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Summary: A Book to Make You Laugh, Cry ...
Review: Elizabeth Buchan managed to grab me from the first word until the last. She made it all so very real; made Rose truly come alive. You will want to cheer her on, defend her, empathize with her, damn anyone that will hurt her. She is a woman to be admired, one that you will be able to identify with on many levels. The ending is extremely well done. I highly recommend the audio version.
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Summary: Great Book for Going on with Life
Review: I enjoyed this book very much. It is a great book for someone that has gone through a divorce and is trying to put their life back together. There is hope out there and this book shows how one woman managed to get over the pain.
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Summary: Excellent, realistic, well written
Review: I was absolutely drawn into this story from the first page. Elizabeth Buchan did a wonderful job of portraying how Rose thought everything was fine with her husband Nathan, her relationship with co-worker and supposed "friend" Minty, only to find out that Minty had seduced her husband and manipulated him into falling in love with her. The range of emotions which Rose goes through to eventually come out of the whole expierence stronger is right on the mark. It is also very amusing to see what ultimately happens to Nathan and Minty. I became so involved in this story that I almost missed my plane at the airport. Great read!!
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Summary: A woman's guide to revenge and redemption
Review: I'm not into women's books. They annoy me much in the same way that a veruca will annoy you. However the case of "Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman" I will make an exception to my rule, well who said rules were made to be bent whenever is necessary!
This is a deliciously entertaining book about Rose, her adulterous husband Nathan, the other woman, the diabolical Minty (a rather fragile she devil) and Rose's oddball grown up children Poppy and Sam.
The plot centres around Nathan's affair with the brittle but beautiful Minty and the affect it has on Rose, his wife of many years. When the affair finally becomes public Rose has lost not only her husband but her job too. However Rose is more resilient than she thinks and bit by bit she finds herself shedding her previous life, and heading down a path she might have taken if she had not chosen to marry Nathan.
Add to this a cast of quirky characters like Rose's eccentric mother Ianthe, an ancient cat called Parsley, Richard, the man Poppy marries suddenly in Thailand, a suicidal ex-girlfriend of Sam's and Hal the man Rose might have taken up with if she hadn't chosen Nathan and you have a novel to make you laugh and cry in the same breath.
Page by page we are treated to Rose's rebirth as a new woman, no longer in Nathan's shadow, no longer the wronged wife. With each trial and tribulation Rose rises to the fore and survives even the most bitter of blows. Like when she is forced to sell the marital home she finds herself able to exhale and move on to the next task at hand. And in the background Nathan is finding that life with the "other" woman isn't all it is cracked up to be and that Rose the wife that he had complained confined him, is now the one that is free.
Funny, heart rending and totally absorbing, "Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman" is a book for those people who can honestly go with the old Spanish proverb, "Living well is the best revenge..."
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Summary: Hard to put down
Review: I first read a clip of this book in Sept. 2003 Good Housekeeping. I was hooked and had to go to the store to buy the book so I didn't have to wait for part 2. While this book is a bit predictable, the blows that Rose encounters are not always what you expect they will be. As she becomes an ex wife - you feel her pain with her and celebrate her strength with her. I will try another E. Buchan book in hopes that it will be as enjoyable as Revenge of the Middle Age Woman.
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Summary: Better Than I Thought It Would Be!
Review: At first glance, I was not impressed. I didn't like the cover of the book (and I do judge books by its cover - why, because the cover of the book tells me a lot about its author, just like furnishing in a home tells me a lot about its inhabitant.) I was delightfully surprised. This book was an introduction to Elizabeth Buchan and I am looking forward to another book by her. It was realistic, funny, sad, sophisticated. Rose Lloyd is an inspiring character. I'm not so sure I would have been as gracious as she was under the circumstances. She rose above it all with grace and dignity - that was her revenge - not meanspirited revenge like I thought it would be. I liked Rose, like the book. Love English books.
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Summary: Great PMS read!
