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In Good in Bed, published in 2001, a 28-year-old Philadelphia reporter opens a national women’s magazine and finds a column by her ex-boyfriend headlined “Loving a Larger Woman”. The larger woman is her. One agent asked Jennifer Weiner to make the heroine smaller; she declined, and the novel spent almost a year on The New York Times bestseller list. Weiner, a former features reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, has since published a novel roughly every eighteen months, with about 11 million copies in print in 36 countries, and In Her Shoes became a 2005 film with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette. This guide covers her 13 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 key books · 2001–2025 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Jennifer Weiner has written 17 novels, including Good in Bed (2001), In Her Shoes (2002), Mrs. Everything (2019), Big Summer (2020) and The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits (2025). Start with Good in Bed, the debut that set out what she would write about for the next 25 years: sisters, mothers, bodies and who gets a happy ending.
Where to Start with Jennifer Weiner
If you want the book that started it all
→ Good in Bed (2001) — her 2001 debut.
If you want sisters (and the film)
→ In Her Shoes (2002) — adapted in 2005.
If you want a summer read with a murder in it
→ Big Summer (2020).
If you want a big multi-decade family novel
→ Mrs. Everything (2019) — two sisters from 1950s Detroit to the present.
13 Jennifer Weiner Books, in Order
Good in Bed
Cannie Shapiro, 28, a pop-culture reporter in Philadelphia, discovers that her ex-boyfriend Bruce now writes a sex column called “Good in Bed” for the women’s magazine Moxie, and that his latest piece, “Loving a Larger Woman”, is about her. The novel follows the year that takes her from Philadelphia to Hollywood and back. Weiner has said it draws on her own life, including her parents’ divorce and her mother coming out.
In Her Shoes
Rose Feller, a Philadelphia lawyer, and her younger sister Maggie have nothing in common except their shoe size. After Maggie goes too far, she ends up in Florida with a grandmother neither sister knew they had. It was filmed in 2005 by 20th Century Fox with Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine; Weiner has a cameo.
Little Earthquakes
Three pregnant women in Philadelphia — Becky, a chef; Kelly, an event planner; and Ayinde, a former newscaster married to a 76ers player — become friends, and are later joined by Lia, who is grieving. The book follows them through the first year of their babies’ lives.
Goodnight Nobody
Kate Klein, a mother of three who has moved to suburban Connecticut, finds the body of a neighbour and starts investigating. Weiner’s first try at a mystery, written with the humour of her earlier novels.
Certain Girls
The sequel to Good in Bed, set about thirteen years later. Cannie Shapiro is married, and her daughter Joy, approaching her bat mitzvah, reads the novel her mother once wrote about her own life and does not like what she finds. Mother and daughter take turns narrating.
Best Friends Forever
Addie Downs and Valerie Adler were childhood best friends until high school split them. On the night of their class reunion, Val turns up on Addie’s doorstep needing help, and the two set off together. It was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller.
Fly Away Home
Sylvie Woodruff, the wife of a US senator, learns of his affair from the news. She retreats to the family’s house in Connecticut, where her two adult daughters, Diana and Lizzie, are dealing with crises of their own.
Mrs. Everything
Jo and Bethie Kaufman grow up in 1950s Detroit after their father’s early death. Jo, the tomboy who realises she is attracted to women, ends up a wife and mother in Connecticut; Bethie, the good girl, ends up the family outcast. The book runs from the 1950s through the civil rights era, Vietnam and feminism to the #MeToo years.
Big Summer
Daphne Berg, a plus-size Instagram influencer in New York, is asked by Drue Cavanaugh, the rich former friend who once humiliated her, to be a bridesmaid at her wedding on Cape Cod. The wedding turns into a murder mystery. Kirkus told newcomers: “start here.”
That Summer
Daisy Shoemaker, a bored suburban wife, keeps receiving emails meant for a woman named Diana, and the two women become friends. Their connection goes back to a summer on Cape Cod when Diana was fifteen. A novel about assault and its aftermath, which shares its setting with Big Summer.
