Rating: 
Summary: unfeminist and unfunny
Review: 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: 
Summary: THEY WROTE A BOOK ABOUT ME
Review: It seems as though this book is written about me. Or perhaps, "I" Represent the millions of women everywhere who are burned out and still managing to do the impossible-survive with class. Kids are a full time Job. A full time Job is a full time job. All work and no play makes me have no time to read this book, but read this book I did. I can't think of a single working mom who can't not love this book. I love this book because I empathize. Very insightful and moving book. It made me laugh and cry at the same time. Also recommended: The Little Guide to Happiness, by Michael Kevin Naselli
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!!!
Review: I have read so many good books lately, The Lovely Bones, To Kill a Mockingbird, Stupid White Men, and now I Don't Know How She Does It, which is right up there with the rest. Of course my fellow train-riders think I'm nuts, because I will suddenly laugh out loud, and pull out my Blackberry to send a quote to my husband. He calls it husband-bashing, but hey, they own everything, so why not? This book is a joy to read.
Rating:
Summary: disappointed
Review: Sorry I spent good money on this book. From the reviews I thought it would be a funny take on typical working Mom.. I think the author more interested in showing her grasp of the English language ..... I planned to read it and buy some for gifts. Glad I reviewed it first.
Rating: 
Summary: Not fast enough for target market
Review: I Don't Know How She Does It's strengths include some lovely, witty one-liners and great insights into the frazzled and still lonely world of striving businesswomen. But some things about the books seemed so very '80s, making me wonder what this book had that was new and fresh. The only thing I could conclude is that women in London are 20 years behind the U.S. and that current readers have missed out on the last 25 years of feminist fiction. Pearson's story opens with the main character "distressing" a mince pie prior to the school carol concert--an image that current and former working moms can certainly relate to and understand. Unfortunately, the author went on to describe, in great detail, why she harbored such guilt, her own psychological underpinnings, and a plethora of details about the actual "distressing" technique. All of which served to undermine everything invoked in the first paragraph. This is my main complaint: too much back story, too much explaining. These faults are so endemic to first novels that maybe they aren't even considered a problem for readers. But I found Pearson's overly adipose prose slowed the book--and with a target market of harried, sleep-deprived, time-challenged readers (such as the main character), that seemed a serious mistake. They need a faster read.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of time
Review: How sad that so many of the reviewers feel that this book represents their life. While Kate Reddy likes to talk about how much she loves her kids, she avoids them whenever she can, and is mean to them when she is with them. And she says she loves her job, but you never see that in the book, either. The characters in the book are all very two-dimensional; I didn't care a thing about any of them. As a working mother myself, I have very little time to read. I'm sorry I wasted some of that time on this book.
Rating:
Summary: fantastic!
Review: I am going to be so disappointed when this story ends. This is a fabulous book by a brilliant new writer. I just logged on to
Amazon to buy every book that this woman has written and was shocked to find that this is her first. Also, I listened to this book on cd and the reader Emma Fielding is great. I'm always so relieved when a professional is hired to read. Some great books are delivered very poorly when read by the author.
Rating:
Summary: I Don't Know How I Got Through It!
Review: As a woman financial professional, I have to throw my lot in with the reviewer who works in international finance -- good concept, poor execution. The story is implausible and the lead character unsympathetic. The book is a gimmicky string of would-be bon mots and cliches, the author clearly has no deep understanding of what goes into a financial career, and simply pasted her "ditzy female columnist married to a successful man" sensibility onto a poorly thought out character. Someone like Kate Reddy, who spends half her day writing emails to her female colleague, wouldn't last a day as a mutual fund manager -- and shouldn't. And unfortunately, the book makes a great case that women with children ought to stay in low key careers. I have seen business screech to a grinding halt, and underlings get dumped with work that is never rewarded, when working mothers take their maternity leaves, and come back, like this character, after however long a leave, unable to do their jobs because they spend half their day on the phone to the nanny, the other half complaining about their double burden. Is it business's fault to want to put people whose minds are on their work in key positions? The character seems to want to work in finance because of the perks of luxury travel. She presents a narrow view of City/Wall Street life -- constantly harping on the prep school, upper crust nature (while buying right into it with her nanny lifestyle), when anyone who has worked there knows it is probably less elitist than most other fields, and full of colorful characters. The real economics of the character's life never come into focus -- most people who work in finance do so because they desperately need the money, for one reason or another. The way this character bails out into an insecure future just doesn't ring true. This book is about working mothers and will flatter their sensibility, but even so is all surface and no substance. It is not about women working in finance. If you want to read an intelligent take on what it's like to be a woman in finance with a complicated personal life, read Kate Jennings' Moral Hazard. It's a real book, whereas this one is a fake.
Rating:
Summary: Piousness Universal
Review: I am only half way through and cursed every trick or treater last night that interrupted my reading.
The piousness of the Mother Superiors is just like that of the home-all-day moms in my neighborhood who don't include me or my kids in things because my schedule and love of my job makes me a bad mom (and my inability to be available at 2:00 in the afternoon for coffee or shopping doesn't help). I have pulled that same baking trick with the confectioners sugar!! Unlike Kate, I do not take my sainted spouse for granted at all. Loved the comment that money doesn't know sex! Recommended for moms who work out of the home as well as in, and especially those who have big responsibilities on the job.
Rating: 
Summary: How does she do it? She doesn't!
Review: I too was drawn in by the editorial reviews of this book being touted as the working mother's Bridgette Jones's diary. I can only guess the reviews were written by men. While I could relate to the guilt felt by our heroine I couldn't help but want to knock her silly. A job that affords her Armani suits and a nanny? Poor lady. Try mothering in the real world. This book is a complete insult to those of us who have to deal with work, kids, an executive position and DON'T have a choice. All my working friends could't wait to read this. I will make sure they don't.
How does she make it in a man's world? Ultimately, according to Allison Pearson, she doesn't.
Spend the {money} on a manicure, you'll feel much better in the end.
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