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May Contain Nuts
 
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May Contain Nuts (Hardcover)

by John O'Farrell (Author)
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Doubleday & Co Inc. (2 May 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0385606087
  • ISBN-13: 978-0385606080
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.2 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 134,170 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

Alice and David are worried parents. Are their children falling behind with their schoolwork, their music lessons and the number of sleepover invitations received this month? Or are all these extra lessons causing them to miss out on physical exercise? Maybe they could find a maths tutor who'd be prepared to swim alongside them and explain binary numbers while the children practiced their breast-stroke? This permanent sense of crisis is coming to a climax as their eldest child looks set to fail her entrance exam for the hallowed school on which they have pinned all their hopes. Many mothers can't help wanting to do everything for their children, but Alice takes this controlling maternal obsession one step further. She takes the test in place of her daughter. With a baseball cap pulled low over her face, she shuffles into a hall of a two hundred kids and faces her first examination for twenty years. But it is only once she puts herself in the place of one her children that she starts to realise the sort of exhausting pressures that her kids have been under...


From the Back Cover

Alice never imagined that she would end up like this. Is she the only mother who feels so permanently panic-stricken at the terrors of the modern world – or is it normal to sit up in bed all night popping bubble wrap? She worries that too much gluten and dairy may be hindering her children’s mental arithmetic. She frets that there are too many cars on the road to let them out of the 4x4. Finally she resolves to take control and tackle her biggest worry of all: her daughter is definitely not going to fail that crucial secondary school entrance exam. Because Alice has decided to take the test in her place…

With his trademark comic eye for detail, John O’Farrell has produced a funny and provocative book that will make you laugh, cry and vow never to become that sort of parent. And then you can pass it on to your seven-year-old, because she really ought to be reading grown-up novels by now… --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

40 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
4 star:
 (18)
3 star:
 (9)
2 star:
 (4)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (40 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This could be any of us...., 16 Feb 2006
By K. MCPOLIN "HIFI Fan" (Buckinghamshire, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: May Contain Nuts (Paperback)
I picked this book up with no real enthusiasm, but after ten pages I was in fits of laughter. It is a very funny book indeed, and sharp as a razor. The characters are exaggerations but if you have a children of school age, or even better, if you know parents who do, you will immdediately recognise the absurd behaviour of people obsessed with protecting and promoting their little darlings. A wonderful, hysterical, bitter sweet satire of our time!
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Starts superbly, ends terribly, 28 Mar 2007
This review is from: May Contain Nuts (Paperback)
I loved the beginning of this book - a hilarious, clever satire on middle-class snobbery and paranoid parents that had me laughing out loud. BUT, towards the end the author comes over all earnest and politically correct about the wonderful humble state school system, and the biting satire all falls away. State schools, apparently, are flawless, wonderful places that cannot be satirised at all - the humour gives way to worthy preachiness that is nauseating to say the least. One can't help feeling that if this author were genuinely unprejudiced about ordinary people, he would treat them with the same scathing humour he reserves for the milieu he genuinely feels comfortable with - the upper middle classes. If I lived on a council estate, I'd want to hit him for this patronising portrait of the lives of the non-wealthy. Also, the so-called heroine who we like so much and identify with at the beginning turns out to be a despicable coward - and gets away with it - no one in the book even comments on it. In the end, this was a dishonest, cowardly book
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A must for parents of 10 year olds, 22 April 2006
By Jane Ladmore (Wimbledon) - See all my reviews
This review is from: May Contain Nuts (Paperback)
John O'Farrell's book brilliantly captures the madness that envelopes parents of 10 year olds in their search for a secondary school. This is a wonderful, light frothy hugely enjoyable read, with which parents will identify. (Along with of course his other book on children A Best a Man can Get, which is a truly laugh out loud book). As J O'F so obviously has children who are slightly older than my own, I am looking forward to his next book on teenage monsters which I feel convinced he must be writing even as I type.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Possibly worth reading for the first half...
...but I'd feel happier if I'd borrowed this book rather than bought it! The reviewer (currently "most helpful critical") who says that the first part of the book is hilarious,... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Dr. P. Stevens

5.0 out of 5 stars Very funny book!
This book was everything I look for in a good humour book. It's a satirical look at parents who would literally do anything to make sure that their kids succeed. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Kirsty B

2.0 out of 5 stars Nowhere near as good as his other books
Read This If Your Life before you read this one - it's full of characters that you dislike straight away!
Published 6 months ago by Stephen Chapman

4.0 out of 5 stars light yet meaningful read for parents
After "the best a man can get", this is my second time reading O'Farrell's work, and I am glad to report, it totally lived up to my expectations! Read more
Published 10 months ago by O. Cheng

1.0 out of 5 stars Rubbish
I bought this book on recommendation of a friend. It amused me that her and her daughter spot the may contain nuts brigade. Read more
Published 12 months ago by kc

4.0 out of 5 stars Alternate
I found this novel highly unreal - therefore astonishing. It was very interesting to read these reviews. Read more
Published 14 months ago by N. Krisztina

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!
I am only a child and I loved it! I picked it up one weekend when I was fiddling near the bookshelf. I had been totally bored until I began reading it. I could not put it down. Read more
Published 15 months ago

2.0 out of 5 stars Q: When is a novel not a novel? A: When it doesn't contain any characters
This fairly enjoyable comic novel may well contain nuts, but it doesn't contain any characters. I rattled through it in two days and even laughed OUT LOUD occasionally (the holy... Read more
Published 17 months ago by International Cowgirl

3.0 out of 5 stars Funny, but...
I'm a fan of John O'Farrell's incisive wit and social observation and very excited that this is being adapted for TV with Shirley Henderson in the signature role... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Maxine F.R.

3.0 out of 5 stars Funny and optimistic, but ultimately far-fetched?
I have read a few of John O'Farrell's other works and had a rough idea what to expect, some social comment mixed with a good deal of clever humour and satire. Read more
Published 19 months ago by L. H. Healy

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