- Audio CD
- Publisher: AudioGO; Unabridged Edition edition (Mar 11 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1602833559
- ISBN-13: 978-1602833555
- Product Dimensions: 15.2 x 13.3 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 318 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,552,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
This self-conscious, idea-driven novel is read well by Alyssa Bresnahan, but she doesn't clearly distinguish each mother struggling for identity and purpose in today's confusing post-feminist middle class. Speaker identity comes not from the reader but from Amy said or Jill said. There is plenty of irony—note the title—but Bresnahan's ironic tone sometimes leads us to dismiss characters' experiences and feelings. This is not entirely her fault as the main players are somewhat stereotyped: lawyer quits work to care for baby (now aged 10); husband struggles to keep family afloat; grandmother remains feminist warrior; Chinese mother wastes her mathematical genius. But Bresnahan does enliven Wolitzer's recap of modern women's conundrums, so despite limitations, this audio will surely kindle controversy on blogs and at book clubs, kitchen, school and office confabs.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
For a group of four New York friends, the past ten years have been defined by marriage and motherhood. Educated to believe that they and their generation would conquer the world, they nonetheless left high-powered jobs to stay at home with their babies. What was intended as a temporary time-out has turned into a decade. Now at forty, with their kids growing up, Amy, Jill, Roberta and Karen wake up to a life and a future that is not what they intended. Illicit affairs, money problems, issues with children and husbands all rear their heads, as the friends wonder if it's time for a change.
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First Sentence
ALL AROUND THE COUNTRY, the women were waking up. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
ALL AROUND THE COUNTRY, the women were waking up. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
I liked it, but...,
By
This review is from: The Ten-Year Nap (Paperback)
...there sure was an awful lot of whining going on. I wasn't particularly "taken" by most of the characters, self-involved women (and some men), living mainly on New York City's Upper East and West Sides. The main character, Amy, had a lawyer-husband and a 10 year old son. She had stopped working as a lawyer when her son was born and seemed to miss working, but not enough to stop whining about it and go back to work. Her mother was a proto-feminist, based in Toronto. Other characters, mothers of sons who attended an elite day school, drifted through the story.Amy's closest friend from college - the daughter of a suicide - had left Manhattan for a leafy suburb in either New Jersey or New York, with her husband and adopted daughter from Russia. The daughter was not quite "with-it" and the mother felt little emotional connection with the child. I kept waiting for the parents to have an "aha" moment and take the kid to be tested. Nope, didn't happen til the end. Other friends had other "issues". I basically wanted to slap them all and say "quit whining and do something". I would advise not investing a great deal of time or money in this book. If you haven't already bought it, wait til it's out in trade paper or borrow it from the library.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
2.9 out of 5 stars (113 customer reviews) 57 of 62 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
I liked it but...,
By Jill Meyer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Ten Year Nap (Hardcover)
...there sure was an awful lot of whining going on. I wasn't particularly "taken" by most of the characters, self-involved women (and some men), living mainly on New York City's Upper East and West Sides. The main character, Amy, had a lawyer-husband and a 10 year old son. She had stopped working as a lawyer when her son was born and seemed to miss working, but not enough to stop whining about it and go back to work. Her mother was a proto-feminist, based in Toronto. Other characters, mothers of sons who attended an elite day school, drifted through the story.Amy's closest friend from college - the daughter of a suicide - had left Manhattan for a leafy suburb in either New Jersey or New York, with her husband and adopted daughter from Russia. The daughter was not quite "with-it" and the mother felt little emotional connection with the child. I kept waiting for the parents to have an "aha" moment and take the kid to be tested. Nope, didn't happen til the end. Other friends had other "issues". I basically wanted to slap them all and say "quit whining and do something". I would advise not investing a great deal of time or money in this book. If you haven't already bought it, wait til it's out in trade paper or borrow it from the library. 78 of 91 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Meg Wolitzer really "gets it",
By Someone's Mom - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Ten Year Nap (Hardcover)
It's been a while since I've reviewed anything on Amazon but I just wanted to say how much I loved this book. I devoured it in a weekend and found myself stopping my husband in whatever he was doing to read him random bits and snippets, mostly because Meg Wolitzer so perfectly summed up so many of the sentiments I myself had felt during the years I stayed home with my kids.For example, there's a passage near the beginning where one of the characters talks about picking up a newspaper like the New YOrk Times and reading yet another profile of a high-powered women who "does it all." And Meg Wolitzer writes (I'm paraphrasing) that 'she wished there was something like an asterisk at the end of the article which referred you to a box at the bottom of the page which explained the backstory, what the real deal was.' And that's EXACTLY how I felt the whole time I was trying to juggle life in the foreign service with raising little kids and being pregnant. Everytime I caught a glimmer of someone who somehow or other effortlessly did it all, you'd start to talk to them and they'd say something like "Well, actually it was easy. You see, my mother had recently retired and she was widowed so she moved to Botswana for eight years and watched my kids for me while I climbed up through the ranks to become Ambassador" or "Well, actually they're my stepchildren. My husband is actually forty years older than I am, so by the time I became a "mom", the kids had already graduated from college" or something. There are just these little MOMENTS throughout the book where I found myself exclaiming "yes, yes. she really understands. I'm not alone. I'm not crazy." Another example -- she describes the insecure mom picking up the child at school and the child is in first grade and the mom finds herself checking out all the books the other kids are reading, trying to figure out if her child is where she should be in her reading. It's like we all do these things but never admit them, and then Meg Wolitzer comes along and writes this book -- and you realize it's not just you. I really hope this book gets people talking -- especially the dialogue between the main character and her earnest Canadian feminist mother who can't understand how the women's movement could have ended up at this point. This is just a great book! 50 of 60 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant, timely, funny -- she just nails it,
By George DeMark - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Ten Year Nap (Hardcover)
I bought this book yesterday after hearing the author on NPR with Terry Gross and seeing the profile of her in the New York Times and was up most of the night (and half of the morning) finishing this unbelievably good novel up, though i was a little teed off my bookstore didn't have the book until yesterday (publishers, what is the matter with you?). Wolitzer has everything you want in a writer -- it's like having a conversation with an unbelievably perceptive, wickedly amusing, but also on the inside serious person. And this novel takes a hard and entirely convincing look at the issues and the dilemmas facing women today. should they work or not work? is a woman's role to take care of her kids and can you "have it all" and if you do, does that mean something has to be sacrificed (your marriage, your relationship with your kids, your work?). i have never seen a book tackle something like this before in such a believable way (and i'm a guy, so this isn't really a topic that should interest me much, but I see it in my wife and in just about every woman i know and work with). so all in all she (wolitzer) has managed to carry off something pretty impossible in my opinion -- a page turner that's also a wonderful, beautifully written read. how often can you say that about a book? 5 stars all the way.
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