Product Description

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...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17550 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

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…

About the Author
John O'Farrell is the bestselling author of two previous novels, The Best A Man Can Get and This is Your Life, and a memoir, Things Can Only Get Better. His name has flashed past at the end of such productions as Spitting Image, Have I Got News For You, Chicken Run and Grumpy Old Men. He writes a weekly column in the Guardian which has been published in two collections, Global Village Idiot and I Blame the Scapegoats. He lives in London with his wife and two children.

Customer Reviews

This could be any of us....
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!

Starts superbly, ends terribly
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

A must for parents of 10 year olds
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.