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Title: I Don't Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother by Allison Pearson ISBN: 0375414053 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.00

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Average Customer Rating: 3.86

Rating: 3
Summary: Flawed, but still brings up plenty to discuss
Comment: When I first started reading this book, I almost put it back down-- just reading about Kate's life was stressing me out! But I am glad I continued. While there were things in the writing that bothered me, such as the constant 'moments of lucidity' when Kate preaches to us about the paradoxes a working mother must face, the fact that this book addresses these paradoxes makes it worth a read.

Yes, Kate has a full-time nanny and a great job and salary and plenty of other things, but these don't make up for how she feels about missing out on her children's lives. She really is trying to please everyone and to have it all, and does love her career for so much more than the money. But she is faced with trade-offs which, she often reminds us, her male counterparts never really have to address. So those who think she's got the perfect life and is merely whining may have missed the point.

Granted there are many mothers who *must* work full-time, and Kate could option out of it, and that may make her seem whiny or self-indulgent. But I think she has a point when she mulls over her own daughter's future. Should she keep up with the Joneses and make sure her daughter gets into the best schools, moving on to University, only to eventually be stuck with one of two choices: joining the Muffia, or becoming a working mother pulled in too many directions? Eventually the book alludes to other options, but only after Kate has pushed herself beyond her limits.

I think this would be a great book for discussion among any group of mothers, whether full-time career moms or full-time at home, or anywhere in-between.

Rating: 2
Summary: Characters, not caricatures, please!
Comment: The premise was so appealing to me I couldn't resist. But within the first 15 pages, I asked myself WHY I had thought this would be a good read???

The main character does NOTHING but complain, which might be all right if her character had been developed enough for me to sympathize, but she isn't. The characters are all very flat, unrealistic, 1 dimensional people.

This woman has a fairy-tale life: money, clothes, great job, kids, husband, nanny, the full-monty. And all she can do is whine whine whine.

I want to throttle her. What might have been a great book, was quite the disappointment. :-(

Rating: 2
Summary: ANNOYING
Comment: This is a moderately amusing, fairly entertaining quick read. Most working mothers will be able to relate to something that Kate experiences, in the same way that most single women could relate to something that Bridget Jones experienced, while recognizing that these women are really caricatures, not real women.

HOWEVER, this book was mostly annoying! There's virtually no character growth until the last 20 pages, and by then you really don't care. The book stopped being amusing and started being really annoying pretty early on. You just want Kate to STOP COMPLAINING and find some beauty in the big pay check, big house, great kids, etc...

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