How Hard Can It Be? – Allison Pearson

Kate Reddy is counting down the days until she is fifty, but not in a good way. Fifty, in Kate’s mind, equals invisibility. And with hormones that have her in shackles, teenage children who need her there but won’t talk to her and ailing parents who aren’t coping, Kate is in the middle of a sandwich that she isn’t even allowed to eat because of the calories.

She’s back at work after a big break at home, because somebody has to bring home the bacon now that her husband Rich has dropped out of the rat race to master the art of mindfulness. But just as Kate is finding a few tricks to get by in her new workplace, her old client and flame Jack reappears – complicated doesn’t even begin to cover it.

This is a coming of age story for turning fifty. It’s about so much more than a balancing act; it’s about finding out who you are and what you need to feel alive when you’ve got used to being your own last priority. And every page will leave you feeling that there’s a bit of Kate Reddy in all of us.

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How Hard Can It Be? is a real treat and you may find yourself laughing out loud and crying in equal measure.

Kate Reddy is not without a few problems – teenagers and their problems (do you even know what a ‘belfie’ is?); an old house in need of upgrading and almost constant attention from Piotr the builder; a ‘drop out’ husband trying to find himself by studying mindfulness; ageing and ailing parents; trying to get back into work after years away; a big birthday (50) looming; and the menopause is approaching along with the forgetfulness that often accompanies it.  Modern parenting is definitely not easy.

She had once been a successful fund manager and now really needs to get back into the workplace and start earning to support the family. To give herself a chance of getting a job she knocks a few years off her age (and the ages of her children) and gets a bit creative with her CV.

She ends up getting a job at her old workplace where no one recognises her, the company having changed hands twice while she’s been away and her old colleagues long gone.  Her boss and colleagues are all so much younger and less experienced but she keeps quiet about her earlier successful career there.

Of course it seems her boss is trying to set her up to fail.  She gets the difficult clients and there are clashes with work and family life (and a few dilemmas).  It’s definitely not easy juggling work and the demands of family life and trying to keep everyone happy.

I think everyone will identify with at least a part of Kate.  I celebrated the big birthday long ago (and the big one after that). I was never really a career person; my children are grown up with children of their own and yet I can still recognise and sympathise with Kate’s predicament.

It’s brilliantly written and very funny but also quite sad.  Kate is a wonderfully vivid character, in fact all the characters (good and ‘bad’) have their parts to play.  It’s a really good, entertaining read.  I loved it.
How Hard Can it Be? was published on 21 September 2017.

[My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with a review copy]

All I Ever Wanted by Lucy Dillon

Nancy is four, nearly five. She talks all the time: in the car, on the way to nursery, to her brother, to her collection of bears. And then one day everything changes. Nancy’s mum and dad split up, her father moves across the country, and Nancy stops talking.
Eva is forty-four, nearly forty-five. She always knew marrying a much older man meant compromises, but she was sure it was worth it – until Mickey dies suddenly, leaving Eva with only his diaries and a voice in the back of her mind telling her that perhaps she’s sacrificed more than she meant to.

While Nancy’s parents negotiate their separation, the question of weekend contact is solved when her father volunteers his sister Eva’s house. As spring turns to summer, a trust slowly begins to form between a little girl with a heartbreaking secret, and a woman who has realised too late that what she yearns for is the love of a child.

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I really enjoyed All I Ever Wanted.  It has everything. Family issues, humour, heartbreak, tension.
Patrick and Caitlin are the parents of Joel (10) and Nancy (4). Nancy is at nursery and is a real chatterbox. Joel is very dramatic – loves singing, dancing, performing.

When Patrick has to move up to Newcastle for his job, Caitlin decides she wants to stay in Bristol with the children. They live in a mortgage free house that Caitlin’s grandmother had left to her and she feels settled and secure there. Needless to say they decide to separate.

The negotiations are not easy. Patrick has always been a workaholic but he wants shared care of the children, and Caitlin is not happy with the idea of the children making a 600 mile round trip every week. Mediation seemed to bring out the worst in both of them but Patrick eventually suggests that his sister might host contact and she is only 70 miles away. Caitlin has some doubts about this as his sister Eva is a young widow with two pugs and no children and might not be able to or want to have two young exuberant children staying every weekend.

Then the unthinkable happens. Nancy stops talking. Suddenly and seemingly without reason. This adds a complication to the story as she can’t or won’t communicate with the people around her and leads to some incidents and anxious moments.

I loved all the characters and their relationships. There is depth to the characters and I felt as if I knew them. It was certainly easy to picture them. They all have various issues to try and fix. Eva has come to realise that because she married an older man she gave up the chance to have children, and with his sudden death starts to wonder what might have been. (He also had two ex-wives and a son). There is pressure on Eva (and the other wives) to agree to her husband’s diaries being published but that forces her to read them (reluctantly) and leads to some soul-searching.

Eva and Patrick have very different memories of their upbringing and they don’t seem to be particularly close siblings. Patrick spends most of his time at work and and you feel he puts work before the children. He seems to have a need to be in control all the time, but when you learn of his past through Eva’s eyes, I did feel sympathy for him.

Caitlin too is an interesting character. She fell pregnant by accident the summer after graduation and never took up a career, instead moving in with her grandmother. (Patrick is actually Joel’s stepfather but has always considered Joel his son). Caitlin now works in a cafe. After she and Patrick separate she gets to try spreading her wings a little bit. Successfully? I don’t want to spoil the plot.

The children are delightful. Easy to imagine them. It turns out they get on really well with Aunt Eva’s two pugs and the two dogs have their role to play too.

The interaction between the children and the adults is very entertaining. There are also quite serious incidents, adding to the drama and ultimate enjoyment of the story.

This is an entertaining read but with enough dramatic moments to keep you on your toes. There were a few heart-stopping moments too. The various threads of the story all interweave very smoothly. I wasn’t sure how it would end so it was one of those books that kept me reading well into the night.  I like those ones.

(Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review)