Some listeners reported feeling lost on who was who—and I'll admit, during one particularly convoluted family dinner scene, I had to rewind. The character differentiation isn't always sharp enough for audio consumption.
The Short Story Problem (It's Real)
Let's talk about what Weiner is really doing here. Short stories are harder than novels in some ways—you have to establish everything quickly, create emotional investment, and then... stop. Weiner's endings often feel deliberately unresolved, which works on the page where you can sit with the ambiguity. In audio, it can feel like the narrator just stopped talking mid-thought.
My students would hate this. They want resolution, answers, closure. I love that Weiner refuses to provide it. But I'll acknowledge it's a tougher sell in audiobook format, where you can't flip back and reread the last paragraph three times to extract meaning.
Worth Your Eight Hours?
If you loved Good in Bed or In Her Shoes, this is its spiritual successor in miniature—same sharp observations about women's lives, same humor cutting through the melancholy. But temper expectations. This isn't Weiner's best work, and the audio production, while competent, doesn't elevate the material the way a truly matched narrator can.
Best for: Listeners who appreciate literary fiction about women's interior lives, fans of Weiner's other work, anyone who's ever spiraled on an ex's social media at 2 AM. Skip if: You need strong narrative momentum, get easily confused by multiple characters, or find slightly nasal male narration distracting.
The prose deserves to be savored, even when the delivery occasionally rushes past moments that need more space. Worth pausing the faculty meeting for—but maybe wait for a sale.
