I Don't Know How She Does It

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: I Don't Know How She Does it is full of insight and wisdom. AND it's a funny, smart and compelling read. You've got to read this book! Julia at girlwise.com

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Delicious
Review: I am a working woman who is thinking of becoming a working mother one day. Pearson's book put it all in perspective with that dry British humor. The book portrays the physical and mental struggles of juggling home and work. It does not neglect the needs of the mother as a woman also. Kate Reddy is the woman many aspire to be. The one who has it all but may die trying to keep it together. Pearson also goes deep beneath the surface to explore why the character wants it all by going back to her own relationship with her mother. At no time does the book become preachy or sappy. It is a straight forward, at times edgy and laugh out loud funny narration of what it takes to be a mom at home and to hang on to everything else you built up before the kids took over.

Rating:
Summary: She Did It!
Review: Allison Pearson somehow found the balance herself in this delightful first novel. It is at times laugh-out-loud funny and at other times strikingly deep. I walked away liking and admiring Kate and wishing this novel didn't have to end. Another wonderful debut to join the ranks of Alice Sebold's Lovely Bones and Kirk Martin's Shade of the Maple.

Rating:
Summary: What a Whiner!
Review: This woman has a partner, a nanny, and a well - paid job that gives her international travel (sans child) as a perk. So - WHAT IS SHE WHINING ABOUT??? If you are a single mother like me, you'll find this book not only annoying, but insulting. This woman needs to get some perspective on how hard it really can be, to parent a child.

Rating:
Summary: Has Allison Pearson been spying on me??
Review: I just devoured this book on a guilt-ridden business trip and identified so strongly with the character of Kate. It was the first time I have heard the working mom's voice articulated so clearly. I laughed out loud repeatedly on the plane and ultimately felt a little better about the decisions I have made in my life. A must-read.

Rating:
Summary: I Just Didn't Like Her
Review: Yes, the book is humorous. Yes, the writing is, for the most part, intelligent. But Kate Reddy is just plain impossible to love (or even like). She is whiny, selfish, critical, and prone to martyrdom. I expected the heroine to be one I related to. Instead, I just wanted to slap her.

Rating:
Summary: A must-read
Review: I expected this to be a comical romp, instead I found a wonderful novel that made my heart ache with compassion and understanding. Of course, there were laugh-out-loud moments, but interwoven was a very true thing. Those reviewers who just didn't get it, have simply never known the joys and pains of motherhood and how they swirl about in a career world. Having worked full-time as an executive with baby #1, and then on to full-time mom for baby #2, I've seen both sides of the coin and Ms. Pearce nails it, perhaps at times in a caricature kind of way, but nonetheless heartbreakingly with truth. This is a book I will recommend to other moms, but would not recommend to a man...because I just don't know how he would get it.

Rating:
Summary: Mmmmm...like Chocolate...extremely addictive
Review: The book makes excellent reading. Illuminates several key issues about modern womanhood and work-family conflict in a humourous yet realistic style . Although not a mother, there were several times where I felt an eerie recognition with the constraints women face when having to battle a flourishing career with married life. The book knows no cultural boundaries and is narrated in a style that every woman reader across the globe single or married can relate to. The downside is that it provides a rather discouraging perspective for career women about achieving a balance between work and family.
I think more than the women, men should be reading this one!
The book definitely struck a chord with me!!!

Rating:
Summary: When it comes to love--Caveat Emptor!
Review: The failure of so many of today's women to develop the capacity for deep emotional attachment, and empathy, comes through in this brilliant, very entertaining tragi-comic novel. Kate, a married, hard driving investment professional and a mother of 2 young children. She can't form empathetic bonds with her children, or with her husband. Kate is clueless about the inherent emotional magic of young children. The novel makes clear her parents were very emotionally constricted people who divorced around the time of Kate's puberty.

As a psychiatrist, I believe the failure to develop the capacity for effective loving and empathy derive from neurophysiological developmental failures the result of most children nowadays being daycare and nanny raised. We all know unaffectionately handled puppies, kittens and infant primates have problems successfully mating, and caring for their young. Such would be all the more true for humans. It's one thing for day care raised children to meet basic age appropriate cognitive developmental milestones, e.g. reading, but quite another to eventually possess the rich emotional skills required for a stable marriage with children. Women seem more affected than men. In my mid-60s, and having raised 4 children, I'm simply astounded by the emotional shallowness of contemporary female sexuality. What could marital love mean to a women who has been with dozens of men before her husband?

Kate's unloving core behavior illustrates the absurdity of the romantic predicate of modern marriage. Kate falls in love with business contact. A female subordinate asks her, " 'I'm sorry, Kate, but do you the know the guy?' to which Kate replies, 'No, I don't'...I don't know Jack but I may be in love with him...How can you be in love with someone you don't know? It's probably easier, isn't it, all things considered. A blank screen you can type all your longings on."


Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: My short list of recommendations of new literature is rather predictable: "My Fractured Life" (RENT-generation book of hope, glory and despair as a modern version of "Catcher in the Rye"); "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" (uplifting modern version of "It's a Wonderful Life"); "The Secret Life of Bees" (an uplifting story of racial equality and spiritual healing of a young girl coming of age in the South); and "The Lovely Bones" (life observed from the view of a girl who has been murdered). Right on the cusp though is this more nontraditional book, "I Don't Know How She Does It". "I Don't Know How She Does It" makes a strong statement and in a beautiful voice. It is both funny and sincere, much like the quick wit of "My Fractured Life". It may be an untraditional choice for a must read recommendation, but it sincerely ranks along side the other outstanding ones.