wanted 35 hours in a day (I Don't Know How She Does It - Allison Pearson)

Member Name: west_jenn

Product:	I Don't Know How She Does It - Allison Pearson
Date:	01/03/05 (160 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: entertaining read

Disadvantages: self pitying main character

Kate Reddy would appear to have it all, high flying career, loving husband and two lovely children. However, she’s a woman juggling too many balls and in danger of gong mad.

I don’t know how she does it follows a year in the life of 35 year old funds manager Kate Reddy. The book grew out of a column in the Daily Telegraph, it consists of diary entries chronicling Kate’s chaotic life. Kate’s day to day life has every spare minute filled with her demanding job and family. Each daily entry ends with a to do list with more things on it than I usually manage in a week.

As the book progresses Kate begins to feel more and more frustrated, her job involves business trips abroard and long hours at the office whilst her one year old son and six year old daughter desperately want her attention when she is at home. Her relationship with her husband is right down the list of her priorities. As a form of escapism Kate begins an e-mail flirtation with one of her clients. Something has to give in Kate’s time poor, frenzied lifestyle.

I thought this book was great at showing how torn Kate was torn between an exciting career she’d worked hard in and two children she loves desperately. The book also brought up some interesting points about the different ways working mothers and working fathers are viewed.

I found this book very readable the diary style is entertaining. However, I did start to find Kate a bit of a control freak and also quite self pitying. She spends the dawn hours artificially distressing sainsburys mince pies so that her daughter’s school will think that she made them. She wants to do things a stay at home mum does and doesn’t listen to her husband when he tells her that no one expects her to home bake mince pies. Kate doesn’t want to compromise she thinks she can organise her child’s party, deal with domestic crises, meet a client in New York and tons of other things in the space of one day. She misses her children so much that when she gets back from a business trip and they are in bed she goes to the laundry basket and sniffs their clothes.


She’s obviously not happy, but no one forces her to stay in her working all hours job, so when she talks about how much she misses her kids it does seem self pitying. I think the central problem is the book is too extreme, it tries to show how working mothers are torn and guilt ridden. However, Kate is no ordinary working mother she has the kind of high flying career few people do and this is her choice she’s worked hard to get where she is and is doing something she enjoys. Because of the nature of her job her character is likeable, but hard to feel much empathy for. There are only twenty four hours in a day and when you’re at work for eleven of those you may not be involved in some of the day to day aspects of your child’s life. One of the saddest parts of the book is that the relationship Kate wants to have with her children can’t be achieved in the brief time she snatches at home

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