It was finally a weekend whereby I could breathe easily. I took several days leave from work and spent most of it with my son and family... especially since Syuhada is flying off to Dublin, this month, Ayman finally out from the hospital and yeah.. work not so hectic... I went to Popular, to browse... Book hunting too as well! It's been soooooo long since I've reade a good book (and also did my review) that I thought it was past due for me to do my review...
The title itself, The Wives of Bath, grabbed my attention.... plus also the fact that Ayman was contentedly sleeping in his stroller, I have the chance to really browse through without worry that he might topple books or run through stacks of it in the store...
I guess the charm of the book itself was because it is about first time parents, and duh! I immediately clicked with the topic... hahahaha, yet the story to me would intrigue even you guys! :P
The story revolves around two couples - Hugo and Amanda, and Jake and Alice. In a strange twist (it always happens only in storybook!), Amanda and Alice, works in the same place - Styles magazine in New York. Amanda a tabloid journalist (these are the people who gives bad name to the profession of journalism - haha) and Alice is the legal advisor in Intercorp - the company that owns Style magazine. Alice is the person who saves Amanda's butt in several occasions...
Anyway, an article written by Amanda finally brought her in a pot of boiling lava, that Alice was finally tired of saving her ass. Alice during that time was not yet married and she didn't have a significant other as well... To cut a long story short, she met someone named Jake at her cousins wedding and click off. Jake, being a person who was very very into rubbish and recycling seemed very interesting to a legal advisor who is suddenly tired of life and wants a child and a new life.
Amanda was persuaded to quit her job and on her way back to London (in the economy class section of course!), while pissing mad at the company and telling herself that it's their loss, she was browsing through the glossy magazines and in a way, convinced herself that she is ready to move into the next step - have a child. Of course that is the next course of action to take since EVERYONE who is EVERYONE is pregnant of has children! WHy else would there be Guess Kids, those cute little baby paraphernelias that only designers would produce for top celebrities!
Amanda loves Hugo and Alice loves Jake - or so we are led to believe. All are in the throes of first parenthood, linked by birthing classes and a posh maternity center, the Cavendish, where moms rest in four-poster beds while dads enjoy whiskey at the well-appointed bar. Though planning a birth at home (“on a shower curtain”) Alice has Rosa at the Cavendish after an emergency C-section, and Amanda would have expected no less than the grand sweep of Cavendish services for her little Theo. But Amanda really knows nothing about babies and cares less, and quickly escapes to her career as a high-powered magazine writer, leaving Hugo to blunder through fatherhood, losing his job in the process of trying to do right by his son.
To figure out such basics as how to change a nappie, he consults the lonely Alice, whose husband is gradually drifting into fanaticism as publisher of a recycling rag called Get Trashed!. The brush strokes are broad as we see Hugo boldly rescuing Rosa’s beloved teddy bear and winning Alice’s heart, and Amanda striking out on a mad junket landing her up in the arms of a “fantastic guy called Rick.” Jake, who’s been a pill throughout, forcing Rosa to eat pureed veggies grown in human manure, finds out he’s in love with a fantastic guy, too, and things come full circle, with Hugo and Alice back at the birthing center working on a sibling for Rosa and the winsome Theo.
Along the way there are many reasons to laugh, as Alice defends her beloved Jake despite his domineering ways (the Christmas gifts wrapped in toilet paper, the feast of Brussels sprouts served in what was once the glass door panel of a clothes washing machine, the wormery in the garden). Amanda is wicked as the career non-Mom who almost forgets her son’s name, and then there’s Laura, the sexy siren who tries to seduce Hugo and winds up saving him from Amanda’s wrath. Holden is fast with a bon mot and great at naming things: Theo’s childcare center, Chicklets; Hugo’s real estate firm, Dunn and Dustard; and Jake and Alice’s love nest, The Old Morgue (because it once was one).
If you love Brit humor as I do and like it laid on thick as old paint, you’ll crease up as you follow the hilarious doings of The Wives of Bath.
No comments:
Post a Comment