- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Penguin (27 Mar 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0141027290
- ISBN-13: 978-0141027296
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 361,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
A lightly amusing chick lit number about the trials of mummyhood (Tatler )
Product Description
Let me introduce you to the Symthe household - there’s me Samantha, my husband, John the Second and our two children, Bennie and Jamie. And then there’s my eldest son Edward from my first marriage. I love my family to bits but I do sometimes wonder if a non-nuclear family can ever be a "real" family. Every now and then I lose my cool and start shouting like a mad woman until John has to take me upstairs and calm me down.
Being a mum is never easy and last summer it all got a whole lot more complicated when my ex-husband John the First, turned up at our house for the first time in three years. The real reason for his unexpected appearance was Edward. John wanted to get to know him better and Edward in turn thought it was marvellous that he now had two dads living with him. I on-the-other-hand, began to feel that I was slowly disappearing out sight.
Suddenly, our chaotic but loving home was teetering on the verge of collapse.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence
It's Saturday afternoon and a man I have never met before is driving me too fast down the M4. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
It's Saturday afternoon and a man I have never met before is driving me too fast down the M4. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is one of the most beautifully written, poignant, and hilarious and heart warming books that I have read in a long time. I was given the book as a present and as someone who always prefers fact over fiction, I didn't read it immediately. However, when I did, it was a case of once picked up it was impossible to put down. By the end of the book, I felt that Samantha was my best friend -I had really got to know her and love her and her fantastic but totally chaotic children and her equally chaotic life. I also wanted to give her husband John the second a big hug for being so kind and understanding in the face of her devious and manipulative first husband (John the first). However, as someone who does not like superficial reads, what really made the book stand out for me was its depth. It is not one of those typical frivolous reads without substance that you become bored with after just 30 minutes. How Lucy Cavendish sets each scene, her oh so true to life descriptions of family situations and her ability to allow each character to unravel and develop is nothing short of brilliant. I honestly lost track of the number of times that I laughed out loud and I felt quite sad to be nearing the end of the book. Definitely worth five stars!
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a charming, warm, riot of a book, bursting with realistic characters made all the more lovable by their myriad flaws. Cavendish brilliantly conveys the colourful patchwork of a big modern family - which manages to hold together despite giving the appearance of falling apart at the seams. Samantha's ex husband blunders in to upset her precariously balanced apple cart of a home, overflowing as it is with hapless babies and chaotic toddlers, not to mention the various human refugees who gravitate from their broken relationships to her kitchen table in search of solace, wine and a well-cooked seafood stew.
All of human life is here, strung together with love and humour. But my favourite thing about The Invisible Woman is Cavendish's genuine understanding of the countryside. Her book contains beautiful and moving descriptive passages which make you yearn to live like her, in her tumbledown cottage in a lush green valley. Even the astutely-captured eccentricities of village life do not deter. It's like Northern Exposure by the M4. I loved reading this book.
All of human life is here, strung together with love and humour. But my favourite thing about The Invisible Woman is Cavendish's genuine understanding of the countryside. Her book contains beautiful and moving descriptive passages which make you yearn to live like her, in her tumbledown cottage in a lush green valley. Even the astutely-captured eccentricities of village life do not deter. It's like Northern Exposure by the M4. I loved reading this book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this book because I so enjoy her column in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine. The book is a nitty gritty comentary on modern family life and her shrewd observation of human emotional inconsistencies hit home most of the time and make me roar with laughter.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Did not finish
Sadly not one for me this time sweet and funny in parts .SSmythe mod fam jour is just overly long like the title to much domesticity perhaps would suit a younger yummy mummy type... Read more
Published on 23 Mar 2010 by Daisy M
Particularly good as an audio book!
I listened to this as a talking book and loved it. The minutiae of family life are beautifully observed and recounted in full detail - eg things the children will and won't eat,... Read more
Published on 9 April 2008 by MIddlestitch
Adored it
I'm not normally one for comedy 'chick-Lit' type books, but there was no possible way I could avoid reading this. Read more
Published on 2 Aug 2007 by New Niki
loved this!
Most of these types of book leave me cold. I have no husband nor children nor live in the countryside. But I loved this. Read more
Published on 17 April 2007 by D. Brown
I loved this book!
I loved this book! It is very funny - I laughed out loud several times - but there are parts that are poignant and moving and Lucy Cavendish charts the general chaos of every day... Read more
Published on 8 April 2007 by Cherry
Laugh-out-load manual for parents...
A fantastic book for those of us with children. The synopsis tells us that Samantha's 'home is on the verge of collapse'. And how it does. Read more
Published on 3 April 2007 by Paul
A truly enjoyable read
A superb first novel. Highly recommended to me by a friend, I couldn't put "The Invisible Woman" down once I had started reading it. Read more
Published on 3 April 2007 by H. Watson
No humour, little plot, yawn.
I bought this expecting a light and enjoyable read on the basis many of the reviews were good. Having read comparisons to Bridget Jones I anticipated some humour. Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2007 by Sarah Curran
Poorly written and meaningless
Punctuated with jarring grammatical errors and written in a bland, self-obsessed way, this poorly-disguised autobiography of a very aveage person bores the sensitive and... Read more
Published on 8 Mar 2007 by Tigger
Bridget Jones for grown-ups
There is a quote on the back of this impressive first novel likening it to Bridget Jones ten years on and it's true but Bridget now comes in the form of Samantha Smythe, a harassed... Read more
Published on 20 Feb 2007 by M. Hancock
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