Average Rating: 
Rating:  - unfeminist and unfunny
This book is the most disgracefully unfeminist novel to come out in ages - not because the narrator elects to spend more time with her children at the end - but because the narrator (and, implicitly, the author) feel compelled to criticize EVERY other female character she comes across, from co-workers to total strangers shopping for shoes. Breathtakingly smug and full of velvet viciousness, Pearson employs her considerable intelligence and wit to keep other women firmly in their place - i.e., well below her in the feminine pecking order.A few examples: Her supposed best friend, Candy, is "foul-mouthed...pencil-thin with prominent breasts; this got her plenty of lovers but not a lot of love...congenitally single." This is what she says about a friend? Of course, Candy is an American and a feminist....but by the end, she has been tamed by motherhood, moved back to New Jersey and started a mail-order sex-toy business (those vulgar Americans!) Of course good-girl Kate's happy ending involves living in pastoral yuppie splendor in Derbyshire marketing dollhouse furniture. Does Liberty of London make floral barf bags to go with this scenario? Mere paragraphs later, a damning appraisal of office mate Celia Harmsworth: "Breasts come in twos, but a bust is always singular; the pliant pair meld into a fiberglass monopod sloping gently downward like a continental shelf. The Queen has a bust and so does Celia Harmsworth...Celia is one of the least human people in the building; childless, charmless, chilly as Chablis." Kate not only gives Celia the deep freeze, she manages the trifecta - criticizing the other woman's age, appearance, and her (lack of) marital status all in one go (what is the author's obsession with other women's breasts?) Later, Kate delivers an even more revealing critique: "Celia is one of those spinsters who adored being the only woman in a man's world; it was license to feel pretty before girlies like me showed up and ruined her monopoly." Me-ow! Another woman who wants feminism to work for her at the office and on the home front but feels compelled to cut down any rival for the very elixir of life: male attention. But Kate never misses an opportunity to mention that she's got great legs. Though entitled to feel superior to less attractive women than herself, God forbid her husband flirt with a trim Frenchwoman in the pool - a woman, who because she doesn't have a full-time job, gets to work out all day and is therefore to be dismissed as vain bimbo. No matter what kind of woman you are or what choices you make in life, in Kate Reddy's world, you are a rival, a threat, a loser, or dying of cancer (another judgmental subplot involving a saintly mother's demise.) And when her husband finally leaves her, her first move isn't to communicate with him - no, Kate rushes home to lay her marital failure at the feet of her less-successful sister as a sacrificial offering, expecting the very schadenfreude she enjoys at the expense of other women! In comparison, Kate lightly lets off her sexist male co-workers for outrageous crimes in a tossed-off subplot involving a disposable diaper scheme. Sure, they're jerks, but she saves her most withering barbs for the poor immigrant girl at the coffee counter - who's probably got two kids of her own but can't afford a nanny. The most bizarre thing about the story is that Kate would have a lot more quality time to spend with her family if she wasn't so concerned about "keeping score" against other women on a variety of meaningless fronts, like faking homemade mince pies so the other mothers (who could probably care less anyway) don't take ten points off her Superwoman score. You can do it all - if you're willing give up navel-gazing and one-upmanship as blood sports. But Kate won't do that - it's her right as a woman to compete in every event in the Ovo-Olympics, including, in yet another unsavory example of woman-hating, competitive shoe-snatching at the department store. Clearly, Pearson has one big rival on her mind: Helen Fielding, creator of the much-loved Bridget Jones. Here Pearson falls far short of her intended target. Fielding's comic style is zesty and light-hearted, relying on creativity and character for laughs instead of milking ... put-downs and outdated male-female observations that were stale two generations ago when Phyllis Diller first used them. Pearson's imitation of Fielding's epistolary style is cheap, and her chat-show jabs at Bridget are embarrassing (she's actually said that Bridget would never last five minutes in Kate's shoes, as if nappy-changing rivaled flying the space shuttle in complexity.) Though Pearson plays up here feminist career credentials, her lack of charity towards other women is as depressingly retrograde as a pointy bra. Final score (with apologies to Susan Faludi): Bridget Jones 1, Kate Reddy 0.
Rating:  - Some of you obviously don't get it...
I loved this book. As a working mother who travels weekly and who works many hours over 40 when not traveling, I identified strongly with Kate. The issue with most critics seems to be portrayal of the more technical aspects of her job or the book's ending. The point is that not everyone can make the same choices, work, travel, stay home, adjust your career for children, but we all have choices to make. Perhaps for a season or perhaps for a lifetime, women are in charge of their choices and need to realize what is important. The book would have been boring indeed if it just reflected the technical facts of Kate's job. I still think in the end, the character remained true to her innermost struggle and came out with the best resolution for herself and her family. Would that everyone could have such an outcome. I highly recommend to every woman, young and old, those who work inside and outside of the home and with and without children. I think we can all find areas to identify with and at least learn about someone else's struggles.
Rating: - So funny, I laughed out loud. So dead-on, I cried.
When I started reading this book, it took me a while to "get into it," mostly because I was disappointed that it was written from a British perspective. I want the exact same book, rewritten from an American mom's perspective. Don't get me wrong, I loved it. It's just that I couldn't always relate to nannies, nappies, wellies, and other brit terms that didn't jive with my Midwestern upbringing.ANYWAY, the book itself was a masterpiece of modern mommy angst. As working women, we kill ourselves to make our lives better for our children, yet in the process, we're robbed of the things we hold most dear: time and memories. I read till 1am last night, putting aside baths, books, and backpack prep, just to find out what Kate Reddy did in the end. Would she choose work? Or would she choose mommydom? I just wanted THE ANSWER to make my own life easier. I found out, there is no easy answer. Kate's choice wouldn't work for me, but at least she got me dreaming about the possibilities.
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