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| View Larger Image | The Ten-Year Nap
by Meg Wolitzer
| | List Price: | $24.95 | | Price: | $16.47 | | You Save: | $8.48 (34%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 6196 | | Studio: | Riverhead Hardcover | | | Binding: | Hardcover | | Number Of Pages: | 351 | | Publication Date: | March 27, 2008 | | Publisher: | Riverhead Hardcover |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
From the bestselling author of The Wife and The Position, a feverishly smart novel about female ambition, money, class, motherhood, and marriage-and what happens in one community when a group of educated women chooses not to work.
For a group of four New York friends, the past decade has been largely defined by marriage and motherhood. Educated and reared to believe that they would conquer the world, they then left jobs as corporate lawyers, investment bankers, and film scouts to stay home with their babies. What was meant to be a temporary leave of absence has lasted a decade. Now, at age forty, with the halcyon days of young motherhood behind them and without professions to define them, Amy, Jill, Roberta, and Karen face a life that is not what they were brought up to expect but seems to be the one they have chosen.
But when Amy gets to know a charismatic and successful working mother of three who appears to have fulfilled the classic women's dream of having it all-work, love, family-without having to give anything up, a lifetime's worth of concerns, both practical and existential, opens up. As Amy's obsession with this woman's bustling life grows, it forces the four friends to confront the choices they've made in opting out of their careers-until a series of startling events shatters the peace and, for some of them, changes the landscape entirely.
Written in Meg Wolitzer's inimitable, glittering style, The Ten-Year Nap is wickedly observant, knowing, provocative, surprising, and always entertaining, as it explores the lives of these women with candor, wit, and generosity. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.0 based on 52 reviews)
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Nap Not What I Dreamed 
Each of the three stars represents something positive about this book.
The first is for the writing which is a pleasure to read. Every sentence is poetry and each turn of phrase is unique.
The second is for characters who are all well-drawn, share the same story yet are all completely different.
The third star is for the premise, which has not been done: After ten years off the job market, what do stay-at-home moms do with the rest of their lives.
This is where my praise ends. I thought the book was going to start with the women beginning the next phase of their lives. They would all try to re-enter the work force. One would fail; one would get her feet wet with a part-time job; one would go back full time and not be able to compete as she once did; and one would go back and succeed. We would see how women cope with re-entry; how they're treated; what the stigmas are.
What I got was women, who were lucky enough to stay home and raise their children because their husbands carried the financial ball, unappreciative of that. They all have a grass-is-always-greener outlook. Some don't really like their husbands, one is embarrassed of her child with special needs, and all seem jealous of mothers who work, their husbands' successes, and other people's marriages.
It all started to be very cliche -- like Mrs. X in The Nanny Diaries -- Manhattan mothers are as usual portrayed as people who are miserable and unlikeable. And as in most women's fiction, married women must be unhappy because if someone is happily married, then all those who are single or divorced would feel bad.
All the characters in The Ten Year Nap eventually move on, but not in a very empowering or inspiring way.
When I finally closed the book, I was groggy.
August 29, 2008 | |
Wake Up Women!!!!
This was a book club read for me: I think the author does get into the head of some middle-class women who decide to be stay-at-home mothers and are often tortured by angst at their decisions. This book was occasionally insightful but often made me cringe. I wanted to read a book about women who were thoughtful and talked about their thoughts to each other. It felt like a soap opera.
The author flits between multiple points-of-view, even at one time ending up in the head of Margaret Thatcher (a women who's head I never want to be in) and Nadia Comaneci. Why exactly? Were the characters not interesting enough to write about? Yes, it makes sense to go inside the main characters' mothers' heads, but Nadia? I also disliked the use of capitalization to emphasize clock sounds and other things. It was irritating, which I suppose a clock is suppose to be. I'm also getting tired of the fad of multiple perspectives in a book, especially when it's overdone as in this book.
I gave it three stars because we did have a lively discussion about why we so disliked the book and it's characters. Although certain things resonated (open field of English vs. the enclosed pasture of Law was a good line), generally I wanted to shake these women in the book and tell them to WAKE UP!!
For the record, I'm not a mother.
August 27, 2008 | |
stereotypes abound 
My review is based on reading about 1/3 of the book and skimming the rest. I could not finish it. Very surprising that this was written in 2008. Most character seemed to be pretty one-dimensional. The challenges they faced seemed too pat, unlike real life which is always more complicated. In the book, you have the woman who stays home and the woman who pursues a career. They don't seem to understand each other. But most women I know, combine roles almost continuously, sometimes taking on a job, then concentrating on kids, then trying to do both. They also try to help each other and are pretty understanding of why some choose to work full time, others to "stay home" or work part time. And the moms I know who "stay home" are often incredibly involved in civic organizations, taking leadership positions or doing hands on work, but not always getting paid. I didn't see this reflected in the book. The author's tone was, to me, patronizing. If it was supposed to be humorous (I think "wickedly funny" was how her writing was described on the book jacket) I totally missed that. Maybe there are real women out there like the protagonist who really do feel like they have been sleeping for 10 years. But I just couldn't "buy" the premise so I had a hard time appreciating the book.
August 25, 2008 | |
Not for non-urbanites, but that's a COMPLIMENT
Anyone looking for a good learning experience for a book group, or a realistic portrait of the "normal" in-home mom experience, will not find it here. Non-urban or conservative readers should stop carping about how this book doesn't reflect their experience! A book about motherhood isn't required to speak to every mother. This is a story for New Yorkers and people who orbit Manhattan, and as such it works very well. I should know, having raised kids in both Manhattan and the suburbs.
My problem with the book is that Wolitzer has taken on more plots and characters than she can handle. In the second half, she can't keep all the plates in the air--too many flashbacks, too many characters introduced and then discarded, too many heads to see into. (What the hell is Nadia Cominich doing here?) Everything wraps up too fast. And as others have pointed out, there's also some stereotyping; Karen's mother sounds like a generic Amy Tan mother. In real life, of course there are math-y Chinese women and angst-filled liberals. In this particular book, they come across as caricatures.
August 24, 2008 | |
A page turner but disappointing nonetheless 
Maybe you'll buy this book regardless of the reviews just to see for yourself - I did - but I must say, I'm left a bit disappointed. While it was definitely a page turner of a book so that means it was at least somewhat interesting and entertaining (there were some really funny lines), I felt the general feel of it was so negative. I can't recall one character who felt content in their role as a stay-at-home mother (aside from one - Karen- but she was underdeveloped and didn't seem self-aware enough really to even know if she was really happy or not.) The author bounced around and tried to show different perspectives, which is appreciated, but generally all the characters are discontented (except the Isabelle Gordon character - again underdeveloped.) I suppose the author wanted to focus on the malaise felt by these discontented people - if so, she succeeded. I just wish the perspective of a happy, content full-time mom could have been represented - without it, the role of a full-time mother seems to be devalued and does that have to happen in order to advance the equality of women - does it really?? I don't know for sure but I hope not.
August 24, 2008 | |
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