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Still Life With Husband
Meet Emily Ross, thirty years old, married to her college sweetheart, and personal advocate for cake at breakfast time.
Meet Emily's husband, Kevin, a sweet technical writer with a passion for small appliances and a teary weakness for Little Women.
Enter David, a sexy young reporter with longish floppy hair and the kind of face Emily feels the weird impulse to lick.
In this captivating novel of marriage and friendship, Lauren Fox explores the baffling human heart and the dangers of getting what you wish for.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Meet Emily's husband, Kevin, a sweet technical writer with a passion for small appliances and a teary weakness for Little Women.
Enter David, a sexy young reporter with longish floppy hair and the kind of face Emily feels the weird impulse to lick.
In this captivating novel of marriage and friendship, Lauren Fox explores the baffling human heart and the dangers of getting what you wish for.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
33 people are currently reading
937 people want to read
About the author
Lauren Fox
4 books428 followersI was born in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, into a family full of love, support, and very little grist for the dramatic mill. I knew from an early age that I wanted to be a writer, and decided that my best bet was to make stuff up. My first attempts at fiction included a tragic story about a blind Mexican orphan, and a tragic tale about a horse who dies, tragically, in a barn fire.
By the time I got to college and enrolled in a few creative writing classes, I learned the adage, “write what you know,” and began churning out stories about the unhappy love lives of young, thin-skinned, near-sighted, sarcastic, curly haired girls. My first published short story, which appeared in a nationally distributed college magazine, used the structure of the game show Jeopardy! to trace the demise of a relationship. (I’ll take ‘the slow erosion of my self-esteem’ for $200, Alex.) I was pleased that I had finally created fiction out of my two favorite pastimes: tv-watching and borderline obsessive pining over unavailable men.
After college I moved around a bit, living in Washington, DC and then for a while back in Madison, Wisconsin, bravely conducting field research for my stories about lonely women in their twenties who can’t find a date. In graduate school in Minneapolis, I took a brief detour from fiction and began writing about my family’s history and the Holocaust, which was fun.
When I was twenty-six, I met a nice boy from Dublin who put an end to my anthropological studies of loneliness and heartbreak. Luckily, I had gathered enough material to last for a while.
I now live in Milwaukee with my husband and two daughters.
By the time I got to college and enrolled in a few creative writing classes, I learned the adage, “write what you know,” and began churning out stories about the unhappy love lives of young, thin-skinned, near-sighted, sarcastic, curly haired girls. My first published short story, which appeared in a nationally distributed college magazine, used the structure of the game show Jeopardy! to trace the demise of a relationship. (I’ll take ‘the slow erosion of my self-esteem’ for $200, Alex.) I was pleased that I had finally created fiction out of my two favorite pastimes: tv-watching and borderline obsessive pining over unavailable men.
After college I moved around a bit, living in Washington, DC and then for a while back in Madison, Wisconsin, bravely conducting field research for my stories about lonely women in their twenties who can’t find a date. In graduate school in Minneapolis, I took a brief detour from fiction and began writing about my family’s history and the Holocaust, which was fun.
When I was twenty-six, I met a nice boy from Dublin who put an end to my anthropological studies of loneliness and heartbreak. Luckily, I had gathered enough material to last for a while.
I now live in Milwaukee with my husband and two daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 178 reviews
October 11, 2011
Oh my goodness... how to rate this book?
'Still Life with Husband' is Emily's story. She's a thirtysomething freelance journalist with a job she likes, a nice home, good friends, and a husband who loves her completely. What's wrong with all that? She gets bored. She gets stressed by the thought of living in the suburbs. She is irritated by her husband's requests that she consider having the child they'd agreed that both wanted.
So what does she do? She starts an affair with a slightly younger, slightly 'edgier' photographer. And slowly throws her life away.
First, let me say that this book hooked me at the library. I picked it up and giggled my way through the first couple of chapters. Emily talks and thinks (at that point) much like I do with my friends. So I took it home, read the rest... and by the end would have cheerfully slapped her face right off of her head. After starting a hitman fund for her husband. Before helping him hide the body.
The woman who was funny and slightly cynical at the beginning is revealed to have depths of self-centeredness and self-interest that truly shocked me. I don't want to give away too much here, but suffice to say that I was upset about this book for a few days--hell, it makes me mad thinking about it right now.
...And there's the rub. Despite my intense NEED to trash this book, neither it nor Fox deserves that. For her to create a character that I hate with the burning passion that I hate Emily... well, that takes TALENT. I haven't hated a character like this since 'The Great Santini' (Pat Conroy), and I read a LOT of books.
