Customer Reviews

Getting Rid of Matthew

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Helen never thought she'd be one of those dreaded "other women," but that's just the predicament she finds herself in when she falls for her boss Matthew, a man many years her senior with a wife and children at home. She constantly wishes that they could spend more time with each other and asks Matthew to leave his wife for her. When he arrives on her doorstep with his bags in hand, she realizes you really have to be careful what you wish for. Suddenly her clandestine sometimes lover has turned into a real person - warts and all. She craves her privacy, and is embarrassed when she finds that the rest of the secretaries think that Matthew is not a catch at all, and schemes to hide her role in his separation. Then she decides the best way to get rid of him is the get him to go back to his wife Sophie, even going to far as to befriend her. The only problem - she likes Sophie more than she likes Matthew.

Fallon's story of the other woman is at times funny. I laughed so hard when Helen was watching Matthew snore (did he do that before?) and noticed his untrimmed nose hairs. But Helen is such a nasty character, that readers may find it difficult to sympathize with her and hope she gets her happily ever after. Sophie's character is what kept me glued to the story. She too had an affair with Matthew and he left his first wife for her. Her musings on getting what she deserves and realizing the role she played in stealing another woman's husbands give her the humility that Helen is sorely lacking. All in all, it was a pretty entertaining story if you can get beyond Helen's selfishness.

Helen is an assistant to Mathew, an exec at a PR firm and 20 years her senior, and has been having an affair with him for four years. The whole time she's been begging him to leave his wife but just when she starts to feel like ending the story, Mathew shows up at her door step stating that he's left his wife and is moving in. From then on, she tries to find ways to get rid of him. However, not finding an easy way to do that, she sort of resigns herself to trying at having a go of it. Things become really muddled when her curiosity about his wife, Sophie, gets the better of her and she befriends her under a false name.

Sophie then introduces her to a new restaurant owner and sparks fly between Helen and him until she finds out that he is Mathew's son by his first marriage. As things go on, Helen finds herself having to lie constantly to everyone in her life and she wants it all to be over. Finally, she concocts this idea to get Sophie and Mathew back together again so she can have her life back and get back on track. Of course it all comes to a head at the end of the book.

First I will say that although I read this book fairly quickly and it kept my interest, it was a complete cliché. I had read a positive review in People and it looked like it might be an interesting book. I was hoping that this age old story would have an amusing or unique take on it, but it doesn't. Not even close.

Helen is portrayed as the typical home wrecker, a sort of weak, self absorbed woman who goes with the man just because he asks. Of course everyone hates her and blames her for being the person to steal the husband and break up the family. Mathew is the typical cheating male: weak in character, smooth-talking, easily lying, charming guy whose culpability is never questioned. Sophie, although smart, is the deserted wife who still wants him back even though he's screwed her over and she knew what he was capable of because he cheated on his first wife with her. And then there are the catty office shrews who make "mean girls" look like angels. Puleeease!

I did love the ending though; it was very satisfactory and one that I was hoping for as I neared what I knew would be a huge blow up at the end. It was the least the author could do considering how much she perpetuated negative female stereotypes in this kind of story. I would give this book four stars except around ¾ of the way through, it starts to drag and get redundant as the whole match making and lying goes on and on. I basically kept reading at that point to get to the end, which I was looking forward to.

For Americans: this is written by a British author and there are a lot of British colloquialisms in this book. Also, there are a lot of pop cultural references, names of people or TV shows, that Americans won't get and which might take some of what might be amusing about this book away.

I LOVED this book! It had me from the beginning. I was sad when I finished it. I know the heroine was not the most perfect person in the world, but she was real and funny and I liked her very much! Her lover was not so appealing, but he was created that way by the author. GREAT fist novel. I would recommend this book to most women, except those who are put off by a little "salty" language. If not, give it a go! You will laugh out loud!

Before I say anything negative, I should start by saying that I really enjoyed this book. More than anything, I loved the fact that it was a story of grown-up female relationships (there are lots of "Mean Girls" types of books out there, but very few that really explore the ups and downs of the Sisterhood, as it were).

So speaking of grown-up relationships, the main character, Helen, would have made more sense to me if she was about 10 years younger. I just don't see 40 year olds acting the way she does. Even in the end when she left her job, she acted no better than the mean 26-year-olds who had been teasing her, by doing some kind of "empowerment" thing and calling them all mean names. When I pictured Helen in my mind I thought of someone about my age - 32 - and definitely not any older. Especially if you look at her character history - she had spent her 20's traveling all over the world by herself. I've done travel by myself, too, and I know that nothing gets you to grow up faster, and trust in yourself more, than trying to figure out a train system in a foreign country when you're on your own. So I suspect that her age was made up arbitrarily so as to make it so much worse that she was going through what she was going through. But nothing about her seemed 40 to me. Especially a 40 who had spent her 20's backpacking alone.

So Helen is a 28 year old caught in a 40 year old woman's body. Ok. That aside, it's a really beautiful - I'd go so far as to say 'meditation' - on what women do to each other, the consequences of our actions, how we can hurt people, and how we can make it better. I loved Sophie and Rachel, her friends, and I was excited to see how Helen's tangled web would come crashing around her.

The ending seemed to come a bit quickly, like the author was on a deadline or something, but the last chapter was still incredibly satisfying, and I'm very glad I read it.

This is so well written you'll never want to finish it. I'm in the middle of Got You Back at the moment too, and I just don't want it to end. . . hilarious characters, very funny premise and just a great, great story very well written. Just don't start reading this book if you have to get up early in the morning!