The Summer Place
When Sarah Danhauser’s 22-year-old stepdaughter Ruby announces her engagement to her pandemic boyfriend, the family gathers for the wedding at their beach house on the Outer Cape, which is about to be sold. Sarah, her mother Veronica (a former novelist), her grieving twin Sam and Ruby each carry a secret into the wedding weekend.
The Breakaway
Abby Stern, 33, leads a two-week bike tour across New York State to Niagara Falls, only to find among the riders Sebastian, the man she had a one-night stand with two years earlier. It is a romance about a fat woman who loves cycling, and how the world reacts to her body.
The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits
Zoe and Cassie Grossberg formed an accidental band in the early 2000s, went platinum with their debut and then split. Twenty years on, Zoe lives in New Jersey, Cassie off-grid in Alaska, and Zoe’s teenage daughter Cherry wants to sing and to find out what happened between them. In 2026 Universal optioned it, with Amy Sherman-Palladino to write and direct.
In What Order to Read Jennifer Weiner
Only two of her novels are connected as a series: Good in Bed and its sequel Certain Girls, which should be read in that order. Everything else stands alone.
Big Summer, That Summer and The Summer Place share a Cape Cod setting, and are sometimes called her Cape Cod trilogy, but each has its own characters; That Summer includes a few references to Big Summer, so reading them in publication order costs nothing.
A reading path
1. Good in Bed (2001)
2. In Her Shoes (2002)
3. Certain Girls (2008)
4. Mrs. Everything (2019)
5. Big Summer (2020)
Everything Else Jennifer Weiner Published
Beyond the 13 key books: 7 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
More novels
4
4 books · 2011–2015
- 2011Then Came Youfour women connected by one surrogacy
- 2012The Next Best Thinga young TV writer gets her own sitcom
- 2014All Fall Downa suburban mother’s addiction to painkillers
- 2015Who Do You Lovea love story told over decades
Stories and essays
2
2 books · 2006–2016
- 2006The Guy Not Takeneleven short stories
- 2016Hungry Heartessays on her life, family, body and writing career
For younger readers
1
1 book · 2016
- 2016The Littlest Bigfootmiddle-grade novel; first of three, followed by Little Bigfoot, Big City (2017) and The Bigfoot Queen
The years · 1970–2026
Quick facts about Jennifer Weiner
- Known for
- Jennifer Weiner is known for funny, commercially successful novels about women’s bodies, families and sisters, and for arguing publicly that books by and for women are treated as less serious than men’s.
- 1970
- Born in DeRidder, Louisiana
- 2001
- Good in Bed
- 2005
- In Her Shoes film released
- 2019
- Mrs. Everything
- 2026
- Universal options The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits
- Born
- 28 March 1970, DeRidder, Louisiana; raised in Simsbury, Connecticut
- Education
- Princeton University, A.B. in English, summa cum laude, 1991
- Journalism
- Features reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer; later wrote on gender and culture for The New York Times
- Debut
- Good in Bed (2001)
- On screen
- In Her Shoes (2005 film); co-created the ABC Family sitcom State of Georgia (2011)
- In print
- About 11 million copies in 36 countries
- Lives
- Philadelphia, with her husband, the writer Bill Syken
The red mark is 2001: Good in Bed, her debut novel.
How Jennifer Weiner Writes
Her heroines are often fat, Jewish, funny and from the Philadelphia area, and the books are written in a close, joking voice. The rule she set with Good in Bed still holds: as she told NPR in 2025, she wanted a story where the fat girl got the happy ending and stayed fat. Big Summer and The Breakaway return to the same subject twenty years later.
Sisters and mothers drive most of the plots: Rose and Maggie in In Her Shoes, Jo and Bethie in Mrs. Everything, Zoe and Cassie in The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits, Cannie and her daughter Joy in Certain Girls. Since Mrs. Everything she has written bigger books that move between decades, and she has added mysteries and secrets to the summer novels.
