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Summary: Poignant and hilarious, together @home
Review: There's a reason USA Today listed "Amanda Bright @Home" in its "must read" summer section - Crittenden has managed to write a book that is both laugh-out-loud funny, and poignant too. My favorite line? When Amanda decides to give up working to be at home with her kids, her outraged feminist mother, Ellie Burnside Bright, proudly reminds Amanda that when she, Ellie, was 32, she "was founding the first-ever natural-birth clinic in Manhattan - AND she was divorcing Amanda's father." But the funniest scene in the book has little to do with husband Bob's Justice Department job or Amanda's decision to stay at home. At least at first glance. It involves a "play" written by Amanda's erstwhile suitor, stay-at-home husband Alan. Alan convinces Amanda to go with him to his opening night - but doesn't exactly mention the play will be "opening" in the MacArthur room of the old-folks home. As residents on ventilators are wheeled in - and out again during the intermssion of Alan's diatribe about AIDS and poverty - Amanda realizes an affair with Alan might not be what she's after, after all. So in the end that scene too may be about Bob, and Amanda, and what she is really looking for -- a way to come to terms with the decision she's made to do the best thing for her family, and herself. Be assured, Amanda ultimately finds what she longs for, what so many of long for, in Crittenden's hilarious and touching novel.
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Summary: Love, Ideals and Compromises
Review: Danielle Crittenden may be known as the wife of conservative columnist and former Bush speechwriter David Frum. But in this vivid first novel of the late 90s, she explores themes familiar to anyone, left or right, who has tried to balance their loves, their ideals, and the compromises they make between the two. Amanda Bright is caught between the love for her children that pulls her home, and the sacrifice of income that leaves her feeling like a failure for not making use of her education, or measuring up to the other achievement-driven mothers in her circle of "friends" -- not to mention her ideologically driven mother. Her husband, Bob Clarke, tries to balance his desire for Amanda's fulfillment -- if she could just figure out what that is -- with the pressure of sacrificing a higher income in the private sector to fight for his ideals in the justice department. How Bob and Amanda achive a measure of balance makes for an engrossing and witty read. When I read the serialized version on the Wall Street Journal's web site in 2001, I hoped that Crittenden would add flesh to these two characters. After reading the novel, I hope to hear how they're doing in the post 9/11 world.
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Summary: Amanda is Must Reading....
Review: I identified totally with this book and urge every woman, and man, to read it. Amanda is struggling with the same issues that thousands of women are facing and she feels at sea. There are few guideposts or templates anymore for the formerly professional woman now turned homemaker, a job she never imagined she would have or want. It's not surprising she occasionally feels self-pity -- most of us do at times. What makes the book inspiring is that she finally is able to transcend those feelings and move on to a whole new and better way of thinking. The other great thing about this book is that it is laugh-out-loud funny and you won't want to put it down. Amanda is sometimes bedraggled, but what saves her is her great sense of humor. And you will recognize many of the supporting characters is this novel -- and they are just as true, because I know some of them.
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Summary: Amanda Learns a Lesson
Review: How many times have you been asked, "So what do you do?" As a b.c. woman (before children), the answer is generally easy enough to provide. After children, things get a little dicier as the woman who has chosen to stay at home and raise her children finds that giving the answer, "I'm staying at home to take care of my children" less acceptable to some inquiring minds.
Our culture tends to measure the value of our "work" in dollar signs. A happy, well-adjusted child doesn't always tip the balance in our favor.
Amanda's excellent adventure of self-discovery is a truly worthwhile read in which she comes to appreciate with her mind what her heart has known all along.
"So what do you do?" Only the most important job in the world. No one ever regrets time not spent at the office or chasing down contracts. Time with our children is precious and fleeting. You wait for them to grow out diapers and grow up in general and, as the country song says, "then, they do."
Amanda Bright@Home is wonderfully heartwarming, enjoyable and almost impossible to put down.
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Summary: I love this book!!!!
Review: This book is for every ex-professional mom who ever felt invisible at a party!! Nothing in today's education, professional or media environment really prepares the modern woman for being a wife, mother, and homemaker, and it is no wonder that novice Amanda is confused and occasionally self-pitying. What saves her ultimately is her great sense of humor and deep love for her husband and children. This is a laugh-out-loud funny book to be thoroughly enjoyed by the pool, ocean, or after the kids are in bed. At the same time, there are scenes that will move you to tears. But whether laughing or crying, there are countless scenes where any mom will see herself. I don't care about the author's politics. I just care about a great read I can relate to. And this is it!!
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Summary: A Thinking Person's Book
Review: I'm surprised at the negative reviews that this book has gotten because i really enjoyed it. I made the choice to stay at home with my two children several years ago and the emotional roller coaster Amanda describes is right on. Amanda Bright is a slow moving novel--no car chases or twists and turns in this one--however, the novel does an excellent job expressing the depth of human emotion. Give it a try, I highly reccomend it!
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Summary: move over Crittenden - you are NO Pearson!
Review: I was so looking forward to this book. ...and thought this looked like an American version on a theme. Don't be fooled! This story is about Amanda Bright who has 2 children, Ben and Sophie, and married to Bob, who the story really is about. I found Amanda's friends to be fakes and curious why she kept in the same circles with them. If you think this book, as marketed in my opinion, is about a stay at home mom, then think again. It's about Bob, Amanda's husband and his job. The children are thrown in here and there and one is portrayed as violent and never fully explained why so. Amanda yells at her kids and acts like they are always in the way; she wonders constantly if she should go back to work. The cover is attractive and so is the summary on the back - but pass this one up!
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Summary: witty, insightful, true
Review: Danielle Crittenden has written a hilarious, insightful, and delicious portrait of the way women live now. From the "peanut" rule at the child's school to the Washington power parties with their "invisible" spouses Crittenden captures so much that is funny but also so much that is true about women's lives today. All of us -- feminists or stay at homers or something in between -- have experienced some if not all of the travails and delights of Amanda's life. But few could describe it with the high hilarity and warm empathy Crittenden brings to the subject.
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Summary: EVERY MOTHER SHOULD BUY THIS BOOK
Review: As a mother of three children, I am @ home too, postponing a lucrative career. I completely identified with and ADORED this book. The author manages to capture both the drudgery and humor of our situation, and also the rewards that make our sacrifices worth it. I notice, too, that my husband has been reading the book over my shoulder, and roaring with laughter at the Washington scenes. I can't wait to introduce Amanda to the other at-home mothers in my book group.
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Summary: interesting chick lit tale
Review: In Washington DC, thirty-five years old Amanda wonders if that is all there is in life. Currently, she is a mom raising two small children while her brain atrophies and sex when she can find her spouse Bob is typically "kid interuptus". Bob works for the Justice Department where he heading up an antitrust investigation against MegaByte. He is so engulfed in his work, Bob is clueless that Amanda is unhappy, depressed and perhaps nearing collapse. She cringes every time she sees her husband on the news as he has made something of himself while her degree serves as toilet paper. Amanda even dreams of returning to the NEA where she once was gainfully employed. Will Bob see the dual lights in the tunnel of the onrushing train in time to help Amanda before she suffers a breakdown and before he leads the Un-American attack on big business? Though married with children, AMANDA BRIGHT@HOME is a chick lit tale focusing on the woes of the lead female character. Readers will feel for Amanda when her depression seems overwhelming and she cannot breathe, but also wonder over how trivial the cause of the collapse seems. Still readers who believe that a family can save everyone within the unit will savor this tale. Pragmatists, centrists, and the left will prefer Dan Quayle for their family value treatise. Harriet Klausner
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