Being fair, Lauren Fox is a fine writer. Her characters are true, in the finest sense of the word. How tempting must it have been to have Emily's character redeemed at the end, how easy and reader-satisfying? I admire Fox so much for not doing that. Emily is at the end as she was in the beginning. People don't change much, after all. The dialogue in this book is just spot on, an evocation of the way real women speak (at least in my world). And each situation, every damned one, is plausible.
I still don't like this book, but it isn't because of the writing. If you can admire that without getting personally involved with the characters (and I couldn't manage that), this really is a lovely, well-written book.
Which I intend on forgetting as soon as I can.
'Still Life with Husband' is Emily's story. She's a thirtysomething freelance journalist with a job she likes, a nice home, good friends, and a husband who loves her completely. What's wrong with all that? She gets bored. She gets stressed by the thought of living in the suburbs. She is irritated by her husband's requests that she consider having the child they'd agreed that both wanted.
So what does she do? She starts an affair with a slightly younger, slightly 'edgier' photographer. And slowly throws her life away.
First, let me say that this book hooked me at the library. I picked it up and giggled my way through the first couple of chapters. Emily talks and thinks (at that point) much like I do with my friends. So I took it home, read the rest... and by the end would have cheerfully slapped her face right off of her head. After starting a hitman fund for her husband. Before helping him hide the body.
The woman who was funny and slightly cynical at the beginning is revealed to have depths of self-centeredness and self-interest that truly shocked me. I don't want to give away too much here, but suffice to say that I was upset about this book for a few days--hell, it makes me mad thinking about it right now.
...And there's the rub. Despite my intense NEED to trash this book, neither it nor Fox deserves that. For her to create a character that I hate with the burning passion that I hate Emily... well, that takes TALENT. I haven't hated a character like this since 'The Great Santini' (Pat Conroy), and I read a LOT of books.
Being fair, Lauren Fox is a fine writer. Her characters are true, in the finest sense of the word. How tempting must it have been to have Emily's character redeemed at the end, how easy and reader-satisfying? I admire Fox so much for not doing that. Emily is at the end as she was in the beginning. People don't change much, after all. The dialogue in this book is just spot on, an evocation of the way real women speak (at least in my world). And each situation, every damned one, is plausible.
I still don't like this book, but it isn't because of the writing. If you can admire that without getting personally involved with the characters (and I couldn't manage that), this really is a lovely, well-written book.
Which I intend on forgetting as soon as I can.
February 1, 2013
Ugh. This book was just bad. I didn't even want to finish it, but I kept going, hoping it would get better. It wasn't the writing that was the problem. It was the main character. She was just not a nice person. She was annoying and selfish and just awful. I was hoping she'd redeem herself in the end, but she didn't. I don't mind a book not having a happy ending because that's reality. But this character just never got any better. Very disappointing.
April 27, 2008
Despite Knopf saddling this novel with an atrocious, obvious-as-hell marketing ploy of a cover, this novel wants to be taken seriously. I mean, Ms. Michiko Kakutani herself gives it her imprimatur (or at least Lauren Fox's writing), as the copy makes ample note of.
And, while I was reading this novel (as a much needed speed read break from W.G. Sebald's On the Natural History of Destruction) I did it enjoy it enough. But, as soon as I had finished it, and really started thinking about how slight it felt, I realized I didn't really like it at all (I mean, it isn't a reprehensible piece of work or anything, just... thin).
I started this book with more than an open mind. Anyone who knows me well has likely heard my rant about the inherent sexism of the "chick-lit" label and those who decry novels they believe fall under this heading, and how such criticisms typically embody a lazy, easy way to dismiss the validity of female experience, especially if it--god forbid--pertains to love.
Furthermore, the subject of the book lies close to my heart at this moment in time, as it focuses on a young woman who experiences ambivalence about the institution of marriage (or at least I thought that was what the book was about, although I would now argue that it is not about that at all).
The plot is straightforward, which is no great crime in its own right, of course. Emily Ross is 30 years old and married to her college sweetheart (they've been together for nine years and married for five). She and her husband Kevin have reached an impasse: he wants to have children and move to the 'burbs; she doesn't want to have children (at least with him), and wants to stay in their urban Milwaukee apartment. One day at the local coffee shop she meets a handsome stranger with whom she feels an instant connection. The rest is history.
Lauren Fox has a gift for zippy one liners, and her observations on many subjects--from friendship to family dynamics--are biting and astute. Fox is honest about Emily's choices, which I appreciated. On a personal note, however, Emily reminded me of the many boring Midwesterners I know who go to their local state university, move back to the city or town in which they grew up, and have all the same friends they've had since high school, so I wasn't particularly keen on keeping company with her, but I acknowledge that this is a bias on my part, and doesn't mark a flaw in the writing.
