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It’s an uncomfortable feeling to read a good book with a main character you don’t like. Hausfrau is one such good book. The first sentence sets the mood for the book: “Anna was a good wife, mostly.” And she is. Anna sees to her children, tidies up the house, prepares meals, cares for her husband. And yet she isn’t. Anna is wildly unfaithful. The activities of housewifery are deeply unfulfilling to her. She lies to her husband, her therapist, her lovers, her friend. From page one, the reader know
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This is not a bad book, but it is not the book I should be reading. The problems are big and real (and too close to home for me): the loneliness of life as an expat, marrying into another culture, the everyday struggle of speaking an unfamiliar language, the hollowness and lack of purpose from not having a career, the struggle to connect with and care for a family when you are depressed, the pursuit of endorphin release to make you feel a little better or at least pass the time, the very bad dec
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thoughts coming shortly
I wasn't crazy about the reading of this book in my audio version. I kept thinking about how differently I'd interpret the intonations if I were reading it from the page. But I liked the book, I did. It deals with things that I've experienced and am interested in, like being an expatriate (ex-patriot? how do you spell it?), living in another language. I'll have to paraphrase this, but there was an interesting idea about how you express who you are in your second language, that your mistakes reve
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Madame Bovary has a psychotherapist. Lady Chatterley has at least three gardeners. And it is all in Switzerland where the trains run on time, just to make sure we have the buttoned down metaphor buttoned down. Oh and she is punished for her immorality of course.
While I just didn't like the Hausfrau of the title , I can relate a bit to her isolation in a country in which she didn't speak the language and found it hard to make friends.
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Beautifully written. Stylish writing doesn’t always make a book a standout; but here, it was more than enough to carry the day. Moving at a slow, languid pace, it’s a mood piece for sure. The unlikeable character is bound to galvanize strong emotions (of at least irritation, if not outright hate) in some readers. As she struggles with her first world problems, Anna’s passivity, listlessness, and self-sabotaging are maddening, so it’s hard to empathize with her. And yet, somehow Essbaum kept pull
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Nov 06, 2014
Beverly
marked it as to-read
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review of another edition
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Mar 18, 2015
Isabel
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Suzanne
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Mar 22, 2015
SandyC
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Apr 01, 2015
Anna
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Apr 15, 2015
Rachel
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Apr 23, 2015
Shannon Wallner
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Feb 10, 2016
Jen
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Mar 04, 2016
Jayme Pendergraft
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Feb 01, 2023
Keeley
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Apr 07, 2024
Sherry
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