How Hard Can It Be?
A Novel
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4.3 • 63 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Look, I was doing OK. I got through the oil spill on the road that is turning forty. Lost a little control, but I drove into the skid just like the driving instructors tell you to and afterwards things were fine again, no, really, they were better than fine.
Kate Reddy had it all: a nice home, two adorable kids, a good husband. Then her kids became teenagers (read: monsters). Richard, her husband, quit his job, taking up bicycling and therapeutic counseling: drinking green potions, dressing head to toe in Lycra, and spending his time—and their money—on his own therapy. Since Richard no longer sees a regular income as part of the path to enlightenment, it’s left to Kate to go back to work.
Companies aren’t necessarily keen on hiring 49-year-old mothers, so Kate does what she must: knocks a few years off her age, hires a trainer, joins a Women Returners group, and prepares a new resume that has a shot at a literary prize for experimental fiction.
When Kate manages to secure a job at the very hedge fund she founded, she finds herself in an impossible juggling act: proving herself (again) at work, dealing with teen drama, and trying to look after increasingly frail parents as the clock keeps ticking toward her 50th birthday. Then, of course, an old flame shows up out of the blue, and Kate finds herself facing off with everyone from Russian mobsters to a literal stallion.
Surely it will all work out in the end. After all, how hard can it be?
Hilarious and poignant, How Hard Can It Be? brings us the new adventures of Kate Reddy, the beleaguered heroine of Allison Pearson's groundbreaking New York Times bestseller I Don't Know How She Does It.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The winning follow-up to Pearson's bestselling I Don't Know How She Does It is anchored by heroine Kate Reddy's authentic, intelligent, and consistently funny British voice. When Kate's architect husband is laid off and begins training as a therapist, the 49-year-old stay-at-home mother of two tries to return to the workforce. After a disastrous job interview confirms she has aged out of her field she was formerly a jet-setting power player at an influential London brokerage firm Kate starts lying about her age and is hired to market the very hedge fund she created years ago. Meanwhile, her daughter just texted a belfie (a "selfie of your bum") to a friend, who posted it on Facebook; her son won't look up from his phone; and she hasn't had sex with her husband in months. Further muddying the waters is a man from her past, who reasserts himself in her life just as her marriage stagnates. Pearson maintains a humorous tone throughout, wresting laughs from her lead's lowest moments and greatest triumphs. Pearson also 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. 250,000-copy announced first printing.
Customer Reviews
Enjoyed this
As a retired 58-yr-old female lawyer with two grown kids and a husband, this book was real enough to bring back the memories and silly enough that the memories weren’t too painful! HOW do we do it? I know why, but that doesn’t make it any easier! Maybe the “how” is to keep laughing with our comrades.
Great, fun, read!
Totally loved this book -actually laughed out loud many times while reading it! Women of a certain age will totally identify with Kate and hopefully we will all come through as well as she did!