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Cover The Butter: Summary and book reviews of Cover The Butter by Carrie Kabak, plus links to an excerpt from Cover The Butter and a biography of Carrie Kabak.

Cover The Butter

Cover The Butter
by Carrie Kabak
Hardcover: Jun 2005,
368 pages.
Paperback: May 2006,
368 pages.

Publication information
First book/First Novel


Author Information
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BOOK SUMMARY

Get ready to cheer for Kate Cadogan, a forty-something woman who has spent her life trying to please her husband, her son, her mother and her father without a moment’s thought to her own needs. Until one day when a series of events causes her to slip back in time…

For the first time Kate sees her life clearly—her dreams of becoming a caterer; the delicate yet combustible relationship she shares with her mother; and the unflagging support of her two best friends.

Kate finds the courage to make a break and energized by her newfound freedom, she creates a life all her own.

Buoyant and deeply moving, Cover the Butter proves that starting over has nothing to do with age and everything to do with spirit.
BookBrowse

If you enjoyed Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman or Step-Ball-Change, this is likely to be a book for you.  (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).

Full Review Members Only (187 words).

Media Reviews

  Kirkus Reviews
Kabak's gift for describing wonderful food and decor, and her way of encapsulating decades in a few swift strokes, take this tale beyond the standard middle-age revenge formula.

  Publishers Weekly
[S]cenes play out fluidly and are nicely detailed, particularly in Kate's sophisticated foodyism. Kabak doesn't provide the frisson of the racy TV mockudrama, but she does tell Kate's story with warmth and humor.

  Booklist - Misha Stone
This is charming, compassionate look at how one woman discovers that self-fulfillment shouldn't be postponed forever.

  Library Journal
Fans of Marian Keyes and Jane Green will particularly enjoy this work, which is recommended for public libraries.

Author Blurb Jeanne Ray, author.
Carrie Kabak's Cover the Butter is an extraordinary novel. It is poignant, sensitive, funny and original, and it fairly sings with life. I felt myself dissolve into it!

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated 3 of 5 of 5 by Melissa
Uncovered!!!
Our book club recently read this book: Cover the Butter is a story about relationships and honesty with not only one's self but each other. Maybe not so much honesty, but confronting the issues and problems at hand instead of sticking one's head...   Read More

Rated 4 of 5 of 5 by Susan Jeffrey
Not Just
What sets this book apart from much of the "chick lit" genre is that it describes in detail the abuse suffered by a girl at the hands of her mother, and shows how this abuse affected the choices she made as a young woman. I do feel this book would...   Read More

Rated 2 of 5 of 5 by Carole, a member of the FRESH Ladies Book Club
Cover the Butter
This is a novel dealing with a difficult subject - abuse. To make the reader aware of how, when and why this starts, the author uses a diary format to record the events. The abuse begins as a child while living with an obsessively controlling...   Read More

Rated 4 of 5 of 5 by Marie-Jeanne Trauth
Cover the Butter
Kate's mother always reminded her husband to cover the butter before lighting his post-supper cigarette. Kate--like so many women of her time--took this advice to heart and covered her personality to be the person others expected her to be. I...   Read More

Rated 4 of 5 of 5 by Donna Nelson
Cover the Butter
A quick and easy read - good for book clubs just getting started and for those who need a break from heavier reading material. Cover the Butter is believable ... a little predictable ... and touches on many topics that are common among women. How...   Read More

Rated 3 of 5 of 5 by Penny
Cover the Butter
This a book about family. But it's the friends of Kate who actually save her throughout the novel. Author Carrie Kabak tells a story of a dysfunctional family so well that the reader feels a part of the story. By the end of the book I wanted the...   Read More

...10 More Reader Reviews

Carrie Kabak assures us that Cover The Butter is not autobiographical.  However, it would seem that she has much in common with her protagonist.  Like Kate, she was discouraged from following her artistic talent and desires and instead was directed firmly towards a "real job".  She says, "At eighteen, it was time to line up for career advice at school. The Head Teacher studied our exam results. She pointed to each girl, teacher, bank, nurse, teacher, bank, nurse. I was labelled 'teacher' and encouraged to train for a real job.... So I went to Cardiff University to train as a French, English and Art teacher. At college, an English professor pulled me to one side. Why was I teaching, he asked. Why wasn't I writing? Because it's not a proper job, I explained. Then make it one, he said." 

Instead, she got married, taught, designed, and raised four children - then, six years ago, she moved from the UK to the USA and started to illustrate children's books, but it took another four years for her to finally take the plunge...

Continued...  Beyond the Book (members only)

Readalikes Full readalike results are for members only

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