The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer
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Book Reviews of The Ten-Year Nap
Book Review: Ten Year Nap induces Napping
Summary: 2 Stars
I am more than 1/3rd into the book and I came to the Amazon reviews for a sanity check. Got it. I will not be finising this book. She writes well, has insight into stay at home moms etc.. but it is one of the least interesting or gripping books I have read in a long time. Wanted to like it but I refuse to waste time just to say I have finished a book. Check it out if you insist on reading it so you don't waste your money when you put it down.Book Review: A Disappointing Bait & Switch
Summary: 1 Stars
As the mother of two young children, I have done it all. I worked full time (with a stay-at-home Dad) for 18 months, then stayed home full-time for 18 months, then worked 20 hours for 2 years, and now I am working 30 hours. No situation ever seemed perfect. In large part, because there is no perfect decision, only the decision you make at the time. I sat at office lunch tables with mothers who said "I don't know how mother's could stay at home full time. The women in the PTA are airheads, and they drive me crazy. What example do they set for their children when they hover over them 24 hours a day." Then I sat at tables with stay-at-home mothers who would say, "The women who work just don't have the same (exemplary) values that we do. They value money over their children. They are selfish. Why did they have children, anyway?". Neither camp gives the other a break. It is a black & white world of justifying a tough choice, and breaking down others along the way. The reality is there are good working mothers & bad working mothers. There are good SAH mothers, and bad SAH mothers. Women, however, insist on drawing lines and doing what they can to make others feel inadaquate.
I sought out this book in hopes that the author was able put an intelligent & sincere voice to this whole debate. I was hoping to have something to hold up to say "here is something that can help all mothers feel empathy for each other...to understand...to stop the in-fighting". This book didn't even touch the issue. The women in the book DON'T strongly question their choices....ever. The book is mostly about a mother's affair, a mother's worry over her daughter, and the women's friendship. It is not about their choices to work or stay home. The women never even talk among THEMSELVES about working vs. SAH. Never do they struggle with all the pros-cons of the choices they made.
Someone needs to write a book about what REAL women are thinking every day. This book is not it.
Book Review: Here is one woman who didn't wake up!
Summary: 1 Stars
The Ten Year Nap is the story about a group of friends that live in New York City. They share a bond...motherhood. They came from the working class to stay-at-home moms. Of course it wasn't planned to stay at home. In all of the ladies cases, they assumed that they would go on maternity leave and come back to work. That was ten years ago. What happened?
Well in Amy's case, she truly meant to only take off twelve weeks and go back to work. That was the deal her and her husband, Leo made. They had both been working at the same law firm. After the twelve weeks. Amy just couldn't tear herself away from caring for Marty. He needed her and everything else at that point seemed meaningless. You could say that is pretty much the same situation for the rest of the women...Karen, Antonia, and Jill.
Now they are re-evaluating their lives. They are wondering how time could have passed so quickly. Some of them are even debating going back to work but are they ready to face life outside of motherhood?
At the beginning I really liked the book but towards the middle there became too many different characters to keep track of. This was a little distracting and made the story a little hard to follow. Something else that turned me off was that some of the women seemed really whiny. They would complain about their husbands not doing enough to help pitch in with all the housework and taking care of the kids. Now I have nothing against complaining but these women would not even talk to their husbands about their feelings. How are you suppose to try and fix anything if the other person does not know what is wrong? What I did like about this story was that it showed that mothers are just as important as the working class women.
Book Review: Yeasty Syllables
Summary: 1 Stars
Seriously - would you read a book that uses phrases like 'yeasty syllables?'
I growled my way through it, just to see if somewhere the author was going to
get 'real' and get to the point.
Her writing smacks of Creative Writing 101 as she tries to form as many clever
little phrases to describe so many unclever things.
I should get some remuneration for finishing the damn thing.
Book Review: The Ten Year Nap
Summary: 1 Stars
This book is painful to read. It was our book club pick based on the outline. NO ONE could get through it, stay-at-home moms, working moms, women w/o kids...it didn't matter. We are going to burn any copies we have. I actually forced myself to finish it, but it didn't get any better.