I Don't Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother

Women's magazines talk in awed terms about a type of woman called "the juggler" - an omnipresent, omnicompetent woman who is able to have it all. Flipping between marriage, childrearing, and an aggressive career path, "the juggler" handles every minute with perfection. Kate Reddy is just such a woman. A hedge fund trader, she can juggle nine different currencies in five different time zones and get herself and two children washed, dressed, and out of the house in under thirty minutes. But in order to keep this juggernaut of split-second timing going, Kate must meet the highest of expectations - her own. Allison Pearson captures the guilty secret lives of working women - the self-recrimination, the comic deceptions, the giddy exhaustion, the despair - like no other writer.

Review :
Fast . . . funny . . . heartbreaking. . . . You root for Kate the whole length of her roller coaster ride. "The New York Times Book Review " The national anthem for working mothers. Oprah Winfrey A comic wonder: wildly hilarious, achingly sad, perfectly observed. "The Miami Herald " The book every working woman is likely to devour. . . . A hysterical look in both the laughing and crying senses of the word at the life of Supermom. "The New York Times " Think of Kate Reddy as Bridget Jones older, harried, married working-mother-of-two sister. . . . Hilarious. "Entertainment Weekly " Perfectly captures the driven days and frequently sleep-deprived nights of that modern mammal, the working mother . . . with acute humor, piercing insight and more than a touch of tenderness. "New York Daily News " The definitive social comedy of working motherhood. "The Washington Post " "From the Trade Paperback edition."" "Fast . . . funny . . . heartbreaking. . . . You root for Kate the whole length of her roller coaster ride." --"The New York Times Book Review ""The national anthem for working mothers." --Oprah Winfrey "A comic wonder: wildly hilarious, achingly sad, perfectly observed." --"The Miami Herald ""The book every working woman is likely to devour. . . . A hysterical look--in both the laughing and crying senses of the word--at the life of Supermom." --"The New York Times ""Think of Kate Reddy as Bridget Jones' older, harried, married working-mother-of-two sister. . . . Hilarious." --"Entertainment Weekly ""Perfectly captures the driven days and frequently sleep-deprived nights of that modern mammal, the working mother . . . with acute humor, piercing insight and more than a touch of tenderness." --"New York Daily News ""The definitive social comedy of working motherhood." --"The Washington Post " "From the Trade Paperback edition." "If you could buy stock in a book, I would stake all my savings on the success of Allison Pearson's new novel, "I Don't Know How She Does It." Here, at last, is the definitive social comedy of working motherhood." -Marjorie Williams, "Washinton Post " "A sparkling novel about juggling marriage, kids, and job (and getting some sleep) . . . Nearly every female lucky enough to have both a child and a byline . . . has strip-mined Pearson's theme: how to squeeze babies, marriage and a high-powered job into a day that cannot be stretched beyond 24 hours. But Pearson's Kate, a brisk, sardonic, loving world beater, has made it all fresh again." -Margaret Carlson, "Time" ." . . Heartbreaking . . . Anyone who has pumped breast milk in the back of a taxi, or wept quietly into the laundry hamper after arriving home too late for a good-night kiss, will recognize herself in this sharply observed, sometimes painfully sad story about the sordid disparity between the ideal and the realityi