Rating: 
Summary: Flawed, but still brings up plenty to discuss
Review: 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: 
Summary: I don't know how she does it
Review: 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. Characters, not caricatures, please! 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:
Summary: ANNOYING
Review: 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...
Rating: 
Summary: Well nigh perfect until the end........
Review: Just finished reading this book & in common with at least one reviewer I didn't want it to end. I was drawn in from from the start and as Kate's life unfolded, the writing style was so witty, fresh & full of verve that I laughed aloud many times. But I have to admit the laughter was tinged with a rueful, even bitter edge and I waved the book in front of my male & married colleagues accusingly demanding "Is this how it is?" & actually found myself getting angry at "a woman's lot" all over again. I'm single and no kids but from many years spent in an office environment and simple observation I recognised the essential truth of many of the situations Kate the heroine finds herself in, both in her work and home life. BUT....I found the denouement of the novel to be a major disappointment. Very contrived & dependent on a clumy "deux et machina" device (I've only recently discovered what this phrase actually means and am delighted to have the chance to use it!), it cheapened the experience of reading the novel, which up to then had been exhiliarating and thought provoking. Thankfully far removed from dreaded "chick lit" (a genre I do my best to avoid) this is a funny and engaging read but be prepared to be disappointed by the lacklustre ending. P.S. regarding the inevitable cinematic adaptation (bound to be inferior...) wouldn't it be fun to have Georgous George Clooney play Jack Abelhammer, Kate's ardent email suitor, rather than just resemble him?!
Rating: 
Summary: Emphatically Literate and Breathlessly Clever
Review: Frankly, I'm not sure how Allison Pearson, a British journalist with two kids, managed to write this novel --- it's clear from her account that time is the scarcest commodity in a working mother's life and that the word multitasking doesn't even begin to cover the controlled chaos she oversees. In any case, I'm glad she did write it, even though my working-mother days are over (and were never exactly desperate, given three stepchildren well past toddlerhood and a husband accustomed to being in charge). The story of Kate Reddy, financial whiz in The City (the British equivalent of Wall Street) and mother of two, is terrifically quick, amusing and (to use a dreadfully outdated term) right-on. Discussing gender equality with her reluctant male coworkers, she feels "like a vegan at an abbatoir." Visiting her Yorkshire in-laws, she realizes that whereas at work they think she's "deviant for having a life outside the office," people here think she's "a freak for having a job instead of a life." Kate's breezy ironic tone and madcap escapades make her a Bridget Jones for working mothers, but I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT aspires to be more than high-level Chick Lit. Although it may not be exactly literary, it is emphatically literate and breathlessly clever (especially the emails between Kate and her female friends, and Kate and the American client who becomes a sort of virtual lover). Further, it is almost sociological in its depiction of a late twentieth-century female so keen to be the perfect mom as well as the perfect career woman that she fakes homemade pies and jams with store-bought. Kate is a self-described double agent ("[We] lie for a living") dashing back and forth --- mentally as well as physically --- between her job and her kids, with a lunge at her husband now and then, guilty and angry most of the time. Every chapter ends with a MUST REMEMBER list --- Kate's crazed/hilarious/poignant messages to herself as she attempts over and over (in vain) to get a handle on the competing sectors of her life. Now this material isn't exactly new. I'm not talking about Kate as a close relation of Bridget Jones; I'm talking about her as a descendant of the feminism of the '60s and '70s, with its rage over the double standard (nailed beautifully by Pearson in a scene in which a male colleague of Kate's leaves early for a child's swimming event and is practically deified); its identification of the double burden of housework/child care on top of one's professional duties; its insistence (as in Betty Friedan's THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE) that women need and deserve jobs outside the home; its riveting novels (MEMOIRS OF AN EX-PROM QUEEN; FEAR OF FLYING) that made every woman who read them feel, at last, that her predicament was recognized and her anger validated. True, I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT is stylistically distinct from these feminist forebears, with many of the typical features of recent popular fiction (brand names, email screwups, househusbands, nannies), and Kate has a more brilliant career than most women could aspire to 30 years ago. But the issues are basically the same. This is depressing news, and in fact there is a wistfulness to Kate Reddy's story despite the comedy --- a deep-down sadness that suggests the working-mother dilemma is not really capable of solution. Someone always loses. Pearson is wonderfully skillful at recreating the tension when parents socialize with childless couples (Kate has one of this species for Sunday lunch, and everything that can go wrong of course does), or when mothers with careers encounter mothers who make a career of motherhood (a group she identifies as "the Muffia --- the powerful stay-at-home cabal of organized mums"). She also manages a particularly difficult trick: telling the truth about men without