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Do Me, Do My Roots
It's about healing.
After a couple of rough years, Emily is finally getting things back together. She doesn't need to re-do everything at work three times, her young daughter's soccer uniform is almost always clean the day of a game, and meals are pretty darn reliable, too. But hey, becoming a widow at thirty-three kind of knocks the starch out of you.
It's about family.
Then Emily's dad has an Event (only her mom would call a minor heart attack that -- what is it, a bar mitzvah?). Next, her sister Claudia's ex-husband starts stealing their kids' Ritalin for the high -- and wouldn't you replace it with The Pill to teach him a lesson? (His unexpected, uh, frontal development was just a howlingly funny bonus -- honest.) And then Emily's relentlessly sensible oldest sister, Leah, dumps her businessman fiancé for a rock musician.
It's about never letting them see your gray.
Now Jake, Emily's best friend, seems to be spending a lot of time at her house. Which she likes way too much. Which is kind of confusing. So what's a girl to do, but call an emergency meeting of the sisters' monthly hair-color-and-gossip session, to make the world seem sane again?
After a couple of rough years, Emily is finally getting things back together. She doesn't need to re-do everything at work three times, her young daughter's soccer uniform is almost always clean the day of a game, and meals are pretty darn reliable, too. But hey, becoming a widow at thirty-three kind of knocks the starch out of you.
It's about family.
Then Emily's dad has an Event (only her mom would call a minor heart attack that -- what is it, a bar mitzvah?). Next, her sister Claudia's ex-husband starts stealing their kids' Ritalin for the high -- and wouldn't you replace it with The Pill to teach him a lesson? (His unexpected, uh, frontal development was just a howlingly funny bonus -- honest.) And then Emily's relentlessly sensible oldest sister, Leah, dumps her businessman fiancé for a rock musician.
It's about never letting them see your gray.
Now Jake, Emily's best friend, seems to be spending a lot of time at her house. Which she likes way too much. Which is kind of confusing. So what's a girl to do, but call an emergency meeting of the sisters' monthly hair-color-and-gossip session, to make the world seem sane again?
320 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2004
11 people are currently reading
356 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
October 25, 2012
This book is unashamedly Chick Lit and I rate it as compared to others in its genre. This is a story of sisters and girlfriends sharing their lives, their dreams, and their worries in ways that likely seems foreign to most guys but will ring true for many women readers. But Eileen Rendahl gives us more than a fluffy girly story here. She brings a special skill, a special heart to the writing that makes this women's story more real and more substantive than the Chick Lit genre often allows. Sure, there's talk of shoes and hair, but this is really only the superficial layer of a much richer story of women supporting one another through loss and through love in all its forms. Do Me, Do My Roots is touching, funny, and authentic. A lovely escape.
November 12, 2011
Do Me, Do My Roots is about Emily who is a young widow, and mother to a seven year daughter, who is clinging to her daughter, her parents, her husband's best friend who's suddenly romantically interested in her, and her sisters. There is a definite play on words in the title. The “Root” mean not only her relatives but also the primary female characters meet to touch up their roots each month, the sisters perform standard beauty shop fair as they agonize over their love lives or lack there of. They deal with family issues, health close-calls, and finding love in unexpected places. I loved this book and it made me wish for sisters (as I have none). The humor is hilarious and the sentiments are moving.
5 Stars
5 Stars
June 29, 2022
I enjoyed this book immensely. The relationship between the three sisters in the book reminded me of aspects of my relationship with my two sisters. The characters in the book seem as if they are real people. Rendahl does a great job with the familial relationships between the characters, which is a highlight of this book. The main character Emily has had a rough year, and her journey back to herself is very authentic to the grief experience.
This book made me laugh and cry. I loved it.
This book made me laugh and cry. I loved it.
July 21, 2018
A nice easy read with loud characters. The book is typical chick lit but at the same time much more family oriented with the main character's siblings then found in a lot of books of this genre. The ending seemed to come up with no real warning, I had to go back and make sure I hadn't skipped a page or two (I hadn't), and that's my only real complaint about this book.
August 2, 2020
Do Me, Do My Roots
An honest account of life after the loss of a spouse. The characters are believable, realistic, and downright funny at times. The reader is instilled into the fabric of the family. Highly recommend!
