The Bitch Is Back

In this sophisticated look at how women approach life and love in their middle years, the author uses the stories of 25 women to illustrate the courageous choices women make, often against cultural expectations. Teri Schnaubelt delivers these stories with unfussy clarity. The audiobook's heavy subject matter--the making of choices that respect a woman's deepest drives as well as the people she cares about--would be challenging for any narrator, so it shouldn't be a surprise that even a gifted narrator like Schnaubelt misses some of its rich undercurrents. But her relaxed tone and command of phrasing, nevertheless, make this easy to hear and absorb. The writing and performance celebrate the choices made by these women and push back on lingering expectations that they be passive and deferential. T.W. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

September 1, 2016

In this sequel to her best-selling anthology The Bitch in the House, Hanauer brings together nine returning contributors along with 16 new voices to check in with her cohort of women experiencing midlife. The first collection focused on the anger and unhappiness of women struggling to balance professional careers with marriage and family life; this second book explores the lives of women who made significant changes in their lives. The results are mixed. Featured writers are overwhelmingly straight, white women with professional identities offset by a smattering of working-class and nonwhite perspectives, a lone woman with a cis gender female partner, and one trans woman's reflections. Several essays turn on the strength of the author's life partnership, but relationship tension and sexual dissatisfaction predominate. Many of the authors endured years of angry disappointment in themselves and their partners before making often-desperate change. Strikingly absent is critique of the structural forces and cultural expectations that continue to warp our individual experiences of marriage, parenting, and sexuality. VERDICT Readers struggling with unhappiness as wives and mothers may find solace in these stories; those seeking broader political or socialized solutions should look elsewhere. [See Prepub Alert, 3/14/16.]--Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Massachusetts Historical Soc. Lib., Boston

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2016

Published nearly 15 years ago, Hanauer's The Bitch in the House collected the voices of 26 mostly professional women venting about work, marriage, motherhood, and more. Here, nine of the original contributors, plus 16 new voices, reflect on their intervening experiences while offering more seasoned thoughts on those issues today. Primed to catch new-wave feminism; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Successful women writers reflect on being mature and female in early-21st-century America.In this sequel to The Bitch in the House (2002), novelist/journalist Hanauer (Gone, 2012, etc.) gathers essays by nine original Bitch contributors and by such writers as Jennifer Finney Boylan, Robin Rinaldi, Sandra Tsing Loh, and Kate Christensen. The book is divided into four sections and begins with musings on lifestyle choices. Original contributor Pam Houston begins the anthology by reflecting on lessons she has learned about herself--for example, how her need for alone time trumps any need for a relationship--since writing her first Bitch essay. Transgender writer Boylan uses her move to a new job in New York as an opportunity to meditate on the upheaval that took place when she first came out. Sexual expression at midlife is the subject of the second section. Writers Robin Rinaldi and Sara Crichton write about the liberating sexual rebirths they experienced after ages 40 and 55, and Grace O'Malley discusses the unexpected joys of weekly scheduled sex with her husband of many decades. In the third section, women tell stories of the tribulations of married life. Erin White discusses how she and her wife "were the very opposite of radical" in the problems they faced and overcame as spouses, while Loh reflects on the rocky road to sharing a less-than-perfect life with her "lovable, getting-on-in-years" boyfriend. The final section deals with different kinds of starting over. For Susan Sonnenberg, a new life meant taking a chance on "the impulsive and rash and glorious" and saying "yes" to a second husband. But for Cynthia Kling, it meant a volunteer job teaching prison inmates that taught her lessons in "what really matters in life." Sharp and lively, these essays offer insight not only into individual writers, but an entire generation of women coming to terms with the possibilities and limitations of their lives as older females. A provocative collection about "what happens later, after those frantic, demanding, exhausting years with work and very young kids and, sometimes, not enough money." COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2016
Successful women writers reflect on being mature and female in early-21st-century America.In this sequel to The Bitch in the House (2002), novelist/journalist Hanauer (Gone, 2012, etc.) gathers essays by nine original Bitch contributors and by such writers as Jennifer Finney Boylan, Robin Rinaldi, Sandra Tsing Loh, and Kate Christensen. The book is divided into four sections and begins with musings on lifestyle choices. Original contributor Pam Houston begins the anthology by reflecting on lessons she has learned about herself--for example, how her need for alone time trumps any need for a relationship--since writing her first Bitch essay. Transgender writer Boylan uses her move to a new job in New York as an opportunity to meditate on the upheaval that took place when she first came out. Sexual expression at midlife is the subject of the second section. Writers Robin Rinaldi and Sara Crichton write about the liberating sexual rebirths they experienced after ages 40 and 55, and Grace O'Malley discusses the unexpected joys of weekly scheduled sex with her husband of many decades. In the third section, women tell stories of the tribulations of married life. Erin White discusses how she and her wife "were the very opposite of radical" in the problems they faced and overcame as spouses, while Loh reflects on the rocky road to sharing a less-than-perfect life with her "lovable, getting-on-in-years" boyfriend. The final section deals with different kinds of starting over. For Susan Sonnenberg, a new life meant taking a chance on "the impulsive and rash and glorious" and saying "yes" to a second husband. But for Cynthia Kling, it meant a volunteer job teaching prison inmates that taught her lessons in "what really matters in life." Sharp and lively, these essays offer insight not only into individual writers, but an entire generation of women coming to terms with the possibilities and limitations of their lives as older females. A provocative collection about "what happens later, after those frantic, demanding, exhausting years with work and very young kids and, sometimes, not enough money."

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2016
Think of a problem every woman might face: getting older, falling in or out of love, rejoicing in the confusion of hot, steamy passion, and confronting the disillusioning loss thereof. Now think of how women cope with these obstacles or opportunities. Mostly they muddle through by talking to trusted friends, by digging deep within themselves, and by putting amorphous thoughts into concrete words. Fourteen years ago, Hanauer gathered a group of strong women to write about their experiences in the workplace and on the home front, in the boardroom and the bedroom, creating The Bitch in the House (2002). Nine of those original writers are back, joined by 16 new contributors, and all tell their stories, share their insights, provide wisdom, and offer encouragement with wit, compassion, and brutally frank honesty. Like an all-night gab session with one's best friend, these essays shed sincere and searing light on subjects that are often hard for women to face. In doing so, Hanauer and company give voice to topics all too frequently hidden under a damaging cone of silence.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)