The real flaw of the book is that in a novel about cheating and the dissolution of a marriage, we the readers have to believe that there is something real and meaningful at stake, a loss of a certain magnitude, in order to care about what happens, or to believe that the person who has to make said difficult choices is experiencing actual conflict. That does not happen in this novel.
I've been trying to figure what missteps Ms. Fox made, and I think that the biggest issue is her choice to not only start us in medias res vis a vis the boredom of E. and K.'s marriage, but to also forgo any real or sizable flashbacks that convincingly illustrate that Emily was ever in love with Kevin.
Lauren Fox makes sure that we understand that Emily is a fairly conventional, analytical person who doesn't experience great passions (a possible justification for my above complaint) so that we GET IT when she does experience irrational, unexplainable passion for her dark, tall, and handsome stranger, David Keller. But David and Kevin are not ultimately developed all that differently, which is to say thinly. They're both good guys. They're both good at what they do. They both love Emily. Yawn.
Only Emily's best friend, Meg, is as remotely well drawn as Emily, and it is their relationship that seems to be at the core of the book. I can't help but wonder why Lauren Fox didn't write a book primarily about friendship, given that it seems like that is really what this novel inclines toward.
Her take on the possible complexities of marriage is predictable and boring; in other words, not complex. This is not a book, in my opinion, in any way really about marriage, about which there are actually interesting, unpredictable, intelligent, complex, nuanced potentialities to explore.
Basically, I feel like this book is a bit fraudulent. It wants to be serious literature; it isn't. Knopf wants certain buyers to believe it is a fun, frothy piece of Chick-Lit. It isn't. Instead, it occupies this tepid, non-confrontational middle ground, just like the setting in which it takes place.
I can't wait to leave the Midwest.
P.s. Can we ban publishers from comparing any retarded book that touches on adultery to Madame Bovary? It should be obvious, but despite the jacket copy, this is no fucking Madame Bovary.
And, while I was reading this novel (as a much needed speed read break from W.G. Sebald's On the Natural History of Destruction) I did it enjoy it enough. But, as soon as I had finished it, and really started thinking about how slight it felt, I realized I didn't really like it at all (I mean, it isn't a reprehensible piece of work or anything, just... thin).
I started this book with more than an open mind. Anyone who knows me well has likely heard my rant about the inherent sexism of the "chick-lit" label and those who decry novels they believe fall under this heading, and how such criticisms typically embody a lazy, easy way to dismiss the validity of female experience, especially if it--god forbid--pertains to love.
Furthermore, the subject of the book lies close to my heart at this moment in time, as it focuses on a young woman who experiences ambivalence about the institution of marriage (or at least I thought that was what the book was about, although I would now argue that it is not about that at all).
The plot is straightforward, which is no great crime in its own right, of course. Emily Ross is 30 years old and married to her college sweetheart (they've been together for nine years and married for five). She and her husband Kevin have reached an impasse: he wants to have children and move to the 'burbs; she doesn't want to have children (at least with him), and wants to stay in their urban Milwaukee apartment. One day at the local coffee shop she meets a handsome stranger with whom she feels an instant connection. The rest is history.
Lauren Fox has a gift for zippy one liners, and her observations on many subjects--from friendship to family dynamics--are biting and astute. Fox is honest about Emily's choices, which I appreciated. On a personal note, however, Emily reminded me of the many boring Midwesterners I know who go to their local state university, move back to the city or town in which they grew up, and have all the same friends they've had since high school, so I wasn't particularly keen on keeping company with her, but I acknowledge that this is a bias on my part, and doesn't mark a flaw in the writing.
The real flaw of the book is that in a novel about cheating and the dissolution of a marriage, we the readers have to believe that there is something real and meaningful at stake, a loss of a certain magnitude, in order to care about what happens, or to believe that the person who has to make said difficult choices is experiencing actual conflict. That does not happen in this novel.
I've been trying to figure what missteps Ms. Fox made, and I think that the biggest issue is her choice to not only start us in medias res vis a vis the boredom of E. and K.'s marriage, but to also forgo any real or sizable flashbacks that convincingly illustrate that Emily was ever in love with Kevin.
Lauren Fox makes sure that we understand that Emily is a fairly conventional, analytical person who doesn't experience great passions (a possible justification for my above complaint) so that we GET IT when she does experience irrational, unexplainable passion for her dark, tall, and handsome stranger, David Keller. But David and Kevin are not ultimately developed all that differently, which is to say thinly. They're both good guys. They're both good at what they do. They both love Emily. Yawn.