She credits ten years of newspaper work with teaching her to write every day and on deadline, and she has kept to a novel about every eighteen months. She has also argued in public, often and at length, about the way the literary press treats commercial fiction by women.
Watch
Jennifer Weiner on The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits
Jeremy Siegel of GBH talks with Jennifer Weiner in April 2025 about her novel The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits, her move from journalism to fiction and writing plus-size heroines. From the official GBH Forum Network channel.
Frequently asked questions about Jennifer Weiner’s books
How many books has Jennifer Weiner written?
About 22. She has published 17 novels, from Good in Bed (2001) to The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits (2025), plus a short story collection (The Guy Not Taken, 2006), an essay collection (Hungry Heart, 2016) and three middle-grade novels about a young Bigfoot. This page covers 13 key novels; the other four are listed under “Everything else”.
What are Jennifer Weiner’s books in order?
Good in Bed (2001), In Her Shoes (2002), Little Earthquakes (2004), Goodnight Nobody (2005), Certain Girls (2008), Best Friends Forever (2009), Fly Away Home (2010), Then Came You (2011), The Next Best Thing (2012), All Fall Down (2014), Who Do You Love (2015), Mrs. Everything (2019), Big Summer (2020), That Summer (2021), The Summer Place (2022), The Breakaway (2023) and The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits (2025).
Where should I start with Jennifer Weiner?
With Good in Bed (2001), her debut. If you prefer something recent, Big Summer (2020) is a self-contained summer novel with a murder mystery.
What is Jennifer Weiner’s most famous book?
In Her Shoes (2002), because of the 2005 film with Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine. Good in Bed, her debut, is the book she is most associated with among readers.
Do I need to read Good in Bed before Certain Girls?
Yes. Certain Girls (2008) is its sequel and picks up Cannie Shapiro’s life about thirteen years later. It is the only direct sequel in her work.
Which Jennifer Weiner books have been adapted?
In Her Shoes became a 2005 film from 20th Century Fox, with a cameo by Weiner. In 2026 Universal optioned The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits, with Amy Sherman-Palladino to write and direct. Weiner also co-created the ABC Family sitcom State of Georgia, which ran for 12 episodes in 2011.
Are Big Summer, That Summer and The Summer Place connected?
They share a Cape Cod setting and are often grouped together, but each has its own characters and can be read alone. That Summer contains a few nods to Big Summer.
What was the Franzenfreude controversy?
In 2010, when Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom received enormous coverage, Weiner, with Jodi Picoult, argued that the literary press reserved that kind of attention for male writers and dismissed books by women as “chick lit”. The argument was widely debated; a 2011 VIDA count of book reviews supported her point, and Franzen told The Daily Telegraph, “To a considerable extent, I agree.” In 2019 she was criticised for tweets about a college student who had objected to a Sarah Dessen novel being chosen as a common read; the tweets were later deleted.
Is Jennifer Weiner still alive?
Yes. She was born on 28 March 1970 in DeRidder, Louisiana, and lives in Philadelphia. In 2026 she marked the 25th anniversary of Good in Bed.
Is Good in Bed autobiographical?
Partly. Like Cannie Shapiro, Weiner was a Jewish newspaper reporter in Philadelphia, and she has said the novel draws on her parents’ divorce and her mother coming out as a lesbian.
Footnotes
- Jennifer Weiner — Wikipedia
- In Jennifer Weiner’s books the heroine wins big — NPR via WAMC, 2025
- Jennifer Weiner’s perfect day — The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2026
- Good in Bed — Simon & Schuster
- Big Summer — Kirkus Reviews
- The Summer Place — jenniferweiner.com
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I wanted a story where the fat girl got the happy ending and stayed fat.”
— Jennifer Weiner, interview with NPR (2025)
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