'The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing' by Melissa Bank (22/52)

Jane is fourteen, twenty, thirty and older in this collection of snapshots by Melissa Bank. She's a friend, a lover, a daughter, a sister. An observer, an editor, a reader, a carer. This series of moments are the making and unmaking of Jane, told through her job and her relationships.

There's been a real wave of fiction in recent years that have been part novel, part collection, and when it's done well, it is so great. This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz is a great example of the form, and so's this one. Bank tells a series of compelling stories that centre around Jane, an uncertain, certain girl, then woman, who comes of age over and over again. Bank knows her inside out, which helps in fleshing out a character who could potentially come off as irritating or shallow in a lesser writer's hands. As it is though, Jane make good choices and bad ones, but the reader always ultimately understands them. It's a pretty great effect.

4 out of 5 Henry girlfriends.