Only Emily's best friend, Meg, is as remotely well drawn as Emily, and it is their relationship that seems to be at the core of the book. I can't help but wonder why Lauren Fox didn't write a book primarily about friendship, given that it seems like that is really what this novel inclines toward.
Her take on the possible complexities of marriage is predictable and boring; in other words, not complex. This is not a book, in my opinion, in any way really about marriage, about which there are actually interesting, unpredictable, intelligent, complex, nuanced potentialities to explore.
Basically, I feel like this book is a bit fraudulent. It wants to be serious literature; it isn't. Knopf wants certain buyers to believe it is a fun, frothy piece of Chick-Lit. It isn't. Instead, it occupies this tepid, non-confrontational middle ground, just like the setting in which it takes place.
I can't wait to leave the Midwest.
P.s. Can we ban publishers from comparing any retarded book that touches on adultery to Madame Bovary? It should be obvious, but despite the jacket copy, this is no fucking Madame Bovary.
May 3, 2014
This book is about adultery.
Most books I read about this subject focus on the single man or woman (usually woman) who is in love with the married person.
This book is told through the eyes of the cheater.
Emily Ross is having difficulties in her marriage. She meets a man on a day she's forgotten to wear her wedding ring. He pursues her. She develops a crush on him. She tries to resist and fails.
I thought Emily was a well-written character. I felt sympathy for her and understanding; rather than seeing her as a horrible villainous wife.
There were some odd lines in the book that I questioned. Trivial things though. One had someone swallowing their dry spit. How can spit be dry? Can it? I would think it would just evaporate and then there'd be nothing left to swallow.
Then there was something else. I forgot the exact line. Maybe someone made a sympathetic gurgling noise in the back of their throat. Something like that. I couldn't imagine what that could be.
I didn't like the "postscript" of the novel. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a metaphor and it connects to something mentioned earlier in the book. I do like endings that go back to the beginning. But this time it didn't work for me. But maybe my brain didn't connect the dots well enough.
Most books I read about this subject focus on the single man or woman (usually woman) who is in love with the married person.
This book is told through the eyes of the cheater.
Emily Ross is having difficulties in her marriage. She meets a man on a day she's forgotten to wear her wedding ring. He pursues her. She develops a crush on him. She tries to resist and fails.
I thought Emily was a well-written character. I felt sympathy for her and understanding; rather than seeing her as a horrible villainous wife.
There were some odd lines in the book that I questioned. Trivial things though. One had someone swallowing their dry spit. How can spit be dry? Can it? I would think it would just evaporate and then there'd be nothing left to swallow.
Then there was something else. I forgot the exact line. Maybe someone made a sympathetic gurgling noise in the back of their throat. Something like that. I couldn't imagine what that could be.
I didn't like the "postscript" of the novel. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a metaphor and it connects to something mentioned earlier in the book. I do like endings that go back to the beginning. But this time it didn't work for me. But maybe my brain didn't connect the dots well enough.
September 14, 2007
Is it wrong not to want to do what everyone expects? To the world, thirty-year old Emily Ross seems to be happily married to Kevin, a sensitive guy, for nearly nine years. She knows that she should be yearning to get to the next stage in her life, a house in the suburbs and a baby in the near future, at least that’s what Kevin and her mother tell her. Lately, a strangling sense of suffocation in a marriage that seems to be getting tedious is all Emily feels. A chance meeting at a coffee shop with David, a writer for the local newspaper, spins Emily’s life in an unexpected direction. A genuine and sometimes humorous look at expectations and relationships.
January 3, 2010
Liked the writing and sassy one-liners, but felt the author was a bit muddled between comic chick-lit and something much darker. When a woman cheats on her husband, gets pregnant with her lover's child, gets dumped by both the husband and the lover, and ends up sitting in her parents' house without a clue, I am left not really caring much about her, her choices, or her future. Had at least one element of the story ended with a hint of forward-moving resolution I would have gone for four stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 15, 2012
This book is all wrong in so many ways. There are attempts at humour in Ms Fox's writing style that just don't align with the story she is trying to tell. She's excessively descriptive with so many minor details (I found myself scanning through paragraphs at times just to get to the point), and yet the lack of clarity regarding her relationship with David leaves me somewhat frustrated and at a loss to understand why she takes the risks she does. I'm not talking about providing the reader with all the sordid details under the sheets - but the author is unconvincing in her portrayal of the illicit draw between two characters. Overall the story lacks depth and left me feeling quite unmoved.
