WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY?
Considered as the American answer to Alison Pearson’s I Don't Know How She Does It, Amy Scheibe's well written and funny debut What Do You Do All Day?
is surely to be a hit with women who enjoyed The Nanny Diaries
, Good in Bed
, or The Devil Wears Prada
.
Like the gals in those books, our mommy heroine, Jennifer Bradley is alone in Manhattan dealing with her unbalanced life. Except she's not really alone. She has a husband, Thom, who's away most of the time doing the bidding of his slimy boss; a classic monster-in-law, who she wishes would disappear; and several cool friends, including a handsome gay man with an adopted daughter, and a super smart African-American just-got-laid-off-from-work mom. Parenting her two kids, including precocious daughter, Georgia who hasn't found her personal Jesus yet, proves more than she can handle when her husband leaves for a three-month business trip.
I really enjoyed this book and felt more sympathetic towards Jennifer than the women The Nanny Diaries, Good in Bed
, or The Devil Wears Prada
. We're about the same age, went through the punk phase, had lousy ex-boyfriends, worked, found a great husband, and stayed home with the kids. Like Jennifer, I wonder if home is where I should be or if I should go back to work. And as a mother, I can relate to Jennifer's "how badly can I mess up my kids this week" motherhood anxiety. Plus she's smart, sarcastic, and a caring mom and friend.
Scheibe gives Jennifer's character credibility having her grow up as poor trailer trash complete with an alcoholic father, and a slightly sordid "before I had kids" life. She and Thom earned their fabulously funky, and well off life in a Chelsea loft by working hard and having a few lucky breaks.
Even so, What Do You Do All Day? has a fairly tale ending since almost everything, including the job and the monster-in-law issues, work out in the end. It's a bit implausible, but that's o.k. Mothers need a few more modern day fairy tails to aspire to after a long day in the mommy trenches.








