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chrisrin's review against another edition
3.0
This book has been on my TBR list for a long time. I'm not sure what I expected but I didn't get it...that's not necessarily a bad thing. This was an enjoyable read although it seemed a little silly at times.
brogan7's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
2.0
I knew from the cover that this would be a light read, but even for a light read this was especially lacking in analysis.
The premise of the book is that women who take three drugs from the same company (and possibly a shot of Botox) become invisible. The women are perimenopausal, so at an age when invisibility is actually quite familiar, i.e. the women's families don't even notice there has been a change.
I was waiting for the funny part to delve into a canny analysis of the pharmaceutical industry. Instead I got a 1970s-era-esque novel, where the thing the mother is worried about is her neighbour's kids smoking a bit of pot (the innocence!) and her husband is a doctor whom she shadows one day (with her newfound invisibility--as long as she travels naked)--and she feels SO SORRY for how BURDENED he is... (umm...again, this feels dated. Our main character doesn't feel like a person from 2012.).
And then...the pharmaceutical company really isn't that bad ("It's not the evil empire...They're making a lot of good drugs, things people need. The problem is they're making too much money. If they were willing to suspend just one of the drugs, say the Ostafoss or the Singsall, just until they got the interaction problem worked out, that would be enough." (p.211)) Ahem. Right. It's ok to accuse the drug companies of making too much money, and it's ok to ask them kindly, on the side, to withdraw just one of their drugs (whichever one), for the sake of women's safety... This is analysis-Lite, if you want it, because that's all you're really going to get. I was curious about what would happen when all the invisible women got together (consciousness-raising groups), but in the end that didn't deliver anything either.
A disappointing read. Some clever lines.
The premise of the book is that women who take three drugs from the same company (and possibly a shot of Botox) become invisible. The women are perimenopausal, so at an age when invisibility is actually quite familiar, i.e. the women's families don't even notice there has been a change.
I was waiting for the funny part to delve into a canny analysis of the pharmaceutical industry. Instead I got a 1970s-era-esque novel, where the thing the mother is worried about is her neighbour's kids smoking a bit of pot (the innocence!) and her husband is a doctor whom she shadows one day (with her newfound invisibility--as long as she travels naked)--and she feels SO SORRY for how BURDENED he is... (umm...again, this feels dated. Our main character doesn't feel like a person from 2012.).
And then...the pharmaceutical company really isn't that bad ("It's not the evil empire...They're making a lot of good drugs, things people need. The problem is they're making too much money. If they were willing to suspend just one of the drugs, say the Ostafoss or the Singsall, just until they got the interaction problem worked out, that would be enough." (p.211)) Ahem. Right. It's ok to accuse the drug companies of making too much money, and it's ok to ask them kindly, on the side, to withdraw just one of their drugs (whichever one), for the sake of women's safety... This is analysis-Lite, if you want it, because that's all you're really going to get. I was curious about what would happen when all the invisible women got together (consciousness-raising groups), but in the end that didn't deliver anything either.
A disappointing read. Some clever lines.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Misogyny and Sexism
alidottie's review against another edition
3.0
3 and a half
At first I thought I wasn't even going to read this book because even though I needed some fluff I thought this book was going to be a whiney book about women of a certain age (mine!) who feel invisible. It turned out to be a little more than that--they are literally invisible and there is a somewhat scientific explanation.
What I found most entertaining was what the main character decided to do with her invisiblity.
Light, enjoyable reading
At first I thought I wasn't even going to read this book because even though I needed some fluff I thought this book was going to be a whiney book about women of a certain age (mine!) who feel invisible. It turned out to be a little more than that--they are literally invisible and there is a somewhat scientific explanation.
What I found most entertaining was what the main character decided to do with her invisiblity.
Light, enjoyable reading
tophat8855's review against another edition
2.0
April 2014 RS book group
It was ok. Fast and easy to read. I think it required me to suspend reality a little too much. I'm trying to put my finger on why it didn't work for me.
It's obvious that the middle aged women becoming invisible concept is literal here, and I think I could do with that, but the extension that what was causing it was drug interactions probably should have been brought in sooner. It didn't get mentioned until many chapters in. It's like the first few chapters wanted to play with the invisible metaphor, but the author needed a "plausible" reason for it, so she just threw in the medication aspect.
And even that I could go with, but no one really noticing all these *literally* invisible women walking around in floating clothes? Yeah, I can't suspend reality to make both of these stretches for the same book.
Once they introduced the drug thing, I figured, "Oh here, the plot will speed up!" But then they go back to the invisibility metaphor and finding yourself and personal development and at the very end bring in a rush of pharmaceutical company stuff to wrap it all up.
So maybe my issue is pacing? I think that the pharmaceutical inquiry could have been written up with more twists and turns and been a much bigger part of the book. Very rushed at the end, large plot points ignored until too far into the book. But hey, a quick read.
It was ok. Fast and easy to read. I think it required me to suspend reality a little too much. I'm trying to put my finger on why it didn't work for me.
It's obvious that the middle aged women becoming invisible concept is literal here, and I think I could do with that, but the extension that what was causing it was drug interactions probably should have been brought in sooner. It didn't get mentioned until many chapters in. It's like the first few chapters wanted to play with the invisible metaphor, but the author needed a "plausible" reason for it, so she just threw in the medication aspect.
And even that I could go with, but no one really noticing all these *literally* invisible women walking around in floating clothes? Yeah, I can't suspend reality to make both of these stretches for the same book.
Once they introduced the drug thing, I figured, "Oh here, the plot will speed up!" But then they go back to the invisibility metaphor and finding yourself and personal development and at the very end bring in a rush of pharmaceutical company stuff to wrap it all up.
So maybe my issue is pacing? I think that the pharmaceutical inquiry could have been written up with more twists and turns and been a much bigger part of the book. Very rushed at the end, large plot points ignored until too far into the book. But hey, a quick read.
alisonhori's review against another edition
4.0
I really, really loved this book...I really want to give it 4.5 stars but there was just not quite enough depth I think for that but darn close (I save 5's for my real favorites of all time). This book was a fun, light read....but also really interesting. The idea of wives/mothers losing their identities and "becoming invisible" is obviously not a novel idea and the value of "finding our own light" and voice also nothing new...but the treatment of it here was unique and not, in the end,totally cliched.
angelamichelle's review against another edition
4.0
I picked this book up on a whim because of its clever title. I loved the first sentence, "I first noticed I was missing on a Thursday." But then I assumed the book would sort of devolve into cliches. It never really did. I funny, light read with some real things to say about women choosing to keep their power.
amsearer's review against another edition
4.0
I only took a star away because I was hoping there would be more of the story! The plot hastened quite quickly toward the end. a very satisfying, quick read. Ignoring the 10 minutes I spent reading it the first day and the week and a half I was down with the flu, I actually read this over the course of 3-4 days before bed and what a delight it was. I think I could masquerade as myself if I turned invisible for quite some time without too many people noticing. it made me realize that we spend entirely too much time rushing from one thing to the next, being so lost in our own lives that we don't really pay that much attention to others. When was the last time I really paid attention to someone's body language? I don't know, but I'm going to try harder to be attentive. I'm also going to pass this book along to fellow bookworms because I thoroughly enjoyed it.