Customer Reviews

Animal Husbandry

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

Talk about a bitter woman! Jane Goodall has recently been dumped and wants to know why. She embarks on a mission to find out the reasoning behind her ex's strange behavior, and in doing so, finds some interesting parallels of the seducing, mating and moving-on habits between animals and men. Coming up with her own suggestion based on these ideals, Jane's Old-Cow-New-Cow theory is a sure-fire hit. Or is it?

Laura Zigman has written a totally fun and witty novel about one woman's heartbreak and the desperation she has in proving it wasn't all because of her. I laughed, I sympathized. Jane Goodall embodies a gamut of emotions that comes with being dumped -- and believe me, we get to sample them all! This novel is wonderfully written and contains fascinating insight into male behavior. Easy to read and quick to get through, Animal Husbandry makes you a believer in the Old-Cow-New-Cow theory, and just as easily makes you think again. Bravo, kudos, applause, applause. Can't wait to read Laura's next book. Oh, how I love to be entertained.

Oh please. Another bitter, boring, been dumped story. The "cleverness" of the prose sustained my interest for about twenty pages, after that, my annoyance was the only thing that kept going.

I've heard that men feel insulted by this book. I don't blame them. As a female, I'm apalled by how my gender is treated. The women in this book are whiny, self centered, self absorbed, and spend more time bashing the male sex, than actually trying to do something positive about their own lives.

After being dumped, Jane plops herself down on a ratty couch, drinks copiously, and complains to her friends about how badly she's been treated. Then, after reading a couple of books on psychology, evolution, anthropology, and agriculture, she comes up with this "new" theory: Men are biologically incapable of committing. Ho hum. I heard this new theory in Psychology 101. But apparently the magazines and the newspapers that exist in the world of the novel are gullible enough to find this theory brilliant. And speaking of gullible.... Jane, after dating a man for less than two months, gives up her great apartment to move in with him. Two months! Get a clue, lady.

Had "Animal Husbandry" at least been well written, I wouldn't have felt so cheated. But in chapter one, the character tells you what is going to happen in the book, and if you didn't catch it the first time, she repeats it throughout the chapters, and if after finishing the book, you still missed what happened, you can always go back in read the chapter titles, which tell you exactly what will occur in each chapter.

I'm tired of reading books, reading articles, seeing television shows about unhappy single city women. I am a single city woman, and I manage to at least find some happiness in my daily life. When I get dumped, I do manage to go on, and I do manage to believe that men are not slime. Furthermore, this theme/plot has been handled much better by "The Heidi Chronicles" (Wendy Wasserstein! ), "50% Off" (Karen Salmanson), and "Selling the Light of Heaven" (forgot author's name, but its a lovely book). Read one of those three books, but don't waste your time on "Animal Husbandry."

After reading the first chapter of this book on Amazon, I sent a link to 25 of my women friends, telling them that this was a must read. I didn't do this because I thought the book was Great Literature. I did it because I thought the book pretty well described the emotional disembowelment of being dumped and its messy aftermath. But in a funny way.

The controversial COW THEORY (see above reviews) really isnt the point of the book. The narrator says so at the bottom of page four and continuing on to page five. The COW THEORY is merely the result of the protagonist, Jane Goodall(Laura Zigman? me? Your Name Here?) trying to make some sense of being discarded like a stained JCrew buttondown.

Everyone who has been dumped secretly suspects, that s/he is rejected because of some inherent flaw that makes them instrinsically unloveable. The obsessive, sometimes absurd things we do to prove to ourselves otherwise can be either comic or tragic. This book opts for the comic approach.

And lets face it, cows are funny. And absurd. COW THEORY is funny and absurd. My friends and I enjoyed COW THEORY. (UsedCowLot is not available as a screenname on AOL, by the way). I thought that the more man-bashing elements of COW THEORY were mitigated by using the cow instead of, oh, let's say, the pig. PIG THEORY isn't nearly as funny, since that lends itself too neatly to the idea that all men are pigs.

The book has some structural flaws, but I hesitate to comment on them at length, since I don't think I could write any better. I say, buy the book, laugh without guilt and when your best guy buddy is crying on your shoulder about how his g/f dumped him, explain about the lure of the NEW BULL.

Walk into any bookstore, look for pastel titles with curly writing on them, and you've easily found all of the shallow chick lit titles that have flooded the market. These are mostly the unfortunate spawn of really great books like "Animal Husbandry" and, of course, "Bridget Jones's Diary."

Ignore the pastel sea and pick up "Animal Husbandry." Here you'll find a funny and sad story about a realistic woman--someone who has frizzy hair and reads the New Yorker, and who goes to pieces after the sort of breakup that happens to most people. This was brilliance on Zigman's part, and the book is a great story about how normal-ish things impact us deeply. Beneath the humor (which is great) is a very touching story that has more depth than most books.