May 30, 2012
I understand feeling disillusioned and scared and lost in a marriage: most married people have felt that way at one time or another. However, most of us try something that NEVER occurred to the spoiled Emily Ross: we talk to our spouse. We share our feelings, our disappointments, our fears. Nope, not Little Miss 'The Pill Makes Me Cranky'. Poor Kevin wanders haplessly along thinking everything's honky dory while his wife is stewing in her own self-doubt and planning her next liaison.
Life with Kevin is boring yet Emily feels her life is moving too fast. Sorry, you don't get to take a vacation from your life (and morals) without leaving some heartache in your wake.
Emily Ross didn't come across as a 'well-rounded protagonist' to me. Frankly I found her annoying, self-centered and selfish to the extreme. I was not invested in her as a character, I didn't care what happened to her. Actually I did care - I wanted her to suffer. I wanted her to learn from her mistakes, to exam her actions and attitudes. After a few sniffles and couple of pages of 'woe is me' she seemed to waltz right on with her life, friends and family intact and a trail of destruction behind her. By the end of the book I wanted to punch her in the face and run off with her husband. (Gee, can you tell I didn't like her?)
Despite my feelings about the main character, I have to say, Ms. Fox is a good writer and I have to give her props for drawing me in, even if I didn't like where she was taking me.
Full review at: PolishedBookworm.com
November 10, 2012
I am head over heels in love with Fox's writing style. This book is just as funny as her second (Friends Like Us), and populated with equally as witty characters. Emily has been with Kevin for nine years, and their marriage is comfortable… maybe too comfortable. Her best friend Meg is also married, but happily so, and she and her husband are thrilled at Meg's pregnancy. Emily, on the other hand, is being pressured to get pregnant and move to the suburbs by her husband, and she has no interest in either of those life changes. When Emily meets David, she starts to wonder what might have happened if she had met him before she met her husband, and if she could possibly rectify that situation. The book is very realistic, and I love how Fox doesn't make everything seem like a movie scene, and doesn't smooth everything over for a happy ending. It's a very minor part of the book, but so hilarious that I have to bring it to light: Emily is a freelance writer, but she also likes to write poetry, just for fun. And not your typical love poetry, but what she calls "love poems to nonhumans." That phrase alone cracks me up… "nonhumans." Emily has a whole series planned, but in this book she is focusing on fish, and thankfully some of the poems are shared with the reader. Every time I read one I had to put the book down and laugh for a good five minutes. So witty!
January 1, 2016
I picked this book up because I had read Fox's Days of Awe and was impressed with her interesting approach to exploring grief with engaging characters and an unpredictable plot. This novel was her first and does not seem to have as much nuance and memorable prose. While I was invested in the outcome of whether the main character Emily would stay with her husband Kevin who she fell into "like" with or end up with the dashing David (or none of the above), the writing felt "light"--reviews on the back compared her to Lorrie Moore (including a favorable review by Moore), but I find Moore's humor to be more biting and cynical, more to my liking, I suppose. So not a "bad" book, but not really a great one either--marriage is maybe hard to write about as I was not a big fan of Fates and Furies that so many others loved, partly because I didn't think it had enough to say about matrimony. On a side note, those in the Milwaukee area might appreciate all the Southeast Wisconsin references that she curiously changes a little, so you recognize them, but they are slightly different (Mars Cheese Castle is Jupiter?? Go figure.)
October 2, 2011
I loved this book up until the time the character made a really stupid choice. But then I decided that we all make really stupid choices all the time. So, I stuck around to see what would happen. To see it unfold before your very eyes with someone else makes you want to scream "don't do it!" And then when they do it any way, you want to scream, "Oh no she didn't!" That's how I felt through this whole book. I simultaneously wanted to slap and shake and hug the main character. And then I was cringing to make sure the author didn't make it all happy in the end, and thank goodness, she didn't. As much as this book is depressing, it's also pretty real life. People screw up, people deal with the screw up, people get hurt, people move on. The truth hurts. And hindsight is 20/20.
September 10, 2012
Unsatisfying is the word I'd use to describe this book.
I really enjoyed reading the book, but in the end I felt more than a little cheated. When I invest my time in reading a book, I want it to deliver.
The characters were very well drawn. I liked them all, could really feel them. There are some very funny parts too, that had me laugh out loud.
There needed to be one more chapter. Characters story was just left hanging. I don;t like that. Even if things were "unresolvable", I want some clue as to where it may go.
That being said, I'd recommend this as a light summer/ vacation/beach read.
Side note, My hubs looked at the cover more than once with an annoyed look on his face. Lol.
I really enjoyed reading the book, but in the end I felt more than a little cheated. When I invest my time in reading a book, I want it to deliver.