Review: Oh, great book if you've ever lost a love to another woman! My British mother in-law sent this to me (telling me something?!) and I just loved it. I'd never read this author before and was surprised it wasn't a over-winded "Rosemund Piltcher" type book. It also fuels that fantasy of "The One That Got Away"! What happens to the hubby in the end is just grand. Read it with a smile on your face. It's not just for "middle-aged" women either. Anyone can appreciate what Rose goes though.
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Summary: A 3.9 on a scale of 1 to 5--Bittersweet, A Good Read
Review: I confess. I loved the title and for that alone I ran out and got this book.
And yes, I certainly had a chuckle or two throughout the book. This story has been told many, many times-and by fiction writers in all genres (from Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts to more serious feminist authors who write on ageism and sexism)-a forty something woman is dumped by her employer and her husband at the same time. The book chronicles the rebuilding of her life.
This book is written, to a degree, in the style of "Bridget Jones' Diary," and "I Don't Know How She Does It." The heroine is an upscale London urbanite with keen powers of observation and a sharp take on her set. This book has a more thoughtful and more realistic journey through our heroine's travails than your typical supermarket fiction. I particularly liked the fact that she ultimately placed some of the blame for the end of her marriage on herself.
I would recommend this book for the "Bridget Jones" crowd, though "Revenge" is not nearly as funny or as easy a read. I also would recommend this book for those women out there-and there are many and I am one of them-who like reading about the rebuilding of lives in middle age. I wouldn't recommend it for those who expect more-great writing, a strong plot, well developed characters-from every book they read every time.
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Summary: Delightful surprise
Review: I bought this book after reading a review in the Washington Post. What a wonderful surprise! Not only is the writing excellent, but the characters and story line truly draw you in. I can't recommend this book highly enough!
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Summary: Unpredictable version of the predictable
Review: This book can be viewed as a contrast to Allison Pearson's heroine, Kate Reddy, in I Don't Know How She Does It. Heroines of both books hold jobs they love and balance family against work. However, Kate is smart, witty and a little cynical, and she holds down an exciting, globe-trotting job in a men's world. Rose is less exciting. Rose Lloyd, a London book reviewer, loves every aspect of her life: her house, garden, husband, children and, most of the time, her job. As you know before you begin, that life is about to change drastically. Both her husband and her boss choose Rose's assistant, Minty, as a younger replacement. Armed with generous settlements from both husband and boss, Rose begins a new life -- starting with a delightful shopping trip to Paris orchestrated by an old friend. As other reviewers have noted, the theme is not new, and ultimately the end is also predictable: everybody realizes that the younger version may be more attractively packaged -- until you get up close. Those who dumped Rose would like to undo the damage but it's too late. Rose has grown beyond what she had. What did we expect? Although I found myself flipping past some of the flashbacks of Rose's married life, the British setting and excellent writing held my interest and contributed to the 4-star rating. However, there was little new here. Rose's daughter Poppy learns the same lessons about marriage as Minty -- it's not all romance and fireworks. Rose's mother supported the family as a travel agent -- dull, perhaps, but hardly the life of a servant or factory worker. And she's diagnosed with an illness...yes, just the sort of illness that female characters get in these novels. The author may have intended to create "everywoman" and "everypeople," but I'd have liked more personality and depth in the characters. Rose comes across as passive. Her husband had helped her get the job and his job dictates a lot of their social life. Even in the depths of despair, her friends take the initiative to help her. She's gracious and mature throughout. Rose's job, editor of a book review section, doesn't add energy to the plot. There's no inherent drama in reviewing books and surely Rose would realize she's on a sideline, away from mainstream part of the newspaper, acquiring few marketable skills. She's set herself up for trouble: a job where there's no place to go, working for the same firm as her husband. Frankly, they've all done her a favor. Any change would be for the better. Now she can get a life! In contrast, Kate Reddy (heroine of I Don't Know How She Does It) brings a wry wit to her observations. She also has a more interesting career and she's not nearly so naive. She'd have seen this one coming a long time ago.
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