An honest account of life after the loss of a spouse. The characters are believable, realistic, and downright funny at times. The reader is instilled into the fabric of the family. Highly recommend!
April 24, 2020
Fun girl reading!!
September 22, 2022
must read
This book gives me all the feels. Read it you will love it. This is true life at its finest. The good, bad,and everything in between.
This book gives me all the feels. Read it you will love it. This is true life at its finest. The good, bad,and everything in between.
January 2, 2023
For those who enjoy a predictable romance, this is for you. Personally, I think there was potential for this book, but never quite executed that potential. It was flat in my opinion.
July 2, 2008
There is a certain category of "chick lit" that I never ever seek out. Occasionally, I get suckered into one; my mom loaned me "The Friday Night Knitting Club" an excellent example of this genre.
The premise is always that a group of disparate women (usually referred to as "the girls") have a tight sisterhood (literal or metaphorical) as they bounce through life's challenges. There's always a single mom, a super successful uptight one, a crazy and embarrassing older relative, and a variety of other one-dimensional characters easily summed up as three-adjective archetypes.
Men are pretty much either objects of derision, disgust, or impossible perfection.
The commonalities are actually pretty blatant. There is the universal quest for love, which include the trials of dating (usually including one or more disastrous and therefor hilarious bad dates).
The wacky family dramas which always include one holiday scene.
And then there's the cancer. There's always cancer. Sometimes the character dies. Sometimes it just draws everyone together and teaches valuable life lessons.
I accidentally grabbed this book because it was on a stack of Jennifer Crusie's for a quarter apiece and she never bothers with the serious crap. I must have misjudged my grab and then I was stuck with this as the only book I had one day when I was waiting for a few hours.
It opened with our main character as a young widow because he husband had just... died of cancer. WHOO, I thought. Let's get the big C out of the way early!
Then the utterly evitable line-up of characters -- the skinny perfectionist eldest sister, the beautiful middle one with a dirt bag heroin-shooting ex, and the wacky stereotypical Jewish mother. The love interest was the dead husband's best best best friend. There was a quirky kid, some very bad dates (including a SPANKER! OH, wow, look at the funny kinky people!), a drunken Thanksgiving scene with a old lady who groped hot young men.
And while it was not great, it was pleasantly mild and unoffensive. I laughed a few times. I didn't care about the characters but I don't hate them. It's certainly better than four-year-old auto magazines at the damned waiting room. And then, three quarters of the way through....
ONE OF THE SISTERS GETS CANCER!
Oh you've GOT to be kidding me!
What's more, it takes this extreme trauma for the main (spunky, EveryWoman single mom) main character to realize that she's in love with the stunning, devoted, sweet, kind, funny, unreasonably perfect man who has been throwing himself at her the whole book.
I kinda feel bad for literary cancer -- it's got such a heavy burden, teaching all these people all these lessons.
Oh, and did I mention that the dead husband showed up in a dream to tell her she deserved to be happy and should move on?
Anyway, the sister lives. Each sister winds up with the perfect man for her. They reaffirm their bond of sisterhood. They learn a little something about their mother and her sacrifices and feelings. And the dipshit ex-husband (who is stealing his kid's Ritalin) grows breasts because his wife puts her progesterone pills in the bottle. That was the funny thing that made this a two star instead of a one star rating.
The premise is always that a group of disparate women (usually referred to as "the girls") have a tight sisterhood (literal or metaphorical) as they bounce through life's challenges. There's always a single mom, a super successful uptight one, a crazy and embarrassing older relative, and a variety of other one-dimensional characters easily summed up as three-adjective archetypes.
Men are pretty much either objects of derision, disgust, or impossible perfection.
The commonalities are actually pretty blatant. There is the universal quest for love, which include the trials of dating (usually including one or more disastrous and therefor hilarious bad dates).
The wacky family dramas which always include one holiday scene.
And then there's the cancer. There's always cancer. Sometimes the character dies. Sometimes it just draws everyone together and teaches valuable life lessons.
I accidentally grabbed this book because it was on a stack of Jennifer Crusie's for a quarter apiece and she never bothers with the serious crap. I must have misjudged my grab and then I was stuck with this as the only book I had one day when I was waiting for a few hours.
