From Publishers Weekly
"Sure, sure, it's important to tell your kids the truth. Except when it's better to flat out lie," writes Konig, a former columnist for the New York Post, in her witty first book about the realities of being a modern-day mother. Filled with warm family anecdotes and belly laughs, the book deals with such universal subjects as living in cramped quarters, dealing with the demise of beloved pets (or unwanted roadside varmints) and overcoming the perils of house hunting, pregnancy and childbirth, to name a few. But the book's primary focus is on the struggle of balancing family life with working at home. (Readers will identify with Konig when she describes having to hide all the pens in her house from her son, who likes to write on furniture, and then not being able to find a pen when she needs one.) Despite its humorous tone, readers will often be touched by the more sensitive moments, like Konig's depiction of her two-year-old comforting the family's dying cat: "My son had just learned how to be gentle with her. He'd go over to her spot by the heater and pet her so softly and say, 'Oh, key-kat.'" No topic is too personal for Konig, who even includes details of her family's financial situation, but she always approaches these difficult subjects with good humor. Though this debut will hold particular interest for harried parents, even single women will be delighted by this amusing glimpse into American family life.
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Review
"Susan Konig displays a winning ability to convey the humor, the quiet delight and the mild desperation she finds in rearing her four young children. A mixture of the tart and the sweet, Why Animals Sleep . . . [is] hilarious . . . brilliant and useful advice, refreshingly different from the usual dreary wisdom dished out by most parenting books. By the end of the first chapter, many moms will want to move next door to this maternal Solomon. What makes the book so entertaining is Konig's honesty, wit, and her sometimes unapologetically emotional notes. In the end, Konig displays a lovely perspective about her life, her marriage, her children, and her decisions in life."
- USA Today
"Konig, an exceptional humorist on the order of Erma Bombeck and Jean Kerr, offers a superbly witty account of her family's move from a small Manhattan apartment to a house in the suburbs. This is no small accomplishment. . . . With droll honesty, Konig relates incidents of culture shock as she transitions from hip city mama (and one-time party girl) to suburban mom of three. . . .One for the maturing Sex and the City crowd."
- Library Journal
"As a psychologist, I can't recommend lying to your children. But, as a psychologist, I can recommend laughter and this book will tickle your funny bone in every chapter."
- Dr. Joyce Brothers
"Laugh-out-loud hilarious. Susan Konig tells the truth about exactly what you're in for when you have kids, a house in the suburbs, and a minivan with four pounds of Cheerios under the baby's car seat. Reading her book makes you wish she lives right next door, so you could get together and laugh between disasters."
- Sandi Kahn Shelton, author of Preschool Confidential and What Comes After Crazy
"Thank you, thank you, Susan Konig, for telling the truth about American women: that most of us are not 'Baywatch babes'; that we have no idea how to canoodle; that, yes, we enjoy aspects of suburbia and we lie to our kids about roadkill. How refreshing to encounter a real-world mom, who doesn't pretend she's all that."
- Elizabeth Cohen, author of The House on Beartown Road
"Susan Konig's memoir is a warm-hearted, insightful, and extremely funny portrait of a woman trying to negotiate the slippery transition from urbane city dweller to house-proud suburban mom. Her rationalization about why she lies to her children is fiendishly amusing and worth reading out loud to close friends. Readers will cringe in fear and burst with delight at the endless juggling, improvisation, and re-inventing Konig needs to keep her sanity, her marriage, and her kids in one place."
- Bruce Stockler, author of I Sleep at Red Lights: A True Story of Life After Triplets
