Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jun 2018
384 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Kate Reddy is back! The follow-up to the international bestseller I Don't Know How She Does It, the novel that defined modern life for women everywhere.
Allison Pearson's brilliant debut novel, I Don't Know How She Does It, was a New York Times bestseller with four million copies sold around the world. Called "the definitive social comedy of working motherhood" (The Washington Post) and "a hysterical look - in both the laughing and crying senses of the world - at the life of Supermom" (The New York Times), I Don't Know How She Does It introduced Kate Reddy, a woman as sharp as she was funny. As Oprah Winfrey put it, Kate's story became "the national anthem for working mothers."
Seven years later, Kate Reddy is facing her 50th birthday. Her children have turned into impossible teenagers; her mother and in-laws are in precarious health; and her husband is having a midlife crisis that leaves her desperate to restart her career after years away from the workplace. Once again, Kate is scrambling to keep all the balls in the air in a juggling act that an early review from the U.K. Express hailed as "sparkling, funny, and poignant...a triumphant return for Pearson."
Will Kate reclaim her rightful place at the very hedge fund she founded, or will she strangle in her new "shaping" underwear? Will she rekindle an old flame, or will her house burn to the ground when a rowdy mob shows up for her daughter's surprise (to her parents) Christmas party? Surely it will all work out in the end. After all, how hard can it be?
"Starred Review. [Pearson] hits the right notes in conveying the cluelessness and powerlessness parents feel raising teens obsessed by gaming and social media. Readers will cheer on Kate as she becomes a kick-butt woman of a certain age." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Brilliant, funny, and tender...Tackling sexism, growing older, and understanding one's needs when catering to those of so many others, Pearson writes realism with all the fun of escapism." - Booklist
"Starred Review. In this side-splitting follow-up to I Don't Know How She Does It...the electricity is positively sparkling...Laugh-out-loud yet all too realistic...Spot on." - Library Journal
"An aspirational fantasy in which the heroine not only survives, but flourishes through every crisis known to middle-age women in the higher income brackets." - Kirkus
"Few sequels beat the original, but How Hard Can It Be? does so hands down. Kate Reddy's comeback as a pushing-50 'Returner,' re-entering the workforce after a spell on the mommy track, is zesty, razor-sharp, and hilarious...It's full of such quotable casual profundity on the female condition I couldn't read it without a pencil to underline the abundance of great lines. Get ready for Kate!" - Tina Brown
"Written with Allison's trademark wit and lacerating insight, How Hard Can It Be? is an honest, hilarious look at being a woman of a certain age. Anyone who, like me, adored Kate Reddy in "I Don't Know How She Does It," will be delighted to revisit her fierce and honest take on the figurative and literal bumpy bits of middle age. This book is smart and sharp and funny, funny, funny." - Aline Brosh McKenna, screenwriter of The Devil Wears Prada and co-creator of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
This information about How Hard Can It Be? was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Allison Pearson is the author of the hugely bestselling I Don't Know How She Does It, which became a major motion picture starring Sarah Jessica Parker, and I Think I Love You. Pearson was named Newcomer of the Year at the British Book Awards for her first book. She has written for The Daily Telegraph, The Times (UK), The Daily Mail, Time, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Observer and countless other publications. Pearson has won many awards including Columnist of the Year, Critic of the Year and Interviewer of the Year. She lives in Cambridge, England, with the New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane, and their two children.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
