SOURCE: Review of Shiksa Goddess: Or, How I Spent My Forties, by Wendy Wasserstein. Publishers Weekly 248, no. 17 (23 April 2001): 60.

In the following review, the critic praises the “pedestrian” themes of Shiksa Goddess: Or, How I Spent My Forties but finds the collection repetitive and stale except for the last two essays.

Noted playwright Wasserstein offers up 35 essays [in Shiksa Goddess: Or, How I Spent My Forties], most of which have appeared over the years in such publications as the New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, Allure and the New York Times Magazine. Now in her late 40s, the humorist tackles topics such as dieting, the theater, her late cat, Manhattan real estate and Thanksgiving. She also trains her eye on public figures such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bette Midler and Jamie Lee Curtis. The book falls prey, however, to the usual dangers of such collections: repetition (The Heidi Chronicles, for which...