How Hard Can It Be?

Product Information

If you, too, are part of the sandwich generation, and you are looking for some laughs and commiseration, How Hard Can It Be is worth a read. While it was essentially lighthearted, it was the perfect read that left me with a smile on my face. I kept laughing out loud in places with extreme quiet- a snort shy of embarrassing the hell out of myself.. The article that killed me was the one where Jeremy was stumped by a high-tech Japanese toilet. Just look at this: The funniest and most feminist writing of the year... How Hard Can It Be? is that rare thing: a sequel that matches and even surpasses the original...Every line is meticulous; every reflection on parenthood hilarious, or else so true it's heartbreaking." -- The Telegraph (UK)

This book is for those women whose children find them annoying, whose husbands take them for granted, who feel their best years are behind them and whose workplace is filled with bros with more hair gel than acumen, but who forge on because what other choice is there? In other words…something for every woman. The problem is I don’t even understand what it is I don’t understand. Emily may as well be talking in a foreign language. I mean, I’m on Facebook, I’m in a family group on WhatsApp that the kids set up for us and I’ve tweeted all of eight times (once, embarrassingly, about Pasha on Strictly Come Dancing after a couple of glasses of wine), but the rest of social media has passed me by. Until now, my ignorance has been funny—a family joke, something the kids could tease me about. “Are you from the past?” That was the punch line Emily and Ben would chorus in a singsong Irish lilt; they had learned it from a favorite sitcom. “Are you from the past, Mum?” I highly recommend this book, especially to all the women in the sandwich generation. I will be immediately seeking out Ms. Pearson’s first book. This book was really funny and interesting and I had a lot of fun reading this book. I think that the style that this book was written in was really good and entertaining. Overall I enjoyed this book a lotLaugh-out-loud funny and entirely relatable--you'll fall in love with Kate all over again." -- Popsugar What are the words you’d use to describe the fact that women take care of the young and the old, year in, year out, and none of that work counts as skills or experience or even work? Because women are doing it for free it is literally worthless.”

Seven years later, Kate Reddy is facing her 50th birthday. Her children have turned into impossible teenagers; her mother and in-laws are in precarious health; and her husband is having a midlife crisis that leaves her desperate to restart her career after years away from the workplace. Once again, Kate is scrambling to keep all the balls in the air in a juggling act that an early review from the UK Express hailed as "sparkling, funny, and poignant...a triumphant return for Pearson." Kate’s story of juggling all of life’s challenges, especially this newly evolving sandwich generation, and feeling very much alone in doing so, is without question relatable. Kate (and Allison) truly get it, and I felt like giving her a few high fives while reading. Or fist bumps. Or the wave!

Horse Profile

How Hard Can It Be? H.A.R.D. No one ever said being a mom was easy, but try being a mom pushing 50 who has been attempting to raise semi-functional humans and finds herself trying to re-enter the workplace thanks to a combination of a giant manchild of a husband who has decided riding his bicycle and taking classes is his new passion rather than going to a paying gig every day and an old “fixer upper” of a house that has morphed into something more like this . . . . Perceptive and funny....Allison Pearson has a gift for comedy, but the best bits of How Hard Can It Be? are her sharp asides about modern life." — The Times (U.K.) Pearson has found a way to explore pressing questions--the delaying of marriage and childbearing, the dangers of social media, the growing anxiety of teenagers and their trouble gaining independence as young adults, the crushing pressures on people caring for both their kids and their parents--without sacrificing story for sermon." -- The Weekly Standard

each day it gets slightly harder to retrieve the things that I know. Correction. The things that I know that I knew. At forty nine years of age, the tip of my tongue becomes a very crowded place.” Or this...“Today is my seventh session at the gym this week. Even God got to rest on the seventh day, but God was only trying to create the world, not restore a middle-aged female body to a state of battle readiness.” I hate to tell her how bad it’ll be as the years go on! The main character decides to take a break from her CPA world and try writing a romance novel. How hard could it be, right? She meets a wonderful group of old ladies, and turns beet red as they talk about sex, s&m, and so on as if they were talking about their grocery list. Then enters the evil Evangeline, who has a huge career as a romance novelist. But it turns out she has stolen everything she has ever written. The only thing she's good at is digging up dirt and using it against people to get her way.

Retailers:

If I didn't know the author, I probably would have given it 4 stars because I wouldn't want you to know how much I enjoy entertaining and ridiculous books. I like to pretend that I am a serious reader* of serious books. His opinionated but humorous tongue-in-cheek writing and presenting style has often generated much public reaction to his viewpoints. His actions both privately and as a Top Gear presenter have also sometimes resulted in criticism from the media, politicians, pressure groups and the public. The winning follow-up to Pearson's bestselling I Don't Know How She Does It is anchored by heroine Kate Reddy's authentic, intelligent, and consistently funny British voice....Pearson maintains a humorous tone throughout, wresting laughs from her lead's lowest moments and greatest triumphs. Pearson also hits the right notes in conveying the cluelessness and powerlessness parents feel raising teens obsessed by gaming and social media." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) The following excerpt was selected because it shows how problems in the daughter's life parallel those of the mother. In the following quotation our protagonist is editing her daughter's school assignment to analyze Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" and she considers the writing about Shakespeare also reflects the dilemmas of teenage life that her daughter faces. The irony is that the same can be said for Kate herself, our book's narrator. Plenty of shrewd insights to make up for the dodgy spelling. She really should have more confidence in herself, but girls like Emily set themselves impossibly high standards so they never feel good about themselves. What was it she said to me? “I’m not the cleverest, I’m not the prettiest, I’m not the anythingest.” It’s the disease of the day. ... ...

Kate’s situation with managing a house, teenagers, an absent husband, a career and the changes happening in her body and feeling invisible are so relatable!!! Look, I was doing OK. I got through the oil spill on the road that is turning forty. Lost a little control, but I drove into the skid just like the driving instructors tell you to and afterwards things were fine again, no, really, they were better than fine. Fiercely funny and keenly observant....couldn't be more timely or delightful....Allison Pearson can induce gales of uncontrollable laughter." — USA Today I feel drugged. I am drugged. I took an antihistamine before bed because I’ve been waking up most nights between two and three, bathed in sweat, and it helps me sleep through. The pill did its work all too well, and now a thought, any thought at all, struggles to break the surface of dense, clotted sleep. No part of me wants to move. I feel like my limbs are being pressed down on the bed by weights.This program is read by acclaimed actor Poppy Miller, who stars as Ginny Weasley in the Broadway production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Even though I'm 22 years younger than the main character, I found I could relate to her on many levels in my hopes and fears for the future. I think any woman could find something in common with Kate Reddy. An extremely likeable character, the witty prose of this book swept me up in laughs, and at some points wrapped me in sorrow too. It's a novel about the juggling act women do on a daily basis when trying to manage kids, home and work, all while struggling with personal changes and finding little help from those around you. I freaking LOVE this book. How hard can it be is THE funniest book I have ever read. The premise is truly one of a kind.