Generation Ex: Tales from the Second Wives Club

by Karen Karbo

Karen Karbo turns her signature wit and wisdom to the state of marriage, divorce, and remarriage in this wildly funny and often painfully accurate portrayal of a life rife with "exes": your ex, your husband or wife's ex, the ex of the ex, and of course, their children. Generation Ex is written from the point of view of five women who gather periodically to share stories, blow off steam, and have a few laughs about the impossible -- and stubbornly persistent -- phenomenon that is the ex-relationship. These are the stories of women who have survived dating, a first marriage, and subsequent divorce. They now have everything they've ever wanted, but wind up with much more than they bargained for. They're a bit older, wiser, more secure -- and still manage to find themselves in the middle of rather messy situations.A welcome relief from the how-tos and woebegone accounts of divorce, Generation Ex offers comic relief and wisdom to what has become a fairly common, though still maddening, state of affairs.

Genres: Nonfiction

235 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

Karen Karbo's first novel, Trespassers Welcome Here, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and a Village Voice Top Ten Book of the Year. Her other two adult novels, The Diamond Lane and Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me, were also named New York Times Notable Books. The Stuff of Life, about the last year she spent with her father before his death, was an NYT Notable Book, a People Magazine Critics' Choice, a Books for a Better Life Award finalist, and a winner of the Oregon Book Award for Creative Non-fiction.

Karbo is most well known for her international best-selling Kick Ass Women series, which examines the lives of a quartet of iconic 20th century women. Julia Child Rules (2013), How Georgia Became O'Keeffe (2011), The Gospel According to Coco Chanel (2009), and How to Hepburn (2007)

Her short stories, essays, articles and reviews have appeared in Elle, Vogue, Esquire, Outside, O, More, The New Republic, The New York Times, salon.com and other magazines. She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, was a winner of the General Electric Younger Writer Award, and was one of 24 writers chosen for the inaugural Amtrak Writers residency.

In addition, Karbo penned three books in the Minerva Clark mystery series for children: Minerva Clark Gets A Clue, Minerva Clark Goes to the Dogs, and Minerva Clark Gives Up the Ghost.

She is the co-author, with Gabrielle Reece, of Big Girl in the Middle, and the New York Times bestselling, My Foot is Too Big for the Glass Slipper: A Guide to the Less than Perfect Life.

Karbo also contributed to the anthologies, The Bitch is Back and What My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-one Women on the Gifts That Mattered Most.

Karen grew up in Los Angeles, California and lives in Portland, Oregon where she continues to kick ass.

Reviews

[Mary Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the books I tried to read when I was younger, when I was not yet delved with reading novels. After reading this, I've come to realize that somehow before when I was trying to read it, I could not relate to the initial plot line, thus I seemed not to appreciate it. But now, not in a personal experience sense but rather with the relationship stories of the people around me, I can say that the humorous anecdotes told by Karbo appealed to me more. Because Philippines has no divorce, with this book I've come to a new perspective of the pros and cons of it from the view of a woman, who herself have experienced it.

[Lisachan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Il libro non è male, oggettivamente, è divertente, si lascia leggere piuttosto velocemente, ma il titolo italiano (Generazione Ex - Storie di donne felicemente divorziate) è assolutamente fuorviante rispetto ai contenuti XD Lungi dall'essere una riflessione generica su cosa significhi essere ex nella generazione del boom dei divorzi, è più che altro una riflessione molto particolare, sicuramente spinta da una enorme ed utilissima e piacevole dose di ironia, su cosa vuol dire essere un ex e stare con qualcuno che è a propria volta un ex. Le riflessioni su cosa significhi per una donna il divorzio in sé sono molto poche, relegate solo ad un paio di capitoli sul finale, mentre tutto il resto del libro è attivamente dedicato a descrivere nei minimi dettagli (anche in maniera piuttosto confusa, a volte) la situazione di quelle donne che si ritrovano ad iniziare una nuova relazione con un uomo che è a propria volta uscito da una relazione con un'altra donna, con tutte le conseguenze del caso - ex mogli isteriche, ex suocere, figli a carico o meno e via così. Posso capire perché spostare su queste faccende quasi telenovelistiche la narrazione, piuttosto che su donne che, per dire, dopo la fine di un matrimonio restano sole per tutto il resto della loro vita come spesso accade, specie se hanno figli a carico: naturalmente si tratta di un argomento di gran lunga più divertente, meno pesante ed anche più facile da affrontare, e Karen Karbo senza dubbio lo fa con piglio divertito e divertente, ed anche sufficientemente onesto, ma la leggerezza di fondo, pur essendo un pregio del libro, lo rende anche sostanzialmente un libro innocuo e abbastanza dimenticabile.

[Sherry · Rating 2 out of 5]

16. More comedy than self-help, a collection of stories about the extremes that exes (mostly women) go to to make life miserable for their ex. Sometimes confusing, especially when she got into "her second marriage, his third involving exes...." Perhaps flow charts would have been helpful. At times this book felt like a bragging complaint of the author's relationship with her ex and his ex. The most helpful advice in this book: Sometimes it's best to just move on.

[Rebecca Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously this isn't something that I can relate to, but I find this author to be so funny. I just read it for a good laugh.