Customer Reviews

Have the Men Had Enough?

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is funny, touching and very realistically written - and well written too! Grandma in Had the Men had Enough reminds me very much of old people with senile dementia I knew in real life - all those extremely comical situations mixed with tragedy and insights into the personality the aged used to be. A must for anybody with old family members (who not?). It makes you look at old age in a new and (emotionally) better informed way, a more pensive way maybe. Given the subject the book is not at all heavy reading, it is rather light and straightforward. The only drawback to me lies in the construction of the novel (one star off for that is a lot, I know). The story is told by a mother (Grandma's daughter-in-law) and her daughter (Grandma's grandchild) alternatively. They give a kind of diary account of everything that happens with Grandma - but almost no word about the rest of their lives. A very lively way to tell a story, but it has also its unnatural aspects one perceives only after a while or after having finished the book. Nevertheless, Had the Men had Enough is very much worth reading.

I thought that Have the Men had enough was a very funny and emotional book. It was well written . Although the book does not have the same action and compelling drama as some, it does keep you laughing and crying the whole way through.

Have the men had enough is one of the best books I have ever read...it made me laugh and cry and I felt it depicted the nightmare of dementia within a family briliantly. Margaret Forster is a very astute woman.

Prompt delivery all the way from England to US. Out of print book practically free! Thank you.

To put it bluntly, the content of this book is too depressing. This is the story of an 80-something year old lady suffering senile dementia, and her family's struggle to provide loving care for her. I think the main problem with this book is that from the beginning, we can see exactly where the story is heading and how it will end, yet we are subjected to 200-odd pages in the middle which really need to be compelling and gripping but are not. The purpose of the middle of this book is to give us an insight into the old lady's family and the way they struggle to provide adequate care for her as her condition declines (too slowly for my liking). It becomes too repetitive as we see the same problems arising for the family over and over again, which may well be how it would happen in real life but it hardly makes for compelling reading. I just kept finding myself wishing the old lady would die already, to provide a new angle for the story. Now if the book was 100 pages shorter, I doubt I would have lost interest the way I did. But essentially it all comes down to the fact that the story is depressing and unenjoyable. I mean who really wants to read a book which makes an issue out of changing the underwear of a doubly-incontinent 80 year old woman. Not me.