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Mar 31, 2008

Susan rated it:

I almost didn't agree to reviewing The Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer because I was wary of the subject matter: stay at home mothers. I tend to get all prickly and weird around this topic because it is SO loaded and I realize that even though I have often BEEN at home during my children's lives, I do not want to be considered or think of myself as a SAHM. I've always worked part time or at home. I used to say, "I'm a stay at home mom, but my kids are not stay at home kids." (they went to More...

2 comments like (14 people liked it)

Apr 29, 2008

Erika rated it:

I wanted so much to give this book five stars. It was soooooo good for the first 300 pages, talking about the nuances of motherhood, feminism and women's worlds in the US as lived through four women who gather every week at a diner in New York City to talk about (in)fidelity, love, work, children, and -- for the token smart Asian woman -- numbers.
The writing is fluid, smart, funny and right-on; the story better (These highly educated women have left careers to mother their kids and hate be More...

4 comments like (9 people liked it)

May 09, 2011

Debby rated it:

This isn't a book I would normally be drawn to read, but the title intrigued me. I decided to read it more for curiosity sake, knowing full well what I was getting into, as far as the feminist agenda goes.
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The Ten Year Nap is about 4 friends who were raised hearing the feminism message, "As a woman, you can be anything you want. You can do anything you want. You can have it all and you deserve it!" So they each pursued the college, marriage and career route until, aro More...

12 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 28, 2008

Angie rated it:

I wish I could say I didn't like this book just because I built it up in my head too much while waiting for the other 20 library holds before me, but I'm sure this isn't the only reason. The moms in this book are a world apart from the moms I associate with, and maybe I'd like this book more in another ten years. The book didn't seem to capture the stress and chaos that mothers experience, but maybe that's because the main character has one 10 year old child. With 3 children who are not yet o More...

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jun 22, 2008

Rebecca rated it:

This book is a perfect example of relativity. Looked at from a certain perspective, apparently, it is funny and sympathetic and a right on evaluation of modern motherhood. Looked at from another, there isn't a true note in it and all that humor and seeming sympathy are moot because its careless plot and unhelpable characters seem to lose the author's interest. And no wonder! There's really nothing interesting in their lives except for their own silent pondering and fretting over their privel More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Apr 21, 2008

Sonya rated it:

I'm not much for recounting plot in a mini-review. You can read the backmatter and blurbs if you want to know what happens in this novel. Had I been able, I would have given this book 3.5 stars, but can't bump it all the way up to four. The novel is successful in linking the concepts of women in pre- and post-9/11 life and the work they do or do not do, but does not construct a complete world where these characters are supposedly living. The tone is almost too polemic, and there are some plot co More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2009

Angeline added it

Decided not to finish.
Was given to me to read from a friend through her friend after hearing I was a stay-at-home-mom with a master's degree. Having never met me, the woman was curious to know how I felt about the book.
Of course I assumed she wanted to know whether or not I was resentful and miserable, but maybe not. Maybe she wanted me to make a compelling case, which I guess I also resent.

'Stay' has never been the right descriptor, like the kids and I have been locked More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

May 29, 2008

Mara rated it:

Chapters in this novel alternate between the modern-day lives of a group of women in New York City, all of whom have left careers behind to raise their children, and stories of their mothers or other women from an earlier generation, all of whom are feminists in their own way.

Wolitzer is telling us two things, I think. First, by contrasting the lives of mothers in the 1960s and '70s with those of their daughters in the late '90s and early 21st century, Wolitzer asks questions about w More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 21, 2008

Nicole rated it:

The Ten Year Nap is an easy, enjoyable read. I am not a fan of 'mommy lit', but this is smart and real. An ensemble of characters share the stage with the main character, Amy. We hear all of their stories, plus a few historical figures give light to their own life and times.

This novel examines what kinds of choices women make as mothers and wives, in an honest, however general way. The book doesn't go deep, but wide, and with that choice we get a glimpse at several lives but neve More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 11, 2008

Jeff rated it:

I absolutely adore Meg Wolitzer! She is, perhaps, one of the most amazingly astute, proufoundly incisive, and brilliantly comic authors writing today. I still think "The Wife" is her most realized book to date, but "The Ten-Year Nap" is her most ambitious and, in many ways, the best novel she has written. Not only are the characters in this book thoroughly fleshed-out and spectacular in depth and coloration, but the writing is also so rich and so nuanced that I found myself s More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2010

Ruby rated it:

I was interested in this book because though I haven't accepted SAHM as an identity, it happens to be what I am doing. On Facebook I told a friend, "It's a cautionary tale."