The characters were very well drawn. I liked them all, could really feel them. There are some very funny parts too, that had me laugh out loud.
There needed to be one more chapter. Characters story was just left hanging. I don;t like that. Even if things were "unresolvable", I want some clue as to where it may go.
That being said, I'd recommend this as a light summer/ vacation/beach read.
Side note, My hubs looked at the cover more than once with an annoyed look on his face. Lol.
February 27, 2010
My sister-in-law gave this book to me after she'd finished it. We were in a cabin (read: decked out wooden house) on the Pacific Coast. She seemed mixed about it. I read it. It was like candy. Maybe liquor. Smooth, went down easily, spelled destruction. The moment I finished it, I didn't like it as much as I had the moment before. I had the feeling it began as a much, much longer book, as parts of it felt like they were missing. It may take this kind of editing to be a NY Times bestseller.
February 11, 2013
Embarrassed to have read this book, which I mistook for a memoir after reading an excerpt on Kindle. Lauren Fox story of a woman's extramarital affair reads like a skimpy script for a made-for-TV movie. The transitions are clumsy and unrealistic, and there's little to account for the motivations at play. One step shy of a creepy "romantic novel," this book left me feeling disappointed in both myself and the author.
July 8, 2010
I'd never heard of this book or author, and just picked it up in a thrift store. It was so good I finished it fast, and actually loved the ending. I guess it could be defined as well-written chick lit, but I mostly loved the commentary on relationships. It was sad and funny, but mostly just real.
March 4, 2012
Did not enjoy this book at all. Read a great review for her second novel, "Friends Like Us." The library did not currently have it so I figured I try out her first book instead. I kept waiting for something to happen, which nothing did. There is hardly any character development and there is absolutely no conclusion to the story. Waste of time.
February 26, 2016
Horrendous. The mediocre writing is one of the better things about this book. It features an odious, selfish main character. Also, bad, pointless bits of "poetry" about marine life (where was the editor?) and, perhaps showing the author's first-novel inexperience, absolutely no resolution of plot. Really, really poor.
January 9, 2013
I hated this book.
Let me break it down for you: Emily screws around on her husband, ruins her marriage, and winds up pregnant - not knowing who the father is. The End. Seriously, that's all that happens. I was not impressed.
Let me break it down for you: Emily screws around on her husband, ruins her marriage, and winds up pregnant - not knowing who the father is. The End. Seriously, that's all that happens. I was not impressed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 6, 2016
I really really like this author's style. I love how she unapologetically gives us a main character who royally fucks up her life with nobody to blame but herself. I can see how that's a hard sell, and this is not as polished as her other ones but I am definitely a fan.
July 25, 2013
This is a funny look at a woman's many moments of "Oh crap. How did I end up HERE?". I thought it was a promising debut for this first time author.
September 21, 2008
Suprisingly right on when expressing the inner workings of a young wife's mind. A little scary.
May 5, 2021
I wanted to give this 3.5 stars. I can't do 4, so I guess it's 3.
I liked the writing style but man, infidelity is one of my least favourite topics.
I liked the writing style but man, infidelity is one of my least favourite topics.
December 9, 2021
Difficult. Complex. Realistic.
A cautionary tale. A common story.
A cautionary tale. A common story.
October 25, 2020
Beautifully written, hilarious, and unforgettable. I loved this book, and this author is one of my absolute all-time favorites. If you love Lorrie Moore, you will adore this book and everything else this author has written. Five stars.
January 3, 2012
I'm hovering between two and three stars and I will say as a little disclaimer that I don't often rate books/write reviews because it can be hard to be objective.
I just finished Still Life with Husband and I wasn't sure what I was going to expect from the blurb. I'm the first to admit that I'm not someone who really reads "chick-lit" (if this is what this is classed as) nor do I usually go for books with the casual dialogue that this one has (unless it's tied to a specific genre I read).
There has been some interesting discussion online of late regarding HEA so if that's what you're looking for this book is not for you. I don't go out of my way to find books that make me uncomfortable but it's good to push yourself outside of your comfort zone, in fact I'm still uncomfortable now and it's been a few hours since I've finished reading it.
The writing is fine, and the internal dialogue is good. Characters are relateable to a certain extent and yes, I think many women have been there — perhaps not the "I'm falling into an affair" situation but definitely suddenly wondering how it is you got here — here being exactly where you are in life now.
I will say Kevin made me quite angry with his little proclamation, and I think that could have been so much more of a turning point in the book. Unfortunately I felt our protagonist seems to enter some sort of teenage rebellion twilight zone. Kevin in many ways was just as selfish as Emily. It does disturb me that there is the cliché of the doting husband who is so wonderful and dedicated that it seems to absolve him of any flaws that he has because of course, that's what all women want... right?