I liked this book for several reasons. Like Laura Zigman's other novel, Dating Big Bird, I finished this in only a couple days. The main concept of this book is a woman gets her heart broken by a man, then comes to the concept of the "old cow, new cow" theory. This theory basically states that men can never stay with one woman for very long, they are always going to be on the prowel for a "new cow". Jane (the main character) spends most of her time and energy on this theory and gradually comes to understand that you just have to suck it up and move on. Very refreshing, somewhat cynical, but overall a good read.

Great little book on the psychology behind relationships. Characters were well developed and interesting. Kept me hooked till the very end. Good ending.

A novel about women-hating men (one in particular) and a self-loating woman narratrix who describes herself as having "frizzy" hair and being "Semitically-challenged" (which is what, not being Semitic enough?) who have a brief "relationship" that leaves the latter with enough "how stupid was I" anecdotes to string together what might, most charitably be called a long, maybe R-rated, Seinfeld script.

The premise, first hinted (!) at by the title, is that "bulls" are always looking for a "new cow" to replace the "old cow". In the off-chance that the reader has dropped in from outer space, this sophmoric (is there such a word as freshmanic?) theory is further limned at the start of each episode with a revealing quote from a reputable source on biology, psychology or cultural anthropology. Thus we are informed that the book is serious.

Perhaps the emphasis on biology contains a sub-text of forgiveness; the poor fellow couldn't help himself - it was imprinted on him to be a cad. What, however, was imprinted on her? Here's a man who carps about his fiancee/roommate (of six years, if we are to believe him) at every turn. The narratrix apparently is an orphan only child with no mother or sister, or even father or brother, to suggest she connect the dots between bad behavior/loyalty and bad behavior/casual sex.

This book would not be considered an example of modern deconstructed fiction because that would imply it was once constructed. The narrative is herky-jerky, the dialogue unconvincing and the characters described almost entirely by their choice of beverages and smoking mannerisms. The focus shifts only minutely from the heroine in "love" to the heroine in heartbreak, describes a brief whiff of revenge (based on conceit and deceit) and then, granting the faithful reader no knowledge, no resolution and no drama, brings the curtain down.

The heroine says her "mouth watered at the sight of his washboard stomach". I, too, experienced physical symptoms related to the digestive tract. This first novel holds not promise, but threat.

A year ago, if someone had asked my why men leave their current relationship I only have one explanation: New Cow Theory.

A witty and insightful lease on the traditional outlook on relationship break-ups.

Laura Zigman author of Dating Bird, Her, La Ley De La Granja and Someone Like You otherwise known as Animal Husbandry, has spent ten years of her life working at a book publishing firm in New York. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today.

Formally known as Animal Husbandry, Someone Like You was converted to film in 2001.

Talking about self doubt and analyzing each aspect of your life due to a bad break-up, Jane Goodall explains the vital steps of her `Cow' theory and understandably sometimes when it may seem coherent it doesn't.

Succinct plot and strategic planning of events makes reading easier and one less thing to worry about among all those theories.

The wickedly witty humor weaved throughout the piece brings life and real contemplation of relationships with the theories.

Jane tackles her `denial' with the witty theories that have never previously been thought. Moving into a one-bedroom, brownstone building, she quickly discovers life does not when the one that got away is gone and the one she never saw coming enters her life with a bang.

Zigman has out done herself with this classic humor where every woman can relate to at some stage in life. Enjoyment and exhilaration are both unanimous feeling, it is a shame that Someone Like You ended so quickly, captivation was present till the very last word.

`Someone Like You' by Laura Zigman (Bantam Dell Publishing Group, $18.60) 2001, 304 page paperback

I actually liked the saga of Jane Goodall (not THAT one) more than that damn Bridget Jones' story. At least Jane was aware that she was pathetic and the quotations interspersed throughout made me feel like I was learning a little about science and philosophy. Even so, Jane, her friends, Joan and David (whose shoes I happen to adore)her roommate and especially the one who got away are all a real bore after a while. Roy is unlovable and perhaps Ms. Zigman is guilty of writing a novel based a little too closely on personal tragedy because she truly characterizes Roy as the worst kind of wimp. He is absolutely pathetic and Jane's long slump that follows their breakup renders her pathetic. However, the book is light reading (make that lite) and harmless. Getting upset about the sexual politics of this book is a little like hating Elmo's morals.

Laura Zigman is the O.G. Chick Lit queen. Animal Husbandry taps into what a lot of women are thinking and feeling right after a break up. This book is written with a smartness that seems lacking in a lot of chick lit today. I like how even Ray, the man who breaks Jane's heart, is written in a dimensional way. You really get how she falls for him, despite all the warning signs. Most of us have been there in some way or another.

Pick up this book if you want a good example of the genre.