A review by phoebefaragmikhail
I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time by Laura Vanderkam

5.0

The opening scene of the movie adaptation captures it all: Kate Reddy (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) takes a store-bought pie out of its container and musses it up so that it looks homemade before taking it to her daughter’s school event. Allison Pearson’s novel, I Don’t Know How She Does It, chronicles Kate Reddy’s whirlwind and often humorous struggles to excel at her jet-setting career while balancing family life. This novel has fed into a common narrative for working women (in the West, at least) – that women simply can’t “have it all.” They must choose between work and family if they want to succeed at either one. Laura Vanderkam’s book with the tongue in cheek title, I Know How She Does It, flips this narrative on its head by researching the lives of professional women with families. She discovers, through studying the time logs of over 140 women, all mothers and all working at jobs bringing in at least $100,000 per year, that many women actually do manage to make fulfilling careers and a full, connected family life work for them.

Read my full review on my blog here: http://beingincommunity.com/how-to-make-the-most-of-our-time-with-a-book-giveaway/