That being said, I'm not saying he deserved it. I don't really believe anyone deserves that, but to me he just didn't have enough redeeming qualities, (or I didn't find them redeeming enough), for me to feel more empathetic towards towards him. My emotional response came from my own bias.
The book is a good example of how we can easily lose our way and do completely uncharateristic things, unfortunately Emily just succumbs to selfishness and there doesn't appear to be any growth or real comprehension. It seems she's just going through the motions and in the end of the book it seemed everyone was hurt in one way or another and all we were left with was "@$#&! happens, but life goes on".
Plenty of potential sacrificed by a brave yet possibly unpopular ending.
I just finished Still Life with Husband and I wasn't sure what I was going to expect from the blurb. I'm the first to admit that I'm not someone who really reads "chick-lit" (if this is what this is classed as) nor do I usually go for books with the casual dialogue that this one has (unless it's tied to a specific genre I read).
There has been some interesting discussion online of late regarding HEA so if that's what you're looking for this book is not for you. I don't go out of my way to find books that make me uncomfortable but it's good to push yourself outside of your comfort zone, in fact I'm still uncomfortable now and it's been a few hours since I've finished reading it.
The writing is fine, and the internal dialogue is good. Characters are relateable to a certain extent and yes, I think many women have been there — perhaps not the "I'm falling into an affair" situation but definitely suddenly wondering how it is you got here — here being exactly where you are in life now.
I will say Kevin made me quite angry with his little proclamation, and I think that could have been so much more of a turning point in the book. Unfortunately I felt our protagonist seems to enter some sort of teenage rebellion twilight zone. Kevin in many ways was just as selfish as Emily. It does disturb me that there is the cliché of the doting husband who is so wonderful and dedicated that it seems to absolve him of any flaws that he has because of course, that's what all women want... right?
That being said, I'm not saying he deserved it. I don't really believe anyone deserves that, but to me he just didn't have enough redeeming qualities, (or I didn't find them redeeming enough), for me to feel more empathetic towards towards him. My emotional response came from my own bias.
The book is a good example of how we can easily lose our way and do completely uncharateristic things, unfortunately Emily just succumbs to selfishness and there doesn't appear to be any growth or real comprehension. It seems she's just going through the motions and in the end of the book it seemed everyone was hurt in one way or another and all we were left with was "@$#&! happens, but life goes on".
Plenty of potential sacrificed by a brave yet possibly unpopular ending.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 26, 2011
Still Life with Husband is told from the first person point of view of Emily as she wends her way through the mess she makes of her life over several weeks. That's not to say that Emily was not already dissatisfied with her life, however the choices she makes specifically during this time frame actually force her to own up to what really wants out of life. The novel primarily centers on Emily's struggles with her marriage to Kevin, her conflicted feelings of her infidelity, the consequences of her decisions and how she handles it all. It's also about Emily learning to essentially take charge of her own happiness. There are also well crafted story threads involving Emily's relationships with her best friend Meg, her sister Heather and her parents, all of which added richness to Emily's story.
Still Life With Husband is adeptly written in an extremely compelling, articulate and very expressive voice. There's both fantastic humor and depth of emotion at every page and while the plot is not complicated, not once did it feel the least bit predictable and was, in fact, quite the page turner. I didn't want to put the book down, and when I did, I kept wondering what Emily was going to think, feel or do next. What were the consequences of those actions going to be, who was going to get hurt, and how was Emily going to straighten out her life? Would she even straighten out her life? What good could possibly come of this? All I could do was to keep reading.
Truthfully, when I read the book blurb after it was announced as the April [2011] book club selection, I was hesitant to read a novel about infidelity. I didn't want to empathize with a protagonist who was cheating on her husband and even worse, I was afraid that the author would glorify infidelity as a whole in some way. Thankfully, neither of those things happened, which I think is a testament to the author's skill at sharing Emily's journey in a way the she could be your sister or your friend. You like her, you know her, you even came to completely understand her even though you don't agree with her actions and yet through it all ... you were there for her.
Still Life With Husband is adeptly written in an extremely compelling, articulate and very expressive voice. There's both fantastic humor and depth of emotion at every page and while the plot is not complicated, not once did it feel the least bit predictable and was, in fact, quite the page turner. I didn't want to put the book down, and when I did, I kept wondering what Emily was going to think, feel or do next. What were the consequences of those actions going to be, who was going to get hurt, and how was Emily going to straighten out her life? Would she even straighten out her life? What good could possibly come of this? All I could do was to keep reading.