launching into petulant tirades against them. She has Good Guys in the book (Kate's husband, a friend from work, her American client), though there are many more crassly chauvinist ones. But Kate's basic take on gender relations is bitterly realistic. Growing up working-class in the North of England, with a feckless dad and self-sacrificing mum, she realizes that "although the men ... took all the leading roles, it was the women who were running the show." "... It was a matriarchy pretending to be a patriarchy to keep the lads happy. I always thought that was because where I came from people didn't get much of an education. Now I think that's what the whole world's like, only some places hide it better than others." Despite such grim moments --- and because of them, too --- this book was always a sharp pleasure to read. I made it last as long as I could, but eventually I finished, and Kate Reddy's candid, yearning voice vanished from my daily commute. I am bereft. Hurry up and write another one, Allison Pearson! Meanwhile, if you are now or ever have been a working mother, you need I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT --- to make you feel less guilty and alone, and to make you laugh (and cry) in rueful self-recognition. --- Reviewed by Kathy Weissman
Rating: 
Summary: For rich married mothers only -- others will be enraged
Review: I know how she does it -- the main character Kate has a full-time nanny, a cleaning woman, and a husband who's a saint. Poor Kate -- and when things get too hectic, she treats herself to cashmere sweaters, suede boots, & a flirtation with a hunky American. For the vast majority of working mothers (75% of Americans are working class, and in Britain I bet it's even higher), reading this book will make you ill. And we don't believe for one minute that Kate is a working class girl made good -- if she were, she wouldn't take the husband, the nanny and the cleaning lady for granted & whine about how terrible it all is....she'd be THRILLED to be in Kate's shoes.
Rating:
Summary: What a great story and talented author!
Review: This is one of the most entertaining stories I have read in a long time. As a Mother who worked when my 3 children were young, I could completely relate to her hectic schedule, and the guilt she felt for missing so much of the precious time of babyhood and childhood. Her humerous description of life during this period had me smiling and laughing throughout the book. Her missed lunches and dates with her female friends were so accurate,good intentions always but never enough time. In the final pages she had me afraid that she had thrown in the towell, but all turned out well. I shall be watching for other works from Alison, with great anticipation. Wonderful. talented author.
Rating:
Summary: I don't know why I read this!
Review: However, let's start on a positive note. I loved the very British sensability of this novel. I loved Kate Reddy's extremely wry sense of humor (I chuckled, not laughed, but chuckled aloud throughout the book.) Having said that, though, there was nothing else I could relate to in this book. I am not a working mother with two young children who can't find enough hours in the day as Kate Reddy is. I do not hold down a very high powered job in the world of high finance and investments. This again is Kate Reddy's world. The author did nothing to make me feel like I was a part of the story. I was trapped in Kate's day-timer, forced to read journal entries and her notes to self. The whole effect was very choppy and I constantly found myself wishing that the writing were more descriptive so I would have something to sink my teeth into. A good author will draw the reader in by developing the characters well, or describing the situations to the point where the reader feels like he/she is an active participant, not just a passive reader of words written on a page. I didn't particularly care for any of the characters in this novel, I just read about them with about as much interest as I would read a cereal box because that is all the author gave me to go on. I do not understand what all the hubub that surrounds this book is about.
Rating:
Summary: fluff but good fluff ( 3.75 STARS) they donthave %'s though
Review: it isnt nobel prize material but its a good read.
a nice distraction that isnt too taxing on the mind.
amusing and fun to read .
would make a good beach book!
Rating:
Summary: SHE DOES IT! SHE DOES IT! AND MUCH MUCH MORE>>>>>>>>>
Review: Allison Pearson knows how to tell a story -- the life of Kate Reddy, working mother and wonder woman for our time. Reddy has a terrific way with words that makes you laugh out loud, chuckle later and be charmed by even the most awful moments of Reddy's life. Okay, so it's over the top in some places, but isn't that's why you buy a book like this-- to have some fun with what may be happening (or not happening) in your own life. Even if you don't have kids - you'll wonder how she does it. Want to know the secret???? She fakes it some of the time. BUT you'll have to get the book to see how she makes quiche and other goodies, keeps a perfect house and an adoring husband and children that shine. I wouldn't dare violate the confidentiality and trust that author Pearson seems to demand from her readers who are let into the secret world of Kate Reddy working mother and super heroine. Can't wait to see the movie. Who's going to play her -- that's the big question. Maybe a TV series??? It's a little like Make Room for Mommy (not Daddy), and LUCY entwined in one for the 21st century..... downright hilarious. Episodes seem so real you forget that Pearson is NOT Reddy (or is she really??) Click your mouse to order today, mash your couch potatoe and stir in some romance and add a real laugh track to your life NOW.......SHE REALLY DOES IT!!!!!
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