Some of the best parts are near the end - twisting my ‘thinking’ and purpose for the first half of the book. I’ve heard short-Jewish-guy jokes much all my life. I have a couple of very smart, upper-middle class short Jewish guy friends. They do make me laugh... By reaching the summit of the mountain, Henry learns that instead of his father's strategy of avoiding discomfort, pain, and sadness, Henry should build his house right in the center of tragedy, which he and his father call, "Trouble." Update this section! There are so many other topics covered such as the challenges of mid-life crises, sexism in the workplace, raising kids (especially in separated families), sex, friendship and more.

The last part was directed not at Henry but at the dog, who had come to sniff Henry's father to see if he might be at all interesting.

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I’ll be the first to admit that Fleishman Is in Trouble is not my typical literary genre. This was a buddy-read with my wife, in preparation for the television show we planned to watch together. As you might have guessed, she is now watching that alone.

He has collaborated with author Wendi Silvano on several books in the “Turkey Trouble” series, including “Turkey’s Valentine Surprise” and “Turkey’s Sandtastic Beach Day.” Harper’s books have received numerous accolades, including the Michigan Reads Award, the Great Lake Book Award, and the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Council Children’s Choice title. His books have also been nominated for state book awards in various states across the US. My problem with the book was mainly its repetitiveness, but Brodesser-Akner also manages to make life seem like one giant trap: Every choice is somehow wrong, for women and for men. There is of course a downside to pretty much everything, and don't get me wrong: I'm not expecting novels to be inspirational or, God forbid, aspirational, but a whole collection of NYC first-world problems presented as sources for existential crises that leave people damaged is maybe a liiiittle much. There were a bunch of weird ideas about sex in this book. In places, it felt voyeuristic. The details were too much, imo, when it came to kids. Not the crass banter or the casual sex. Just the way the author handled it. It was very matter of fact about the fact that these people were all having sex, which I appreciated. But then there was slut-shaming aplenty and the underlying message that it was ok to say mean things about the people you don’t like. The chapter about Hannah’s pregnancy horniness was weird to read, considering we saw very little of her other pregnancy symptoms. And it was always the physical ones rather than the mental or emotional ones. Did we need to know how she felt? And for a book that took such a warts and all approach, there was no mention of masturbation which really was the ideal solution. A blistering satirical novel about marriage, divorce and modern relationships, by one of the most exciting new voices in American fiction. I imagine readers thoughts are all over the place from disappointment to greatness and everything in between.I dared him in the mornings to ask me questions so that I could tell him about how I didn’t know how to live anymore. God, I wanted to say, how are you supposed to live like this, knowing you used to answer to no one? How is this the arc we set for ourselves as a successful life? But he’d never understand that. He had the life he wanted. So did I. And yet. And yet and yet and yet and yet and yet. What were you going to do? Were you not going to get married when your husband was the person who understood you and loved you and rooted for you forever, no matter what? Were you not going to have your children, whom you loved and who made all the collateral damage (your time, your body, your lightness, your darkness) worth it? Time was going to march on anyway. You were not ever going to be young again. You were only at risk for not remembering that this was as good as it would get, in every single moment—that you are right now as young as you’ll ever be again. And now. And now. And now and now and now. How could we not impugn marriage, then? It becomes so intertwined with your quality of life, as one of the only institutions operating constantly throughout every other moment of your existence, that the person you are married to doesn’t stand a chance. You hold hands while you’re walking down the street when you’re happy, you turn away icily to stare out the window as the car goes over the bridge when you’re not, and exactly none of this has anything to do with that person’s behavior. It has to do with how you feel about yourself, and the person closest to you gets mistaken for the circumstance and you think, Maybe if I excised this thing, I’d be me again. But you’re not you anymore. That hasn’t been you in a long time. It’s not his fault. It just happened. It was always going to just happen.”

Beyond that, I fully admit that Fleishman Is in Trouble engages you, it asks questions, it pokes at you, it’s meta-textual, commenting on itself as it goes along, demanding discussion. It is gorgeously written, though the prose is in service to a product that – in my opinion – it doesn’t deserve.

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Non Pratt also made the two voices distinct and full of life. Considering the POVs switched every few paragraphs it was both necessary and welcome. But despite all those positive points, as the book went on I genuinely started to find it weak and distasteful. Narratives in Northern Ireland are all about who is telling the story and what historical precedents they can muster in its defence: the Irish are born myth-makers. Country, then, is an inspired retelling of Homer’s Iliad set during the Troubles, and it fully engages with the performative tradition of Irish storytelling. This is Ireland as the eternal country. As an aging - past middle age woman...I’m not so sure I can see my reflection in the mirror anymore either.