Average Rating: 
Rating:  - unfeminist and unfunny
This book is the most disgracefully unfeminist novel to come out in ages - not because the narrator elects to spend more time with her children at the end - but because the narrator (and, implicitly, the author) feel compelled to criticize EVERY other female character she comes across, from co-workers to total strangers shopping for shoes. Breathtakingly smug and full of velvet viciousness, Pearson employs her considerable intelligence and wit to keep other women firmly in their place - i.e., well below her in the feminine pecking order.A few examples: Her supposed best friend, Candy, is "foul-mouthed...pencil-thin with prominent breasts; this got her plenty of lovers but not a lot of love...congenitally single." This is what she says about a friend? Of course, Candy is an American and a feminist....but by the end, she has been tamed by motherhood, moved back to New Jersey and started a mail-order sex-toy business (those vulgar Americans!) Of course good-girl Kate's happy ending involves living in pastoral yuppie splendor in Derbyshire marketing dollhouse furniture. Does Liberty of London make floral barf bags to go with this scenario? Mere paragraphs later, a damning appraisal of office mate Celia Harmsworth: "Breasts come in twos, but a bust is always singular; the pliant pair meld into a fiberglass monopod sloping gently downward like a continental shelf. The Queen has a bust and so does Celia Harmsworth...Celia is one of the least human people in the building; childless, charmless, chilly as Chablis." Kate not only gives Celia the deep freeze, she manages the trifecta - criticizing the other woman's age, appearance, and her (lack of) marital status all in one go (what is the author's obsession with other women's breasts?) Later, Kate delivers an even more revealing critique: "Celia is one of those spinsters who adored being the only woman in a man's world; it was license to feel pretty before girlies like me showed up and ruined her monopoly." Me-ow! Another woman who wants feminism to work for her at the office and on the home front but feels compelled to cut down any rival for the very elixir of life: male attention. But Kate never misses an opportunity to mention that she's got great legs. Though entitled to feel superior to less attractive women than herself, God forbid her husband flirt with a trim Frenchwoman in the pool - a woman, who because she doesn't have a full-time job, gets to work out all day and is therefore to be dismissed as vain bimbo. No matter what kind of woman you are or what choices you make in life, in Kate Reddy's world, you are a rival, a threat, a loser, or dying of cancer (another judgmental subplot involving a saintly mother's demise.) And when her husband finally leaves her, her first move isn't to communicate with him - no, Kate rushes home to lay her marital failure at the feet of her less-successful sister as a sacrificial offering, expecting the very schadenfreude she enjoys at the expense of other women! In comparison, Kate lightly lets off her sexist male co-workers for outrageous crimes in a tossed-off subplot involving a disposable diaper scheme. Sure, they're jerks, but she saves her most withering barbs for the poor immigrant girl at the coffee counter - who's probably got two kids of her own but can't afford a nanny. The most bizarre thing about the story is that Kate would have a lot more quality time to spend with her family if she wasn't so concerned about "keeping score" against other women on a variety of meaningless fronts, like faking homemade mince pies so the other mothers (who could probably care less anyway) don't take ten points off her Superwoman score. You can do it all - if you're willing give up navel-gazing and one-upmanship as blood sports. But Kate won't do that - it's her right as a woman to compete in every event in the Ovo-Olympics, including, in yet another unsavory example of woman-hating, competitive shoe-snatching at the department store. Clearly, Pearson has one big rival on her mind: Helen Fielding, creator of the much-loved Bridget Jones. Here Pearson falls far short of her intended target. Fielding's comic style is zesty and light-hearted, relying on creativity and character for laughs instead of milking ... put-downs and outdated male-female observations that were stale two generations ago when Phyllis Diller first used them. Pearson's imitation of Fielding's epistolary style is cheap, and her chat-show jabs at Bridget are embarrassing (she's actually said that Bridget would never last five minutes in Kate's shoes, as if nappy-changing rivaled flying the space shuttle in complexity.) Though Pearson plays up here feminist career credentials, her lack of charity towards other women is as depressingly retrograde as a pointy bra. Final score (with apologies to Susan Faludi): Bridget Jones 1, Kate Reddy 0.
Rating: - Bridget Jones Does Motherhood
I love all of the British ladies we are meeting and Kate Reddy is no exception. She is a businesswoman, a mother, and a wife (in that order!). She takes her job as the 'main breadwinner" very seriously, perhaps a little too seriously to get her home life in order. Kate is constantly going off on business trips and leaving her small children with their nanny, Paula, who Kate is very jealous of.
I didn't relate very much to Kate in terms of motherhood since I have no children. However, I did relate to Kate and that want to succeed that she has. She has the personality that you love and want to succeed. She is funny, successful, jealous, and just a little sad. It angered me how sexist the workplace was in the roles of gender and parenthood. It really brought the light to my eyes.
I think that Pearson did a wonderful job showing the journey that a working mother takes. She lets someone else into her home to raise her kids, she obsesses about her job, she tries so hard to be there for kids, and she lets her marriage slide a little along the way. As a woman who dreams about having a family of her own one-day, I envision what my life will be like. I just hope it is less stressful thank Kate's experiences.
Great book for a first time novelist and I can't wait to read the next book Pearson writes.
Rating:  - Great concept, poor execution
When I read the excerpt for "I Don't Know How She Does It" in the September issue of Vogue, I rushed out to buy the novel. Why? Because I AM Kate Reddy. I work in international finance, have two young child and travel excessively. While I expected a humorous and truthful tale about the delicate balance between work and motherhood, what I found was a ridiculous, implausible story. Sure, there were some funny bits about returning to work too soon and the "mothers superior" stay-at-home types. But on the whole, Kate ignoring her wonderful husband, putting up with her lazy nanny, hitting on her client and smoking a joint before a meeting, and always being relieved be away from the kids is unbelievable rubbish! Any real working mother will tell you that they adore their supportive husbands, they work hard to find a great nanny and they don't have time for romantic distraction and believe me, drugs are out of the question. Finally, the kids are the only thing that keep you going. I, for one, cannot wait to go home every night to see mine.
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