It opened with our main character as a young widow because he husband had just... died of cancer. WHOO, I thought. Let's get the big C out of the way early!
Then the utterly evitable line-up of characters -- the skinny perfectionist eldest sister, the beautiful middle one with a dirt bag heroin-shooting ex, and the wacky stereotypical Jewish mother. The love interest was the dead husband's best best best friend. There was a quirky kid, some very bad dates (including a SPANKER! OH, wow, look at the funny kinky people!), a drunken Thanksgiving scene with a old lady who groped hot young men.
And while it was not great, it was pleasantly mild and unoffensive. I laughed a few times. I didn't care about the characters but I don't hate them. It's certainly better than four-year-old auto magazines at the damned waiting room. And then, three quarters of the way through....
ONE OF THE SISTERS GETS CANCER!
Oh you've GOT to be kidding me!
What's more, it takes this extreme trauma for the main (spunky, EveryWoman single mom) main character to realize that she's in love with the stunning, devoted, sweet, kind, funny, unreasonably perfect man who has been throwing himself at her the whole book.
I kinda feel bad for literary cancer -- it's got such a heavy burden, teaching all these people all these lessons.
Oh, and did I mention that the dead husband showed up in a dream to tell her she deserved to be happy and should move on?
Anyway, the sister lives. Each sister winds up with the perfect man for her. They reaffirm their bond of sisterhood. They learn a little something about their mother and her sacrifices and feelings. And the dipshit ex-husband (who is stealing his kid's Ritalin) grows breasts because his wife puts her progesterone pills in the bottle. That was the funny thing that made this a two star instead of a one star rating.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 5, 2008
With all due respect to Feige, this book was crap. It had all the hallmarks of chick lit (flat characters, predictability, cliches) and failed to transcend the genre by actually being enjoyable to read. It was cutesy and forced, really trying too hard. The blurb gave away the one incident in the book that had the potential to actually be funny, and I wasn't motivated to read far enough to actually reach this incident because I knew what was going to happen, and the writing really wasn't grabbing me.
I'm not opposed to chick lit -- I actually just picked up "The Undomestic Goddess" at Sefer ve-Sefel on Ariella's recommendation. Sophie Kinsella certainly isn't any deeper or more complex than your average chick lit writer, but her writing does pull you in and she manages to create fluff that's enjoyable in spite of itself. This writer, on the other hand, failed to do that.
I'm not opposed to chick lit -- I actually just picked up "The Undomestic Goddess" at Sefer ve-Sefel on Ariella's recommendation. Sophie Kinsella certainly isn't any deeper or more complex than your average chick lit writer, but her writing does pull you in and she manages to create fluff that's enjoyable in spite of itself. This writer, on the other hand, failed to do that.
July 12, 2014
A hilarious story of family, friends, sickness, health, life and love Do Me Do My Roots had me from the beginning. Our main character and her sisters are a laugh riot, reminding me of best friends. Things spike up and down for them, even before the start of the book takes place brining heartbreak and hilarity before we realize the universe isn't up to us. The realness of the characters was what really caught me (along with other things), I loved that they had real problems and handled them the way that normal people would. Through everything falling apart, being duct taped together only to fall apart again family and love prevails giving a perfect ending. I kind of want a sequel though, just to see how things are going ;)
September 8, 2007
How Eileen Rendahl knew my family, I have no idea....but she nailed it. For the first time I was reading a book that honored the close-knit family...and didn't make me feel weird about how close-knit my own family was.
And she did it while making me laugh. And cry. With a touch of subtle that many authors can't manage. Other authors are too heavy-handed with the "you're going to laugh now" and "you're going to cry now" and "this one is going to touch you" stuff. I don't like being yanked around by an author when I read.
This one just happened. And when I closed the book, I kept it in my hands for a few minutes. Just appreciating the gift.
And she did it while making me laugh. And cry. With a touch of subtle that many authors can't manage. Other authors are too heavy-handed with the "you're going to laugh now" and "you're going to cry now" and "this one is going to touch you" stuff. I don't like being yanked around by an author when I read.
This one just happened. And when I closed the book, I kept it in my hands for a few minutes. Just appreciating the gift.
