Animal Husbandry

Rating:
Summary: Buy it and laugh without guilt.
Review:

After reading the first chapter of this book on Amazon, I sent a link to 25 of my women friends, telling them that this was a must read. I didn't do this because I thought the book was Great Literature. I did it because I thought the book pretty well described the emotional disembowelment of being dumped and its messy aftermath. But in a funny way.

The controversial COW THEORY (see above reviews) really isnt the point of the book. The narrator says so at the bottom of page four and continuing on to page five. The COW THEORY is merely the result of the protagonist, Jane Goodall(Laura Zigman? me? Your Name Here?) trying to make some sense of being discarded like a stained JCrew buttondown.

Everyone who has been dumped secretly suspects, that s/he is rejected because of some inherent flaw that makes them instrinsically unloveable. The obsessive, sometimes absurd things we do to prove to ourselves otherwise can be either comic or tragic. This book opts for the comic approach.

And lets face it, cows are funny. And absurd. COW THEORY is funny and absurd. My friends and I enjoyed COW THEORY. (UsedCowLot is not available as a screenname on AOL, by the way). I thought that the more man-bashing elements of COW THEORY were mitigated by using the cow instead of, oh, let's say, the pig. PIG THEORY isn't nearly as funny, since that lends itself too neatly to the idea that all men are pigs.

The book has some structural flaws, but I hesitate to comment on them at length, since I don't think I could write any better. I say, buy the book, laugh without guilt and when your best guy buddy is crying on your shoulder about how his g/f dumped him, explain about the lure of the NEW BULL.

Rating:
Summary: A Male Point of View
Review: I found this book at a beach house I rented for a week this summer. Obviously chick lit, I looked around, and since no one was looking, I read the first few pages and was hooked by Zigman's marvelous humor. I didn't take it as male bashing at all. In fact, it accurately described many men friends I've had over the years, and I'll allow for the possibility I've behaved this way once or twice... Some reviewers have bashed Jane, but I thought she was funny, sensitive, insightful, and caring. Why can't you fall for someone who says all the right things in two months?

Anyway, I enjoyed reading the book and although this will never happen, men should read it to understand the feelings of the women with whom they enter relationships.

Rating:
Summary: Straight forward
Review: We really don't get to know Jane, just kind of dive into it. This book is original and creative in how it plays out. Jane is a little crazy. I expected more from Eddie but I was bummed out by his lacking character. Jane's character seemed depressed before, during, and after Ray - so it was kind of hard to tell? But otherwise this book is witty and interesting - definitely a fast read.