The Next Best Thing

A sort of uninspired rom-com from Weiner about a TV writer finding a measure of success, love and stepping out on her own from the cocoon she was raised in. The saving grace is that with a writer as entertaining and skilled as Weiner, even the uninspired can be fun to read.

On the whole, it reads like a dramatization of Ben Blacker's podcast about TV writing (http://www.nerdist.com/podcast/nerdist-writers-panel/) with a couple of personal plotlines thrown in to the mix. So the non-family, non-romance stuff reads like a pretty authentic behind the scenes–nice for those of us who are into that kind of thing.

The sexual content was a bit more explicit than I'm used to from Weiner (as limited as my experience might be–my wife's is more extensive and she agrees)–it's not terrible, but just not what I expected from this writer, using this character to tell this story–seems out of place.

Not Weiner at her best, but a good way to kill a few hours.