Thoughtful, insightful, and compelling

books:


	• The Other Mother: A Novel Gwendolen Gross Shaye Areheart Books, 2007 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 35 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Good premise, but fails to deliver

I was really excited to start reading this book and the story line isn't so bad. It plays on the so-called Mommy Wars, pitting working mothers against those that stay at home. That's fine, but the story wasn't developed enough for my liking. The characters of Thea and Amanda didn't even get to know each other, wasn't much interaction between them before they are sharing a house and immensely disliking each other. It just seemed that as the character of Thea gave more of her perspective, I became more convinced that she suffered from serious depression. I liked how the story was told from both perspectives, but there was no explanation as to why there was animosity between these 2 characters. The other thing that really got on my nerves were the characters' names. "Caius," "Oliver" "Carra" "Iris" "Jasmine"----only Amanda is a "typical" name. Just a pet peeve I guess.

for more information click here

Compelling

Gwendolen Gross has fashioned a beautifully written account of a period in the lives of two youngish suburban mothers, one who has foregone the work place for full-time motherhood, and the other trying to balance her career with the needs or perceived needs of her newborn baby and husband. A timely topic, yes, but very far indeed from a cheap attempt at button-pushing. The characterizations of both mothers are consistently compelling, with healthy doses of intertwining ambivalence, suspicion and self-doubt to go along with each woman's "normal" feelings of happiness and fulfillment. The novel also benefits from clever construction and an extra teasing plot thread to keep the reader guessing. Highly recommended.

for more information click here

Thoughtful, insightful, and compelling

This book made me think about mothers and their choices in a way no other book has. It helped me understand the perspectives of both working and stay at home moms and why the decision of whether to work or stay at home is so difficult. In addition to being an exciting read, the writing is wonderful - lyrical and compelling.

Mama Drama

Add fiction to the list of Mother's little helpers--like the glass of wine with dinner, fiction subdues the stress of motherhood. Good novels are a form of escapism.

Yet what a strange way to escape, by reading The Other Mother, which transports the stressed-out mom right back into the world she came from. Set in suburban New Jersey, The Other Mother slams two mothers--and their choices--against the proverbial picket fence they happen to share. Thea, a winsome stay-at-home mother of three who gardens with a misplaced passion for the outdoors and the environment; and Amanda, a raw-nippled and sassy first time mother, on the up-and-up at a New York City publisher.

Oh, yet there is drama in the diapers, in the obligatory cookies, and in the husbands who both understand and misunderstand their partner's travails. Surprisingly, the Other Mother reads as a page-turner, for as any parent knows, there is nothing inherently dramatic about juice boxes or laundry.

Yet author (and mother) Gross keeps the pace at a clip, and uses the unspoken rivalry, admiration, and petty paranoia of two mothers to keep the tension going. Each chapter ping-pongs between points of view. Thea, then Amanda, by turns confide catty assessment of the other or their grudging gratitude. In an unexpected twist, the two express a physical bond that suggests the muddle of motherhood can be understood only by those in the trenches, whether a suburban-lot-with-minivan, 80-hour-work-week sans pay trench, or a trench with a corner office and ritual breaks at the water cooler, where you hopefully envision a nanny pushing your baby in a stroller, in a park, somewhere.

for more information click here

A thought provoking read

Gwendolyn Gross is a gifted writer with an uncanny ability to tap into our most mundane, basic, and most often hidden daily thoughts, the ones we pretend we don't own and work endlesly to cover up. Through the two central characters, we see ourselves in ways that may not be entirely comfortable however Gross communicates well the sense that it all is OK and that it is good to be who we are even as we strive to be better.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Amanda is a successful book editor at a prominent publishing house in New York City. Thea is a stay-at-home mother of three who has never really left the community in which she grew up. Amanda, eight months? pregnant with her first child, and her husband move in next door to Thea and her family, and the two women find themselves both drawn to and repelled by each other and their opposing choices in the constant struggle to balance career and family life.

When a disaster forces Amanda and her family to take refuge in Thea?s home, the underlying tensions simmering between them are forced to the surface-and even more so when Thea fills in as Amanda?s temporary nanny. But once dead animals start appearing on Thea?s front porch-surely a macabre gift from Amanda?-the battle with ?the other mother? begins in earnest.

With a keen eye for what pulls us apart and what brings us together, Gwendolen Gross has created a stunning, dark, suspenseful novel that is as brave as it is shocking.

for more information click here

hot