Saturday, Mar 7, 2009

Book Review: The Ten Year Nap

Author:        Meg Wolitzer

Publisher:     Penguin

Website:      www.riverheadbooks.com

ISBN:           978-1-59448-78-5

Pages:         383 Paperback

Type:          Women’s Fiction

Purchase:    $10.88 Amazon.Com (HERE)

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“For a group of four New York friends the past decade has been defined largely by marriage and motherhood, but it wasn’t always that way. Growing up, they had been told that their generation would be different. And for a while this was true. They went to good colleges, and began high-powered careers. But after marriage and babies, for a variety of reasons, they decided to stay home, temporarily, to raise their children. Now, ten years later, they are still at home, unsure how they came to inhabit lives so different from the ones they expected—until a new series of events begins to change the landscape of their lives yet again, in ways they couldn’t have predicted.

(Excerpt from The Ten Year Nap’s Site on Penguin.Com) 

The Review: 

Considering the fact that I’ve now been an “Out of the Home Working Mom” and a “Stay At Home Mom,” I was intrigued with the premise of this book.   I can’t imagine, however, based on my personal experience, what it would be like to take a 10-year hiatus from my career to stay at home and raise my twin daughters.  How difficult it must be to reemerge into the working world after you’ve been away from it for so long.  I mean, think about it… how do you relate to the newer people entering the workforce that you have absolutely nothing in common with… a new generation, if you will?  It seems scary to me.

In reading this book, the reader is introduced to a myriad of characters.  Wolitzer takes the time to provide insight into their backgrounds, families and marriages.  Each mother has a different type of relationship with her child(ren) as well as her husband.  What this book provided me were glimpses into these lives that were so unlike mine.  Despite my understanding of who they were, I had trouble really relating to any of them.  My story is different.  But, that’s just what this book is about.  All moms have different experiences, different stories.  There is no written science to it.  There is no text-book that you can read that will help mom’s understand their role in the world.  It’s all living by feeling and living by what you know.

Another thing that this book brought to mind for me was really how much other mothers have insecuritites about the type of mother, wife, employee, or friend that they truly are.  How do we find that acceptance with the other mothers in our lives that are so different than ourselves?  What is that common thread that ties us?  Is it the children, their schools and organizations?  Or, is it just that we’re all experiencing that child-raising phase of our lives that we find a commonality in which to commune in? 

In thinking about the mother-friends in my life, I have some that I’m barely tethered to and I have others that I have discovered life-long friendships with… almost like it was destined that our children brought us together.  It makes me wonder about fathers.   Are they able to build the same bridges that mothers do with the outside world?  Or, is it that they are really committed to the act of providing for their familes, financially?  Maybe, there are some of each.  This book does provide you the ability to look at these dynamics and think about your own life as it relates to them.

Special thanks to Caitlin at FSB Associates for the opportunity to review this book!  A really good article on this book can be accessed by clicking HERE.

On Sher’s “Out of Ten Scale:”

When I read the premise of this book, I became intrigued with what reading the lives of these characters would be like.  What I have discovered about myself through reading this book is that I am truly a character-driven story reader.  When I feel a connection to a character, I find the will and drive to press-on within the read.  In this book, I did feel a connection to Amy Lamb, however the majority of the other characters I really felt distant to.  As a reader, their lives didn’t matter as much to me within the story.  Woltizer’s writing didn’t directly create this dilemma for me and I take responsibility for my detachment to those characters within the book.  But, it is because of this that I cannot cannot give this book the high marks that it most likely deserves.  If you read the reviews on the back cover and within the inside front of the book, you will see that a large majority of people really liked this New York Times Bestseller and had just really impressive things to say about this book.  So, I think perhaps my rating of this book may be limited to my personal opinion.  For the genre Fiction: Women’s, I rate this book a 7 out of 10.

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