August 21, 2014
Opening the story, we find Emily's father having a "cardiac episode" gathering the whole family in the hospital, as any tight-knit family would. The sisters share life's ups and downs during their monthly root dyeing ritual. As their lives seemingly spiral on similar paths (mostly revolving around their dating lives, or lack thereof), each sister deals with different bumps and emotional bruises along the way.
I was expecting a little more from this book. The story was good enough, but the story just left me kind of blah. Definitely glad I got it for free, though.
I was expecting a little more from this book. The story was good enough, but the story just left me kind of blah. Definitely glad I got it for free, though.
March 19, 2009
Okay, it must be me. After reading the reviews and putting this book on my Wish List, I couldn't wait to read it once it arrived. What a disappointment. I could not get into the book at all. I found it tedious and boring and finally gave up after 25 or so pages. I could not get a sense of the characters and found the chapter titles and hair color descriptions for each sister silly. I likely will not read any of this author's books in the future.
November 22, 2012
This is a very easy, romantic read that describes the love and loss of a young woman, Emily. Emily is a recent widow, and the story describes how she is trying to pick herself back up and get back into the dating world. Everything in Emily's world seems to be spiraling out of control, from her dating life to her family situations, but luckily she has great friends who attempt to keep her sane. I enjoyed this book as it was easy to read and a cute story.
April 28, 2009
It was alright - nothing special. It was difficult for me to get interested in any of the characters. However, I wasn't expecting all that much from it. It was obviously a girlie, light book. I usually like to read these pointless ones in between serious books. Now on to something more intriguing and well-written. :)
January 5, 2015
A wonderful story of three sisters in their 30s dealing with loss, through death and divorce, and love. Leah, Claudia, and Emily meet once a month to dye each others' hair and dish about dating, and their wacky parents. In-between dye-jobs they are in and out of each others' homes on a daily basis, sharing child care, and the minutiae of daily life.
September 22, 2014
I so enjoyed this little read. If you like books about family, love, sisters who get along and all that good stuff, you will like this book. It isn't all roses. All of the sisters have been through or are going through issues in their lives and all of them are dealing with the aging of their parents. How they struggle through and discover their own strengths was an enjoyable ride.
July 6, 2015
I was intrigued because the story revolves around 3 sisters (I am one of 3 sisters)and they get together and color each others hair once a month and talk about their lives. The youngest is recovering from the death of her husband. There is humor and sadness. Not enough depth of character or class for me. I can't recommend it.
November 30, 2010
I'd give it a 3 1/2 stars if I could. It's a chick lit book, but it has some meat to it. The author experienced losing a husband to cancer and although she wrote it as a work of fiction, the emotions are real.
June 14, 2014
Sweet and fun read!
Sweet and fun read!
Sweet and fun read, I will be reading more by this author. Written well and likable characters, hoping for a series with this family of characters.
Sweet and fun read!
Sweet and fun read, I will be reading more by this author. Written well and likable characters, hoping for a series with this family of characters.
April 13, 2015
A good chick lit story. It made me laugh and teary eyed. The dynamics between the sisters was realistic. I really didn't expect much from the title, but the author delivered. I would suggest that the author get a better proof-reader though.
May 4, 2015
I enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the three sisters (just like my family!) and their relationships through both sadness and joy. I did find the story a bit predictable but all in all an enjoyable read.
June 4, 2015
As a fellow widow I enjoyed (and related) to the extreme lows, fears and even laughter Emily experiences as she grieves and finds how to move forward with her life and live again. Family dynamics were great.
June 10, 2016
From heart break to loss, from friendship to love, this book shows how much of a roller coaster life is. No matter how much you try to control everything, you can't. At your lows, you need to stay positive. And at your highs, you need to stay humble.
And above all, family will be there for you.
And above all, family will be there for you.
October 28, 2007
Enjoyable. I would recommend this to those who like chic-lit but want "a little something more."
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
November 12, 2007
When did Chick!Lit get so depressing? I liked this novel a lot, it was a very easy read and straddled that good line of sop and substence.
February 23, 2009
This was a fun read.
January 9, 2009
Picked this up at the library for a quick beach read. I hope I'm not disappointed!
It was better than I expected!
It was better than I expected!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews