Customer Reviews

I'm No Saint: Memoir of a Wayward Wife

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Had heard rumblings of the books from therapist friends and a couple editor friends, none positive. But I like to read for myself and make up my own mind.

To be honest I didn't find the book as one reviewer noted, to be 'hilarious journey of sex, drugs, marriage, dating after marriage, child-rearing, career hunting and surviving life on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.'

And no I do not think as another reviewer wrote 'Everyone (young/old, male/ female,single/married etc) will love this book.' Simply because I found it a terribly sad book about a terribly sad woman, who uses herself and others for what amounts to a quick fix.

Unless you consider allowing men who don't like you, much less respect you to bed you and pay you like a prostitute and then complain about the customer and what he got from you to be sexy or bright.

I don't find abortion, drug use funny at all and I think anyone who sees the author as a devoted Mom, had better rethink what devoted means since to me it means being a good role model and putting ones childs needs ahead of ones own lusts and greed. One can be sexy, brillant, exciting and not loose. The author doesn't come off as the type.

And I agree 100% with Ada Calhoun an editor at Nerve.com who wrote in the NYTimes book review section 'And her sex scenes are both clinical and vulgar'. Actaully felt the need to take a shower after reading the book. Some people need to keep their lives private.

While the cast of characters in this story whirling around Ms. Hayt, the protagonist, are the overly educated, upwardly mobile denizens of New York City and its suburbs; with the fast-talking and the intellectualism and all eyes focused on seats of power; this memoir, in the final analysis, details a old sad story, and it's this:

That if you don't understand in your gut that lasting love and fulfillment in this life comes from the giving and not from the getting, you will wind up alone and feeling unlovable which will keep you alone.

Lasting love begins by selectively allowing other people all the way in to your very soul -- that means finding others who you believe may be worthy, evaluating whether they seem to have some real interest in knowing who you really are, and then gradually revealing your most private inner thoughts and dreams and cares and woes to those people, and then evaluating, by their words and actions, whether they really do care. If they do, you will feel cared about, and the feeling that you are cared about is so unbelievably wonderful that it will inspire you to allow those selected individuals in even further. This trust of allowing others in is the highest form of giving, which will engender trust from those people, and they will allow you in. And this is the way bonding happens, spirits intertwine, and love happens. And then you don't need lots of food, drugs, gambling, booze, etc., etc. to feel alive, because you'll have the real thing, which is true love, which really means feeling deeply cared about by another and knowing that the other person feels deeply cared about by you. Again, it doesn't come from running around trying to please others. Anyone can spread their legs. Anyone can learn to make gourmet dinners. There's no giving in that; there is no exposure of self in that; there's no trust in that. To get the fulfilling, lasting love, you must allow others all the way in and trust that the frightened, scarred, insecure, and highly imperfect soul inside you is wonderfully lovable as is. This is the old story that has always been true, and memoir will tell you what happens to people who don't understand this very fundamental emotional truth.

A "blog" by a person of privilege who believes that spreading her legs or her lips is the ticket to catapulting her spirit beyond the boredom of a bourgeois "life." Connection or commitment (to family, friends, husband and child or just about anything)

is constantly trumped, in Hayt's... err ...mind by scratching her itch. Truly a remarkable admission of breaking "taboos" by someone who values confessional tales of grabbing, stroking, pulling, licking or humping as perhaps the most heroic set of actions available to the upwardly mobile with education,money and opportunity. Oh, there are drugs and deadlines, too.

This book is a sad story about a designer-dressed society snob, who has no morals and who cares more about her sexual and drug addictions than about her own child. I'm not surprised that her husband did a U-turn when he read her book. How embarrassing for her family and for her. I appreciate her willingness to tell her story honestly, but she writes as if she's proud of her behavior. I really hope that she has finally changed her ways. Yes, there is lots of sex and she writes well, but the story is sad and left me feeling depressed.

I enjoyed and related to some of the stories, having my own somewhat sordid past to own up to. I also thought the book was well-written. But the life the author lived is also full of things that only lots of money can buy... nannies, constant psychotherapy, lots of plastic surgery, among other things. Her story is hard at times for us middle class folk in "flyover country" to relate to.

I have noticed that there is a lack of objectivity in the skill set of reviewers when it comes to covering the quality of the book. Memoirs are supposed to be candid, that's why we enjoy them so much- we can peep into another's possibly lurid encounters. I can detach myself enough to not insist on either deifying nor defending the author! That being said-the author does not spare any effort to tell the whole nasty truth- look no further than the sub title to see her use that same word to describe her tale.I was actually admiring her for parts of the journey , and I almost feel sorry for her at times because she is so self absorbed and opportunistic- especially when it comes to her immediate family- I won't "spoil the ending", but it seems the key players finally become Un clueless after all is said and done. The major defect in her character is that she is sort of chilly, hedonistic, definitely unsympathetic and not cuddly- how could a man fell safe around her? I really enjoyed the book and couldn't put it down, like her or not she is brave brash and witty- and much too candid for her own good

Reads like Penthouse Forums strung together, with a rather unintresting life in between. Unless you don't know anyone who does drugs, sleeps around or has an eating disorder. If you do it's old hat with more than a hint of the toxic quality people in that lifestyle spread around. I found myself happy for her ex- husband at the end of the book, rather than having sympathy for her.

Elizabeth,the self destructive slut, sexes a menu of men as she copes with a failing marriage, single parenthood, career fulfillmement, and a re-emerging coke habit.

As she recounts the events in her life she psycho analyzes the choices she made then, how they affect her now, and what the root causes may have been.

The underlying cause according to her: NOT ENOUGH ATTENTION FROM DADDY GROWING UP.

Through her odyssey of lust and twisted romance, she eventually returns to find peace at home with her estranged husband and her new found passion for writing.

The book is a real page turner. I couldn't put it down especially Ms. Hayts recollections of her many intimate encounters with New York society elites. WHAT A FREAK, YOU GO GIRL!

P.S.

Dash this is not a book for you!

If there ever were an advertisement for sane, monogamous living, this book is it. The author details her sexual and other exploits in the Big City with some witty prose, but there is no real content--no real concern about others, or about causes, or about anything except herself. If she were in her 20s, maybe, just maybe this would be excusable--but by the time she writes the book she is well into her 40s and the deepest conclusion she can come up with is that it is okay to be alone.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Hayt. I'm No Saint is a brutally honest memoir of Elizabeth's life, and particularly her sex life. It's definitely a book that people will be talking about. But it's not just the graphic recounting of sexual adventures-and misadventures-that makes this book conversation-worthy. (She really had sex with a bridesmaid an hour before the wedding?) It's the unflinching candor that Elizabeth brings to the inner workings of families-both the one she was born into and the one she married into. There is such raw honesty on these pages that I kept thinking, Jesus, how could she write this? I don't think I could do it, but I admire Elizabeth that she has; it's not easy, putting yourself out there like this, and it's sure to bring out the misogynist in some men. But let's be honest: How many people have secrets like Elizabeth...had?