Filled with smart insights...Kate makes good company. You can't help rooting for her." -- The New York Times Book Review I'm not going to lie, I don't think this book is for everyone. If you don't see the humour in movies like The Hangover or Bridesmaids, if you've never laughed at a video of some guy getting hit in the junk by a ball or if you're looking for a serious read with dramatic undertones and a message of deep social and political import then you will probably hate this book. However, if you're looking for a brilliantly written, hot mess of hilarious shenanigans that will make you laugh until you pee, root for the underdogs and swoon like a Southern Belle then you're going to love How Hard Can It Be. Go read it!! First off this book was really good and I laughed so hard because some of things I read I had to look around to see if anybody noticed me reading this book because right off the beginning they were talking about hardcore sex, handcuffs and porn. I couldn't believe some of the stuff that was in the book. It kept it really interesting and it sparked my interest to keep reading it to see what happens to the characters in the book.

From the first chapter I was laughing and I was in love with this book. The only reason I had to put it down was because the battery in my Kindle was screaming at me that it needed more juice. (Damn needy thing) I truly love the characters that Robyn has created. And the Granny Porn group sounds a lot like me and my girlfriends in a couple of decades. *grins* Perceptive and funny....Allison Pearson has a gift for comedy, but the best bits of How Hard Can It Be? are her sharp asides about modern life." — The Times (U.K.) Kate’s story of juggling all of life’s challenges, especially this newly evolving sandwich generation, and feeling very much alone in doing so, is without question relatable. Kate (and Allison) truly get it, and I felt like giving her a few high fives while reading. Or fist bumps. Or the wave! He writes weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun, but is better known for his role on the BBC television programme Top Gear. Her triumph at work is perhaps too good to be true. Likewise, the story has a romance element involving an old fling. That part of the story also ends too happy to be true. But it is a novel so I shouldn't be complaining about realism.I feel drugged. I am drugged. I took an antihistamine before bed because I’ve been waking up most nights between two and three, bathed in sweat, and it helps me sleep through. The pill did its work all too well, and now a thought, any thought at all, struggles to break the surface of dense, clotted sleep. No part of me wants to move. I feel like my limbs are being pressed down on the bed by weights. The following excerpt was selected because it shows how problems in the daughter's life parallel those of the mother. In the following quotation our protagonist is editing her daughter's school assignment to analyze Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" and she considers the writing about Shakespeare also reflects the dilemmas of teenage life that her daughter faces. The irony is that the same can be said for Kate herself, our book's narrator. Plenty of shrewd insights to make up for the dodgy spelling. She really should have more confidence in herself, but girls like Emily set themselves impossibly high standards so they never feel good about themselves. What was it she said to me? “I’m not the cleverest, I’m not the prettiest, I’m not the anythingest.” It’s the disease of the day. ... ...

She shakes her head and I smell my conditioner on her hair, the expensive one I specifically told her not to use.If you, too, are part of the sandwich generation, and you are looking for some laughs and commiseration, How Hard Can It Be is worth a read. While it was essentially lighthearted, it was the perfect read that left me with a smile on my face. I didn’t read “I Don’t Know How She Does It”, and I didn’t realize that “How Hard Can it Be?” is an offshoot of the same characters, seven years later. That said, “How Hard Can it Be” could be read without reading “I Don’t Know How She Does It”.