Wow. What can I say? I judged this book by its cover (and great title) and was beyond disappointed with what I found inside.
The main character, Helen, is quite possibly the most self-absorbed, arrogant, vacuous, and unrelateable character ever written. The plotline is so unbelievable, you wonder if you are reading something from the Twilight Zone.
Helen has zero redeeming qualities and this book is neither funny nor heartwarming and will not endear you to her. It was very hard to get through, especially toward the end, because of how loathesome the character is. She is seemingly sociopathic and cannot even endure a conversation with her best friend about her life because it does not pertain to her or involve her.
I would not recommend this book to anyone. Ever.

The main character Helen was really annoying. She was not likeable at all. She was moody, rude, and ungrateful for the kindness of others. Mid way through I was going to stop because she was so awful but I decided to keep reading. She becomes way more likeable after that but you still get the feeling that deep down she's only doing things that will benefit her the most. I did like the ending though and I thought the plot was nice. It was just the character thing for me.

This book held my attention so well that I actually read it by candlelight during a power outage. Not because it was so good, but because I couldn't wait to get to the inevitable train wreck when Helen/Eleanor confronts her married lover's wife, Sophie, after befriending her and concocting a sticky, tangled web of deceit. The train wreck turned out to be less than a fender bender and I was sorry that I read in the dark until my eyes ached. The book is not "Bridget Jones' Diary", or even "The Nanny Diaries". Those were much more cleverly written. Although she would have you believe that she is trying to construct her life and what happens to her, Helen/Eleanor mostly just sits by and watches with only occasional forays into control. I found the ad nauseum "lists" of her friend Rachel's and her's annoying and skipped over most of them, but not nearly as annoying as her interjecting "Erm" into almost every sentence--sometimes two or three times. What the hell does "erm..." mean? This book had an interesting plot, but unfortunately, it died on the vine that grew the grapes that went into the "large glasses of wine" that were also an integral part of the story.

It was a random pick on a lazy day at Barnes and Noble that espoused my reading Jane Fallon's "Getting Rid of Matthew." Fallon herself has called it "hen lit" (a play at "chick" literature), and perhaps the target audience is even middling-aged women. Needless to say, I'm a guy (really) in my early 20s, and the hilarity in this book kept me hooked.

"Getting Rid of Matthew" tells the story of Helen, an almost 40-year old secretary involved in an affair with Matthew, her former boss who is 20 years her senior. Four years into the begging- and disappointment-rife relationship, Helen realizes she doesn't want or love Matthew after all. As if on cue, Matthew conveniently appears on her doorstep, declaring that he has left his wife to live with her. She embarks on a mission to get Matthew back together with his wife, "fixing" her life and collecting a few friends (and enemies) along the way.

Some of the opinions in this book may seem offensive. One reviewer who happens to have an autistic child wrote that she stopped reading after two casual lines that used "autistic" in a manner of which noble causes for autism probably would not approve.

In my case, it was reading about Filipinas' not being trustworthy in the kitchen. There are about 17 Filipino chefs in my extended family, and I have always trusted the Filipino kitchen to be a source of dishes that are delicious and delightfully varied. And as for being sanitary-- in my family, as in every Filipino household that cares about hygiene (a ridiculously high number), we're almost obsessive.

In contrast, a hefty laugh is much deserved for the thought that the superstars of "English cuisine" (if it exists at all) could easily be boiled mutton, muffins, and deer meat that has been seasoned with spices that could never be grown in England. Come to think of it, the simple imagery in Fallon's novel of English people cooking seems to me almost an incredible revelation. --> Exhibit right there. If you are offended by things like these, avoid the novel. ;)

In any case, the character who dropped the line is depicted as a pretentious, affected idiot, anyway.

The point is that one will miss out on a very entertaining read if he lets the "offensive" opinions get in the way. To her credit, Fallon merely employed the sort of characters one would find in the real world-- even, yes, at the expense of politeness. Not everyone will like Filipino cuisine, and not everyone will appreciate the intellect of an autistic child. Deal with that and move on. It is a loss to gain the respect of a narrow-minded person who makes facts out of opinions.

One other reviewer complained about the book's being into British culture, and that American audiences might not enjoy it. Well, guess what? The setting is London, and Fallon appears to have provided enough context clues for an American to know, for instance, that Joanna Lumley is supposed to be sexy, and Barbara Woodhouse should be something else. Though, I admit I laughed my "arse" off when I googled these names and found that Lumley is an English actress and model, while Woodhouse was a dog-trainer. [In the book, one of Matthew's sisters attempted to do a Joanna Lumley when she said, "you, naughty boy!", when it all really looked like Barbara Woodhouse playing with a dog.]

While I understand the point of view to be omniscient, I wish there was more clarity in Fallon's movement from character to character. The miracle of page breaks could have easily solved this.

So, what did I learn from this book? Hm. Not to have an extramarital affair when I'm 60... kidding. ^_^ Maybe it's that some people indeed are like sand, and the tighter we hold on to them, the faster they escape. When we learn to let go, we get back a free hand, and maybe we can find ourselves a nice pebble that fits just right-- and stays.

For someone whose book shopping normally entails math and chemistry, I didn't expect to enjoy "Getting Rid of Matthew," but I did. Check out this book and laugh. Audibly.

I won't go through the ins and outs of Helen's life, the mess she has allowed herself to get into and the very bad decisions she has made to make it worse. Other reviewers have done that well here. I liked this book very much. It's a fun look at what depths we can reach and what it might take to make it right. I liked Helen, although I wanted her to deal with the harpies at work rather than hide from them, but what I really liked was her relationship with Sophie, Matthew's wife. The only reason I gave it four stars instead of five was because of the broad assumption that American readers will understand the differences in language and the British references. That was frustrating. This is a good book to pick up when you just want to forget your own problems and dwell on someone else's for awhile.