The story was placed badly in my reading life. It came after Eat Pray Love, which I found to be enlightening and uplifting. This book brought me back down, and hard.

Probably my greatest critique of the story (besides its juxtaposition in my life) was that the central character, Amy (who I fou More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 27, 2008

Sarah rated it:

If I could, I would give this three and a half stars. Very mixed feelings about this one. First of all, this is the first Meg Wolitzer book I've read and I think she's a brilliantly talented writer. Her sentences are like works of art, and she captures characters and life moments with such precision it's almost painful.

The book chronicles four upper middle class Manhattan women friends in their late 30s/early 40s, all of whom have given up their careers (some high-powered, some More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 01, 2008

Mehrsa rated it:

I really enjoyed this book. (I think I would give it 4 and a half stars.) In fact, I didn't want it to end. It felt like I was having a nice conversation with friends in the same position that I am--or I guess that I will be in about 10 years. The book is about four women in NYC that have given up careers to raise children and now their children are grown. The women are pretty realistic (except, one of the characters who seems a bit two-dimensional) and they are interesting. The book may have ju More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 25, 2008

Elizabeth rated it:

I didn't get this read in time for book club, though I went anyway—so I had the distinct disadvantage (advantage?) of reading with preconceived notions. No one in book club particularly cared for this, falling on the spectrum of "didn't like it AT ALL" to "meh" to "it was an OK book club book but that's it."

That having been said, I actually liked it quite a bit. If I could rate in half stars, I would give this a 3.5. If the ridiculously useless parts abo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 19, 2008

Deirdre rated it:

I didn't like it, but I couldn't give it one star. It wasn't painful to read. And I realize it's not really fair to judge a book for not being the book you wanted it to be.

Ironically, I put down The Emperor's Children last month because I was so tired of NYC characters. Little did I know this one would be even more of that world.

I enjoyed Jill's story, her struggle of making her way in a new community, and judging herself so harshly as she bonds with her daughter. Most o More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 16, 2009

Shannon rated it:

Not sure if I loved because it was a fine piece of literature of because I can relate to it, but I highly recommend this book to any moms out there. It was well-written, accurate story of women in NYC and how motherhood affected their lives. Sounds like beach-read chic-lit, but has much more depth than that. Entertaining and thought provoking, you will enjoy this book, especially if you are in the 35-55 age range.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 24, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

I loved the idea of this book. I, like so many women, wrestle with the possibility of balance between career and family life, and Wolitzer seeks to show this struggle in all its complexity. But in the end, I don't think she really nails it. Somehow, the idea that not working outside of the home is a "nap" derails the potential of the story. The labor of child care is missing, as is the angst working women feel when they "miss things" in their children's lives.

I w More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 25, 2008

Lisa rated it:

Very interesting. Stay-home moms of 10-year olds (they were professionals then dropped off at birth of 1st child). Everyone has struggles; interesting changes of perspective from present to women of generations past. But:...spoiler alert, if you have not read it, stop now if you think you'll read it.

Are you kidding me? Everyone takes 10 years off the career path and then most go back to jobs, albeit different jobs, with hardly no problems? Out of all those women, no h More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 30, 2008

Kim rated it:

i wanted to like it ~ and actually i did like the first third of the book - then it went off on some weird tangents that i thought were silly and boring. nothing ever happens. and though i am a stay-at-home mom myself, i didn't really identify too much with any of the characters. i understood some of their struggles, but i couldn't get over how they dealt with things - the main character just stayed in denial - she was completely unaware of her surroundings - and then got all caught up in ano More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 26, 2008

Nette rated it:

Most of the reviews so far seem to focus on the book's "issue", mothers who give up their jobs to stay at home with the kids. To me, this is simply a very well-written, almost old-fashioned novel, with excellent characterization and perfect dialog.

