The back cover makes this book sound like an entirely different book than it actually is. Whoever wrote the synopsis for the back cover should be fired because it sounds nothing like the book that I read, except for maybe one or two things that did happen in the book. It makes it sound like it's mainly about two sisters but it's actually about one sister and her sexual exploits with a hot guy and another sister thrown in every 10 pages or so.Martha is the main character in here. We get to read how perfect she and her life is for a little while. Then her husband leaves her and the whining about that goes on for quite a long time. Nothing interesting happens in that time except for Martha falling apart. Then Martha goes to a salsa club and meets Jack. Then the mind-blowing sex they have is written in every detail several times. In some ways, I have a hard time believing that Martha is the best mother, like Adele Parks wants us to believe. I mean, it seems Martha is out every night with Jack and when they're not out at different places, then they're having sex all over Martha's house with Martha's two children and Martha's sister in the house. Of course we have a couple scenes thrown in so we think Martha is just the best.We also have what seems to be the same phone conversations between Martha and her ex husband, Michael. Those conversations consist of Martha whining and asking why he left and Michael is always distant and snobby. It got to be old really fast. Yet another thing that kept on repeating was the conversation between Eliza and Martha, in which Eliza would say how Jack was just going to break Martha's heart and Martha going on and on about how he makes her feel young and she won't fall in love with him and just how he's the perfect guy. I wish whoever edited this book would have cut some of those conversations out because it was just the same thing over and over and the reader only needs to read it once to get how Eliza stands about Jack.I really didn't care for the character of Martha, if you couldn't tell already. At first, she just seems too rigid and then after Jack, she acts like a teenager even though she still has responsibities. There was just nothing for me to connect with and therefore I didn't root for her at all. The book also goes on and on about how she feels and after awhile, I just started to scan the pages until I found anything semi-interesting to read.Eliza, the other sister, gets very little space in this book. It's almost like her story is an afterthought. In the beginning she is shown as the wild child of the two sisters. But then Eliza decides it's time to grow up and so she dumps the guy who she feels is to immature for her. The rest of the book, Eliza is pretty much the baby-sitter to Martha's children and the person Adele Parks' puts in when she needs someone to argue with Martha. Before and when there's a lull in Martha's sexploits, Eliza goes on a few dates but the men she goes out with are all wrong. There's really no middle to Eliza's story-just a beginning and an end.
“It didn’t help her at all that everyone thought that the only real tragedy about her story was the common-or-garden nature of it. Nobody cared that her marriage was over. They seemed to think that it was OK just to dissolve that magic. She thought it was a bit like getting her hair cut: no one other than herself seemed to notice. She didn’t want to believe that broken promises were an accepted part of the world that she’d brought her children into. She’d have preferred to believe that she was a freak.”“She loather herself for begging… for subduing herself so entirely. She loathed herself for giving him countless opportunities. Opportunities he didn’t take.”“Then she’d remember it didn’t make any difference. Marriage wasn’t a guarantee… The bit of paper that she’d always believed was an unrepeatable lifelong commitment - the only available magic in a secular world driven by technology, profitability and bottom lines - was, after all, a bit of paper. How do you trust this century? The century of mobile-phone theft and internet porn? How do you believe there is someone out there who transcends all that is mechanical, all that is diabolical, all that is robotic, and is love?”Maybe it was the fact that my marriage was in shambles, but I didn’t expect to feel this book nearly as much as I did. The author did an incredible job of describing all the emotions involved in the break-up of a marriage, a family.The back of the book says it’s about sisters, but only this character grabbed me. The book was focused on her. The other sister was just an excess. If the author hasn’t been through this, then she has done some damn good research. I suspect she has though. It was raw and full of reality.
What do You think about Other Womans Shoes (2008)?
A typical "grass is always greener" tale of two sisters. One is young and carefree, breaks up with her hippie boyfriend to look for more marriageable material and later regrets. The other is a dowdy, stay-at-home mom who turns into a hipper, more fun version of herself when her husband leaves her. Eliza (the free spirit) eventually finds all of those men are dull and boring and returns to the hippy.Martha (SAHM) has a more interesting journey - she begins wearing Deisel jeans and makes a naked friend named Jack Hope. She realizes she loves him, tells him that, scares him away, gets invited to live in America with him, realizes she can't leave her kids, loses him then swoons when he stays in London at the last minute so that they all presumably live happily ever after.There are some really funny scenes in the book - Martha throwing wine at her husband is hysterical. And again, all the British dialogue makes me smile.
—Amanda
After reading a lot of heavy books I needed something lighter, trashier and I really enjoyed this. I enjoy the journey with the characters and really felt their pain and their joy. I was worried about the ending -fearing doom and tears, but I've now realized that these kinds of books don't end that way -it's not what the readers want and I'm glad for it.All the ones I have been reading do end badly, so it was nice to just be warmed by the love and that hope that life does turn out well. Pure candy for the brain, but it was fun.
—Larissa
Plot: Eliza gives up her messy lifestyle to try and bring some order and maturity to her life. Martha’s husband leaves her and she embarks on “just having fun”. The two sisters are swapping ways of life and finding out the realities of the other.Characters: I think the book is more about Martha than Eliza, and it’s lovely to see her blossom from a quiet little mouse into a kick-ass single mother. Eliza, you feel, just needs to be taught a lesson. And I don’t know if it’s just me who feels that Jack really is just too good to be true.Style Of Writing: Easy to read, quite open and gets across emotions very well.Overall Opinion: I liked it, but I found it a little bit unbelievable. A great fairy-story though.Recommended If: You don’t really have anything else to read and feel like something light-hearted and bound to have a happy ending.
—Christine Blachford
