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Jul 16, 2008

Rachel rated it:

This book charts the daily life of Erica Jong's alter ego, Isadora Wing, as she navigates her way through a maze of work, fans, friends, lovers, and an emotional vacuum of a husband. This is NYC in the 70's, and apparently everyone has a shrink, an avocado plant, and an affair. Isadora is no exception. Jong's writing is witty, candid and fast-paced. She lets you peek into her (I assume it's hers) world of hedonism, confusion and boredom. It's alternately hilarious (I actually laughed out lou More...

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Dec 16, 2009

Kelly rated it:

This book is incredibly positive, and I really liked the direction in which Erica Jong took her character. The development seemed logical, and necessary. I usually have arguments with the "why" of passionate romances. I did in Fear of Flying. This one, I didn't. In some ways, Isadora seemed less mature than in the first novel, but I think that was a reflection of the love that was introduced here.

Just again, very positive and happy. You'll whip through it in less than thre More...

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Aug 01, 2011

Randi rated it:

When I was 11, we'd go to my aunt's house and there were a bunch of books in the upstairs guest room. "How to Save Your Own Life" was one of them, along with "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask." What my uptight aunt was doing with these books, I'll never know, but once I discovered that sex scene at the back of "How to Save Your Own Life," my own life was never the same again. I'd covertly flip through it whenever I was there and thou More...

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Sep 05, 2009

Amanda rated it:

Was this the whole of the 70s? I know, I know, not everyone had the financial wherewithal to flounce about the city avoiding their cold husbands and drinking champagne. Still a strangely disturbing portrait of an era when "women's lib" was still a newish concept and a 32 year old woman with a career entirely her own could imagine herself trapped in a bitter-yet-tumultuous marriage.

I get the impression that the whole thing was a big, well executed dig at her second husband More...

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Sep 12, 2010

Joe rated it:

What a sad and demoralizing sequel. Fear of Flying took the stance that women can desire, experience, enjoy, and pursue sex in the same manner as men. It was a groundbreaking stance that spoke to a generation of women who were taught to believe that only women of loose morals could enjoy sex, not a lady. Isadora Wing's guilty yet liberating sex fueled romp across Europe was endearing, relatable, and the voice of an entire generation of women.

So what happened with How to Save Your Ow More...

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Jan 19, 2009

Elizabeth rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Jan 26, 2009

Jennifer rated it:

For those that said "Fear of Flying" was taboo or saturated with sex didn't end up reading "How to save your own life" once that was published.

"How to save..." is inundated with flight, sex, self-pity, guilt, bemoaning one's husband, sex, whining, sex, guilty & angry sex, more whining, some traveling, girl-on-girl sex to REALLY spite the selfish & also adulterous husband, traveling, sex AND love, refusal of an orgy for a night alone with your lover (emp More...

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Aug 19, 2009

Kim rated it:

This book pretty much picks up where Fear of Flying ended. A continuation of Isadora's story. I enjoyed it but definitely suggest you read FoF first if you haven't already. My edition of the book had a nice little afterword from Jong about her reactions to re-reading this story, some 30 years after writing it. It may be my favorite part of the book, actually.

some excerpts:

"The fact is - you can't really write about somebody you don't love. Even if the portrait i More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 02, 2008

Ibrahim rated it:

Because of MacKay Used bookstore I was able to get this book for free. The cover didn't look attractive. The author, Erica Jong, has an attractive personlity. I left Paulo Coelho aside and I went after this book and was charmed by her sense of humor, her real-ness, genuineness and eloquence. This book is meant to penetrate right to our hearts. Erica Jong is preaching the Gospel of Womanhood. Is woman entitled to be a being of her own without being totally lost in her identity in her husband's or More...

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Mar 26, 2011

Laurel-Rain rated it:

In Erica Jong's follow-up to her iconic "Fear of Flying," we once again meet Isadora Wing, her "fictional doppelganger," who is representative of the times in which she lives. It is the 1970s, that time of quest: searching for lust set against a backdrop of hedonistic innocence. In some ways, Isadora is a metaphor of the times: she is on a sexual journey, but also trying to find her freedom from a stultifying marriage to Bennett, a cold, detached, dominating psychiatrist. Sec More...

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May 03, 2007

Torie rated it:

I really wanted to like this book after being so disgusted by the stories of the passive women in Sara Davidson's "Loose Change." I mentioned in my review of that book how the most valuable idea I took from it was that the women of that generation learned lessons the hard way so those of mine wouldn't have to. I kind of feel the same way about Erica Jong's book, which is the story of the time she spent psyching herself up to leave her husband. While Isadora, the Jong character, isn't e More...

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Apr 23, 2007

John rated it:

I recently bought this book in paperback with fancy color cover after a decade of borrowing from my writing mentor the hardback with a black and white dust jacket.

The book is a straight forward tale about a woman who finally decides to recognize that her marriage has failed, that her husband is a bad fuck and a lousy person, and that only she can decide what she wants to do, or as LouEllen aka Eddie, paraphrases and says to me, "Get off the razor blade and stop cutting your pret More...

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Nov 27, 2011

Alison rated it:

I don't really remember what I thought about this book. I think I liked it, but, I don't really remember much about it. The main thing I remember is that it felt confessional, like, very thinly veiled fiction. Also I think I remember thinking (nice sentence!) that something about the power of it has been lost when you read it in the 00s, that the sense of female empowerment or the more scandalous parts would have seemed much moreso at the time it was published.

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Mar 15, 2010

Heather rated it:

I can't get enough of Erica Jong. It surprises me sometimes that this was written in the 70's and yet I feel she touches something inside of me several decades later. I particularly appreciated this book more than fear of flying, because as she says so herself, she takes a much more optimistic approach at love, an idea she might have turned me onto.

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May 18, 2011

Tiah rated it:

Heard so much about Jong, but never read her. Her book is no longer shocking or revolutionary, which should hardly be surprising given it was published the year I was born. But what is depressing is how this book could be written now with very little changes and still be very topical and true. How far we have yet to come despite the years.

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Jul 31, 2009

Sommer rated it:

I do not like this book or this author.

Yes, a couple of times, I will admit...I laughed.

However, she is self-indulgent and depressing. Not to mention, a totally unlikeable person, inside and out.

There is no worth to this book other than shock value, and I am afraid I do not consider women's liberation to be a trip to Woodstock and philandering one's way through men.

Just don't do it, enough said.

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Feb 08, 2012

Vicki *no time to read. like ever* is currently reading it

I don't really know what to think about this book [as I'm reading it]. It's vivd, and kind of morbid. The woman is trying to 'save her own life' starting with leaving her husband, which she thoroughly retells, event for event. Some parts are depressing, others are funny. Definitely adult content all around.

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Apr 23, 2010

Maddie rated it:

This one is worse than Fear of Flying. I was curious to find some growth or maturity but found only stagnation. Unhappiness, shallowness, never thinking beyond step 1 and extreme selfishness are constant staples of this 'biograhical' story. Gives 'feminazis' a bad name.

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Jan 07, 2011

Jana rated it:

In French, when you want to address an elder you will use 'vous', which grammatically is the same as when you are addressing second-person plural. In English, YOU, is plural and singular, and in Croatian is the same as in French. We use 'vi' as a respect and as second person plural, and 'ti' for second person singular.

What am I trying to say? I am addressing Erica Jong with 'vous' because I don’t want to be disrespectful. We don’t really have common topics but there is a certain und More...

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Jul 28, 2008

Jessica rated it:

I bought this book because I had just had my heart broken by an ex who decided to admit he had had a 2 year affair with a woman who he felt a great connection with. In pain, I thought a book like this would make me feel better, like talking with a friend who really gets it because she too has experienced the same. At first I found a lot of the books many revelations to be kind of silly, forced, not believable. But by the time I was rounding the last corner of the story I really began to feel sa More...

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Mar 04, 2008

Lesley rated it:

Loved the title--obviously. Great 70's feminist awakening type stuff.. and I tend to enjoy and agree with Jong's blogging on Huffington Post... but after about 160 pages, frankly, I was done. She's already had two ongoing affairs with guys named Jeffrey, experimented with a lesbian affair (didn't really like being on top, but was DETERMINED to make her lover come--how goal oriented and male), turned down the opportunity for a three-way in a hot tub in LA, and is now happily in love and "win More...

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May 01, 2009

Angela rated it:

How to Save Your Own Life isn't so much a book as it a perspective, an anecdote of life in another time. Tear apart all your relationships and lay them on on the table for everyone to see and you might have something close to the equivalent.

"Where do you feel love? In the chest, as the straining of the heart against the rib cage? In the fingers, as if the blood were reaching out beyond the skin? For me love had always been a battle-a battle with myself-or with a male adversary. More...

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Jun 15, 2010

A.gasior rated it:

The heroine in this book seems to lead a life of passion, intrigue, and interesting randez-vous; the kind of life housewives daydream of. But there's only so much relating I can do to a character that's so selfish in her relationship with her husband.

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Sep 19, 2011

Joan rated it:

I had a hard time reading this. Many times I thought i would stop. But for some reason I continued. I found her obsession with sex boring, and her overuse of sexual slang. I wish she had just once "made love." I also felt very sorry for her.

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Aug 15, 2010

Ellafunk rated it:

This was ok. I don't recommend it though. Maybe because it dealt with women's issues that were more relevent at the time of the writing? It was the first Erica Jong book I've ever read, and though I don't think it's trash, I am not impressed either.

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Jan 05, 2011

Laura rated it:

well, after fear of flying, it was a let down, frankly. though it is hard to imagine any sequel of that masterpiece not being somewhat disappointing...
jong is a brilliant, insightful, articulate and funny author...

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Jan 21, 2012

Richard rated it:

I actually like this better than Fear of Flying. Perhaps it lacks the force as a call-to-arms, but Jong seems a little calmer and older, and thus her sense of humour really comes to the fore.

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Dec 31, 2009

Carey rated it:

I appreciate the author's guts for writing this when she did, and it did make me think hard about marriage, relationships and intimacy. However, it seemed like the book that gave birth to chick-lit.

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Apr 29, 2010

Jenna rated it:

Not quite as captivating and mind-bending as Fear of Flying... still, a satisfying sequel and a reminder that however intense one's personal problems may seem, it's all relative. Small conflicts will seem magnified in times of prosperity, and Jong reveals her awareness of this reality in her brief epilogue.

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Aug 16, 2010

Dayna rated it:

I didn't think this book had much of a plot. I only bought it for a good raunchy read and it fulfilled that area quite well. I wouldn't recommend this book though and I won't bother reading any of her other books.

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