How Hard Can It Be?
Published 21st September 2017
Description
Kate Reddy is back! This is the follow-up to the international bestseller I Don’t Know How She Does It, the novel that defined modern life for women everywhere. This time she’s juggling teenagers, aging parents and getting back into the workplace, and every page will have you laughing and thinking: It’s not just me.
Kate Reddy is counting down the days until she is fifty, but not in a good way. Fifty, in Kate’s mind, equals invisibility. And with hormones that have her in shackles, teenage children who need her there but won’t talk to her and ailing parents who aren’t coping, Kate is in the middle of a sandwich that she isn’t even allowed to eat because of the calories.
She’s back at work after a big break at home, because somebody has to bring home the bacon now that her husband Rich has dropped out of the rat race to master the art of mindfulness. But just as Kate is finding a few tricks to get by in her new workplace, her old client and flame Jack reappears – complicated doesn’t even begin to cover it.
This is a coming of age story for turning fifty. It’s about so much more than a balancing act; it’s about finding out who you are and what you need to feel alive when you’ve got used to being your own last priority. And every page will leave you feeling that there’s a bit of Kate Reddy in all of us.
As funny as Helen Fielding and Caitlin Moran, this is straight-up brilliant fiction about how to have it all and not end up losing yourself on the way.
My Review
Some women of fifty may go through a stage in life where they just can’t articulate themselves as they used to. This can be put down to what we call ‘menopausal fog’ which makes us walk into a room then completely forget why. Words desert us, as we desperately grasp for the vocabulary which we once had, and know is still there hidden deep within our frazzled brains.
So, it’s very refreshing to read about a woman approaching fifty who can articulate exactly how she feels exquisitely, with laugh out loud humour.
Kate Reddy is fast approaching the big ‘5 0’ , she is married to Rich. who is going through his own mid-life crisis and has two teenage children. Her  son  hardly  ever looks up from his phone, and her daughter finds herself in a position where a particular body part is displayed to the World via Facebook
I loved how she referred to her brain as ‘Roy’ the dithery librarian who desperately hunts out information for her in a vast room of knowledge. Sometimes she will ask Roy the name of an acquaintance only to be told where she has left her glasses.
A cleverly written book which portrays the horror of the menopause, the hardships of returning to work as a forty-nine-year-old, and having to care for elderly parents who are becoming increasingly frail. However, the humour throughout this book makes it into a highly enjoyable, hilarious read.
The characters are so well portrayed that they could belong to members of your own family and Kate is purely adorable.
A book for all women because the subject matter is so often shunned and needs to be talked about more openly, and because we all need a really good laugh now and again.
The book was kindly sent me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Did not know there was a sequel! Thanks!
I haven’t read the first but this one is really funny.
I thought the first was really well done. Movie, not so much
May have to get a copy. I’m the other side of this so no more blonde moments or menopausal fog, I’m now well and truly into senior moments. All the same though, I still don’t know what I came in to this room for!
Blonde moments! Menopausal Fog !Senior Moments! where will it end Brindy? You were looking for your glasses, try the fridge! Any ideas where I put my phone? xx
And I go in a shop for bread & come out with milk…
Hi – stopped by to send you an email and saw this review. I didn’t know there was a sequel! Will have to get it. How refreshing to see a book about a 50 yr old woman!! (I told my agent I had an idea for a book about a 50-yr-old woman and she told me to change it to a 40-year-old. Sigh. Even though we are both in our 50s! Anyway… I never did write that book.) But I digress. This sounds fabulous and I can definitely relate (unfortunately) to the menopausal fog!
Hi there, it really is funny and I can relate too! You should write that book , I would buy it!