Unlike the once-good Jodi Picoult (who would have had one of the stay-at-home moms kill her husband and then, in a shocking twist, reveal that her husband had embezzled millions in home mortgage scams, including one that ruined More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2010

Marie rated it:

When I first started on goodreads, I gave lots of my books 5 stars, but I'm a bit of a harder grader now. The word "amazing" is what did it to me. How many books have I read that are truly "amazing"? Not many.

I really, really enjoyed The Ten-Year Nap. It was a great classic novel, full of lots of background and character development--not only of the four main women in the story, but also of their parents! I liked the way Wolitzer explored the internal battles and More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Apr 13, 2008

Karlin rated it:

As a mother who quit work to stay at home with her child, I could certainly relate to each of women in this novel in some way. I enjoyed the read.

Ms. Wolitzer takes on the difficult task of describing how challenging it is to give up something that has defined you for something else that defines you in an entirely different way. Ms. Wolitzer gets to the core of the issue pretty well.

However, I'm not certain I would recommend this book to anyone without children or isn't More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 09, 2008

Jackie rated it:

The lives of these women hit close to home. They all ask the question, "What next?" once their children become school aged and more independent. I liked the message that our mothers and grandmothers paved the way for us to have the choice to work, stay at home, or do a combination of both. There is little judgment passed on what each woman does with her time, education, and ambition. But I can't help but wonder, "What do our mothers and grandmothers really think about how far wome More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Mar 18, 2011

Mary-Beth rated it:

Lots of telling, not a lot of showing

Balancing a high-powered career and motherhood is a difficult proposition, one that the four main characters in this book decided to opt out of, for various reasons, when their children were born. Now, ten years later, living in and around NYC, they are mostly sunk in middle-age malaise. They're not as involved in their children's lives as they used to be, and not really interested in going back to work, and overall dissatisfied. The novel aspires to be a sor More...

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Mar 23, 2009

Myckyee rated it:

Amy Buckner, a stay-at-home mother in New York, finds herself at loose ends when she realizes that her 10 year old son doesn’t need her so much anymore and her best friend moves away. She continues to go through the motions, meeting friends for breakfast most mornings at a local café but Amy knows something is missing and she doesn’t know how to find it or how to start looking. Into this growing void falls Penny Ramsey, who she gets to know while both are assigned to ‘safety walk’ around their c More...

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Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

In The Ten-Year Nap, as in previous novels, Wolitzer "presents a taxonomy of the subspecies known as the urban female" (New York Times Book Review). This time, she focuses on members of the "opt-out" generation��intelligent, educated women who have renounced careers for motherhood. Though the pace is leisurely and plot developments are few, most critics praised Wolitzer's appealing characters, evocative prose, and acerbic wit. Others disagreed: "What's wrong with these w

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Dec 12, 2011

Suzanne rated it:

I wanted to love this book since I'm so intrigued with how other women handle the precarious balance between motherhood and personal aspirations. But unfortunately, I had trouble relating to these women, partially due to the NYC setting, but primarily because most of the characters had one to two children and large stretches of vacant time on their hands, while I raised three boys leaving very little time or inclination for becoming obsessed with another woman's life the way Amy did with Penny R More...

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Aug 18, 2011

Bethany rated it:

I appreciated the over-tired mind-binding that the job of primary parenting can cause as Wolitzer depicted it, and the ability to marvel at or judge the ways others seem to balance things differently while feeling some paralysis, disconnection, inability to feel a purpose the way it seems one ought. I liked the ability to get glimpses of how different it was for the previous generation and the impact of 9/11. I was intrigued by the motion anger could cause, and the dulling that having nothing of More...

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Jul 14, 2011

Bookreaderljh rated it:

It took me a little while to get into the story and during the first half I kept losing track of the main characters. But on the whole I liked the book as this story of where does life go when you're not looking - and how can it turn out so differently than planned. There are moments throughout the book that are great character studies. It's the attention to detail and the interrelatedness of the characters despite each one thinking they are basically alone and different. How people (especially More...

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Jun 10, 2011

Shannon rated it:

After reading and enjoying The Uncoupling, I thought I'd read The Ten-Year Nap, written several years earlier by the same author. While the subject was of great personal interest (mothers who wake up after taking a ten year nap from their careers to parent), the novel itself read more like an extended personal essay than a novel. I found The Uncoupling to be filled with well formed characters while also addressing serious themes. The Ten-Year Nap instead seemed to continually hit me over the More...

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