A Non-Review: The Ten Year Nap

I rarely do this, so I thought it blog-worthy: I actually gave up on a book. I'd skimmed a few reviews of Meg Wolitzer's The Ten Year Nap but hadn't really paid much attention. But when I saw the book in the "New Books" section of the library, I picked it up along with a few other titles that caught my eye (none of which were on my TBR list).

And as soon as I finished Briar Rose (whoops--haven't reviewed that one yet), I chose this Wolitzer book to start next.

Bad choice.

The conflict in the book is the internal and apparently eternal struggle of women who choose to leave the workforce and stay home with their kids. So the moms begin examining their choices once their kids hit grade school, wondering if the grass is greener and all that.

So the thing is: I didn't care about one single person in the 75 pages I read. You know that old Far Side cartoon about what the dog hears as the person speaks ("Blah, blah, blah, Ginger. Blah, blah, blah.")? That's how I felt. "Waa, waa, waa," says one SAHM to another. "Money, money, money," says one WAHM to a SAHM.

Boring. Nobody cares. Yawn.

Perhaps part of the whole apathy-for-characters thing is that this all happens in NYC, which is a different world from the one in which we non-urbanites live. We plebians don't do Exclusive Boys' Schools and Luncheon Dates/manicures. We don't have botox parties and nannies. I find it tedious to even read about such things, except perhaps for in The Nanny Diaries.

So, there's my non-review. I'll add this to the very short list of books upon which I gave up.