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Title: Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan ISBN: 0-14-200372-7 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 30 December, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.21 (28 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Thoroughly British, Smart, and Witty
Comment: Elizabeth Buchan's book REVENGE OF THE MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN is about the destruction and ultimate resurrection of a single life. At the start of the book, Rose Lloyd's life appears idyllic. Married to Nathan for twenty-five years, she has concurrently raised a son and a daughter, forged a career as a book critic and editor, and kept a beautiful home. Life is comfortable, easy and lovingly predictable. She feels blessed by the ease with which her days pass. Whether she is tending her garden or dining out with colleagues, Rose is grounded and at peace.
But then one day, forty-pushing-fifty Nathan comes home and announces out of the blue that he wants out of their comfortable, easy, predictable existence. He uses the oldest cliché in the book: he has found love, or at least lust, with a younger woman. And, ouch, the younger woman is a good friend of Rose's. As if this devastation is not enough, a waterfall of catastrophic events happens in quick succession, sending Rose over the edge. She loses her job, a beloved pet dies, a child marries while in another country and her mother becomes ill. Buchan hits every potential nerve, leaving readers raw from the emotional barrage.
Rose sinks to the greatest depths of depression, drinking too much, eating too little and sleeping too much. Buchan spends many pages expertly plumbing the recesses of a devastated psyche and, for anyone who has ever experienced such grand and vast loss, Rose's self-questioning, self-hatred and self-abuse will be all too familiar.
As low as Rose sinks, ultimately, REVENGE OF THE MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN is about resurrecting one's life from the unrecognizable heap of self that is left after loss --- and resurrect she does. Buchan never fails to write without great wit and Rose never loses sight of the irony of life. She rises a newer, sleeker model, armed with the knowledge that 1) she can carry on and 2) "it took so little to destroy someone." Poised by book's end to rekindle an old passion, Rose truly embodies the Spanish proverb "living well is the best revenge."
Thoroughly British, smart and witty, REVENGE OF THE MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN will have you crying and laughing as Rose roller-coasters through the dissolution of her marriage and an inspirational renewal.
--- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara
Rating: 4
Summary: Another Treat from the UK
Comment: Please ignore the silly title when considering this book. Its author, Elizabeth Buchan, is highly popular in the UK, where she is a reviewer for several newspapers. I had the pleasure of reviewing her two previous books that were released in this country: Perfect Love, a truly brilliant work; and Consider the Lily, which I did not like at all.
After a hiatus of several years (at least in the U.S.), we now have the treat of "Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman," which concerns a well-to-do UK couple who both work for a prominent newspaper: he as a business manager, she as the head of the book review department. Nathan and Rose, a modern, undowdy couple, have been married many years, and are happily settled into middle age. They have two children in their twenties, an elderly cat, a beautiful garden (product of Rose's long obsession) and a house that has sheltered them throughout their lovely lives.
All is fine until Rose is blindsided by a sudden announcement: Nathan has somebody else and wants out. As a bewildered and devastated Rose faces that fact, she also learns in rapid succession that the other woman is someone she knows well-and that her own cherished job may be in as much danger as her marriage.
Rose's reaction to this upheaval in her life is predictable but different. So many hundreds of books have been written on this same subject that it is very hard to keep one's sympathy and attention. But Rose is not a whiner. And Rose is not a quitter. And above all, Rose, who is devastated but not broken, is a realist. How she copes with the blows that come her way is an inspiration to those of us who may have been in the same position, or who may be so in the future. At the very least, it's a good old-fashioned story for our times. At best, it's a wonderful model of how to be. No wonder this was a best-seller in Britain. It should be here as well.--Calyndula, Amazon Reviewer.
Rating: 5
Summary: The best revenge!
Comment: This is a truly well written, pithy tale about a women in the middle of her life (looking both forward and back). While many may not appreciate the subtleties of the main character, Rose's, victory in the end - the fact that she chose to pull herself together and examine her life rather than vindictively striking out at her departing husband was wholly satisfying to me. We all know the impulse to go balistic, rather than to go with the flow of life, and that sort of book would have relegated Rose's story to just another tired tale of a woman scorned. This is one of the best books I've come across in the past few years, and I enjoyed it completely.
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Title: The Good Wife Strikes Back by Elizabeth Buchan ISBN: 0670032808 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 25 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Mrs. Kimble : A Novel by Jennifer Haigh ISBN: 0060509392 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Pursuit of Alice Thrift by Elinor Lipman ISBN: 0679463135 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 17 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik ISBN: 0345438825 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 04 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Perfect Love by Elizabeth Buchan ISBN: 0312324642 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 04 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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