Truthfully, when I read the book blurb after it was announced as the April [2011] book club selection, I was hesitant to read a novel about infidelity. I didn't want to empathize with a protagonist who was cheating on her husband and even worse, I was afraid that the author would glorify infidelity as a whole in some way. Thankfully, neither of those things happened, which I think is a testament to the author's skill at sharing Emily's journey in a way the she could be your sister or your friend. You like her, you know her, you even came to completely understand her even though you don't agree with her actions and yet through it all ... you were there for her.
January 8, 2014
Hmmm...I know they say that you don't have to like a character, that she only need be compelling, but I struggled with Emily, the train wreck in Still Life with Husband throughout the book. To be fair, I was asked to read it for a writing class. I'd never heard of the title or the author before, so approached it like I'd expect something that had to be read. Outside of trying to sympathize with a woman who has completely screwed up her life, her weakness as a human was just too much to deal with. As for the writing, it felt as if the author was trying to make a situation which could in no way be humorous to anyone, funny. Adultery? Good one. Yes, it happens, but it's never funny. Any story that could be salvaged was mucked up with every single thought Emily had about everything, at every moment. In the end, as much as I can say some lines make me chuckle, and that Emily's friendship with Meg was endearing, or that her thoughts about Kevin, the man she's known for nine years and currently married to, definitely plausible, it was all too much. If I had chosen to read this book of my own accord (and I would not have) I wouldn't have made it past page 4. In fact when I first opened it to begin reading, I put it down after page 4, waiting until the last minute to read the whole thing for my class. Two stars is a gift.
March 18, 2012
Emily Ross is a thirty two year old freelace writer, strikingly unique with shoulder length hair. She is married to Kevin a technical writer who is obsessed with procreation. He dislikes raises cause of their resemblance to mouses, and he tries to resurrect the flame that died in his marriage. In the midst of her busy schedule, Emily spends quality time with Meg a person she envies because of the guys that are attracted to her. While dining out, Emily meets David a sexy reporter that tries to seek her company and affection. Contemplating on having an affair, she seeks the alternative that is living with a stranger in bed with her husband. Now she has to make a decision that will ultimately change her view on marriage and life. This book started off promising, I love how developed the characters were and how witty the book was, but the story was not consistent. It went from Emily trying to save her marriage, to Meg midlife crisis and Kevin being naive to what was going on, behind closed doors. I also hated how the book ended,it left a lot of unanswered questions and it never confirmed my suspicious.
August 28, 2015
Another book I'm clearly not in the demographic it was written for. But I know someone by the name of Lauren Fox, so I had to give this Ms. Fox a try.
Thirty year old Emily is bored with her husband of five years. And frustrated. He want's children and a house in the suburbs, ...NOW! She doesn't want either. But he won't stop pressuring her. She meets some hot guy in a coffee shop. It's just a matter of time before the inevitable happens, and the beast with two backs rears it's head.
This could have been some melodramatic soap-opera, but Ms. Fox actually gives us a light, breezy, mildly comedic story. At least until the you-know-what hits the fan. So despite the obviousness of the story-line arc, and the constant whining of our protagonist for the first half of the book, it was ultimately a light, enjoyable read.
Thirty year old Emily is bored with her husband of five years. And frustrated. He want's children and a house in the suburbs, ...NOW! She doesn't want either. But he won't stop pressuring her. She meets some hot guy in a coffee shop. It's just a matter of time before the inevitable happens, and the beast with two backs rears it's head.
This could have been some melodramatic soap-opera, but Ms. Fox actually gives us a light, breezy, mildly comedic story. At least until the you-know-what hits the fan. So despite the obviousness of the story-line arc, and the constant whining of our protagonist for the first half of the book, it was ultimately a light, enjoyable read.
September 6, 2008
Emily Ross feels trapped. Her husband is badgering her to move to the suburbs and start popping out little ones...her job is stultifying at best...she is unwittingly setting herself up to have an affair. In comes David and Emily is sucked into the allure of something new, something different.
Lauren Fox can certainly write...she has a way with words that makes me wish she wrote something besides "chick-lit." Because unfortunately, that's simply what this book is. The plot was mediocre and the ending really wasn't all that shocking. I feel like I've read this story about a dozen times before. It's really a shame because LF has this introspective spin to her words and thoughts that I found very refreshing.
Lauren Fox can certainly write...she has a way with words that makes me wish she wrote something besides "chick-lit." Because unfortunately, that's simply what this book is. The plot was mediocre and the ending really wasn't all that shocking. I feel like I've read this story about a dozen times before. It's really a shame because LF has this introspective spin to her words and thoughts that I found very refreshing.
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