The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work,… (2002)

Overall I really liked this. I liked the use of different voice/authors rather than one person trying to expound on life issues. I related quite a bit to the early sections about marriage and relationships, but ended up skimming later sections about children and middle age. I just didn't relate to any of it. And the sections about having kids kind of irritated me because they all talked about how stressful yet wonderful they were. Even the essay about choosing not to have children ended with the author planning to adopt. I was a tad annoyed about that. ( )

DNFed at page 38, three and a half essays in. It appears to be a book full of essays about middle-class, mostly white, mostly urban, mostly cisgender, and mostly heterosexual women working out their personal issues in relationships. Yay for self-examination, but I'm not particularly interested in reading it. Basically, it's your typical middle class ennui lit, but female this time.

INDIVIDUAL ESSAY RATINGS AND COMMENTS

Excuse Me While I Explode: My Mother, Myself, My Anger
E. S. Maduro
3 stars
Amazingly self-aware, the author examines her conflicting goals and wonders how to find a satisfying future with less anger.

Getting the Milk for Free
Veronica Chambers
2 stars
Ummm ... I just can't relate to this one very much, and I didn't find the point of it to be all that interesting.

Crossing to Safety 9 stars
Jen Marshall
3 stars
A nice essay about one woman's trip of self-discovery in learning that the relationship "goals" placed before us all weren't actually what she wanted.

Moving In. Moving Out. Moving On.
Sarah Miller
DNF
Oh man, yet another middle class lady coming to terms with herself. I'm out. ( )

I read this about ten years ago in book club. I remember it, but I'm surprised I didn't write a review. I remember urging my husband to read it because "this is how women think" and he came back with Nicholas Baker's Box of Matches, saying "this is how men think."
Can't vouch for my opinion after ten years. ( )

Not impressed. Was actually bored through mist of the stories. ( )

I QUIT!!!!

I've ordered this in print.....

The first narrator was so Awful! Honestly her voice was flat and devoid of all feeling. As if I was listening to a high pitched zombie

In fact her voice was so blah, that I completely tuned out to the first several minutes of her narration....I didn't hear a word she said! That's when I knew I was finished!

If "listening" to a book is a skill...it's obviously one I do not have.

So, as for the book itself......I'll go for
Reading this was so very much better than listening to it.....I was able to finish it.

I understand completely the situations these women have put themselves in.....most of them take the blame for choosing to be/staying in bad relationships. They describe their honest feelings & again take responsibility for allowing family to take advantage of them.....

There was a woman who had a control issue: she had to do it ALL herself.....and her husband really wanted to help her, but she felt it was easier to do it herself rather than teach him how. So of course, when he stopped offering his help she began to feel resentful.

Another woman loved her b.f because he was the "sensitive & creative" artistic type...so he'd work on his art, get stoned & play video games while she went out to work and when she finally asked for his help, he'd complain that she was mean & picking on him...is this a "no brainer" or what?

Then there was the couple who has an "open marriage" and both continue with a series of "affairs".....she of course has conflicting emotions....but she too has affairs of her own.

One woman is in a monogamous long-term relationship with the same man....they're great friends & have a child together. Neither feel the need or desire to marry. Their sexual relationship isn't the hottest", but that's not why she's still with him.....she simply loves him & is happy with what they have.

Another (an author that I read often) learned that she doesn't have to be beholden to her family from India. It took her quite a bit of their visiting (of course at home we do it this way) and feeling that she had to go back to the old ways of India hospitality. She learned that she can drop them off for the day, let them go shopping, out for a tour and still do her work while they are out...as for dinner, she orders take-away or takes them out to eat.

Although, there was one woman I really wanted to slap silly.....she doesn't like being "mean mommy" and disciplining her kids when they misbehave & make her angry, because she's afraid of her anger..... Come on, the 3-4 yr old refused to go to sleep, was jumping on the bed w/ his sister. When "mommy" went in the room telling them to stop & go to bed, the kid threw his book at her head & hit her in her eye and laughed at her....and she screamed @ the kid and then he & his sister cried and she forgave him. That mother is an IDIOT...that child needed to be disciplined, Period. ( )