Has anyone read 'I Don't Know How She Does It' or 'The Rise and Fall of a Yummy Mummy'?

[litgirl]

Hello!
I was just hoping for a few opinions really! I'm an English Lit student currently writing my thesis on Women's writing, and the opinions around chick-lit, and mummy and baby novels. I am discussing these two novels to illustrate how the characters react against the yummy-mummy myth presented in the media. I would love to hear any opinions you may have about either book, or chick-lit in general, and if you think these novels present mums realistically.

Thank you so much,
Katie xxx

Okay I will. If you can tell me how to block adverts for viagra and weight loss tablets from my inbox.

If I knew that my dear I would be a very rich young lady

I thought you'd say that. Oh well. Maybe I should start something on the "Am I being unreasonable....?" slot? They're driving me mad.

Agree with martianbishop, decaff and squiffy.
Could identify with some facets but plots and characters not as strong/complete as they could have been.
IMHO, nothing wrong with a bit of light mummylit to unwind...just wish I could stay awake longer of an evening to devour more of it!

Haven't read the whole thread properly - will go back when I have time.

Just to say I have read Rise and Fall... and found it scary how I related to the character up to the point she starts to have botox, then it loses it for me. So many of the events leading up to her transformation were relevant. Then I felt the story took over and went into fiction. (Thankfully!)

Someone mentioned Rachel Cusks book earlier, and I think it is worth a look for comparison (as far as comparing fiction/non-fiction goes). I personally really, really disliked it. I felt it was negative, miserable and lacked any of the joy of motherhood.

The biggest fallacy about I Dont Know How She Does It was that Kate Reddy had an escape route all the time. She wasnt like the rest of us, struggling to pay the mortgage on a house too small to downsize from.
Also, I found it offensive to suggest that full time working mothers would have affairs with work colleagues, because their lives are so crap. Completely not true.

It was a good description of being very very busy though. I couldnt read it for ages, because it was so close to reality for me, and reading about it just made it feel even worse.

MI, I am pretty sure at the end of the book she is starting her own business - something to do with furniture I believe. That rings true. I know people who stopped their big all-consuming career when they had kids, but then started their own businesses.

It wasn't meant to be a novel about "the rest of us" though. It was supposed to be about City women. And I was really interested to read - whose post was it? - how innacurate KR was as a character capable of holding down that kind of job.

Has anyone read Lipstick Jungle? About high earning women in Manhattan. It reminded me of 1980s blockbuster fiction. Jackie Collins and Lucky Santangelo taking over casinos.

thing is though, many of us have the lifestyle, but not the salary. And would give anything to give it up and slow down a bit.

The more I think about that book, the more I agree with the poster who said KR was a journalist wearing City clothes. I remember at the time reading it and thinking why does she live in Hackney and have a horrible bathroom if she earns all that money? And also she would get her pa to buy the daughter's Barbie dolls. She was a fake character really.

I live in Hackney and work in the City!

Well, there you go. What do I know.

The merits of IDKHSDI as a "realistic" description of a too-busy city career woman could be discussed to death. Personally I don't think that details of behaviour or characterisation should be dismissed as "fake" because, in my experience of working women in a similarly busy environment, their "coping strategies" varied very widely. Many of them were excellent at their jobs and absolutely terrible at the rest of their lives because they had spent all their adult energies on studies/career and never had time to focus on the other stuff. Their home lives, rather than being well thought-out, were cobbled together from often outdated family tradition and whatever they could get their hands on easily in the way of help. Probably if you had given them the time to sit back and look at the rest of their lives from the outside with due time and attention they would have been able to identify the anomalies and incoherencies as well as any reader of IDKHSDI. But caught up in the day-to-day thick of things they were too busy to organise life properly.

Which is really the only point of the book, to my mind. Life too busy = life not much fun.

A novel way to approach research!

I mentally shake hands with you, my fellow in laziness.

Vive la paresse!

Work smarter, not harder!

Half way thro IDKHSDI and can not understand why KR does not employ a live in housekeeper/nanny. Job sorted. I wonder if she predicted this weeks meltdown