Customer Reviews

Ladies with Options

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ladies with options is a hoot. Hartwick has created a delightful group of women, each with her own particular foibles, but who, together, make a team that accomplishes miracles. Set in a fictional small town in Minnesota,life in the Upper Midwest is described by the narrator who provides a wry, urban perspective while revealing that she, too, has her needs and dreams. Rest assured, everything works out in the end in a most satisfying fashion, but on the way we are treated to ups and downs ranging from the merely comic to the hilarious. Hartwick also peppers the narrative with a menagerie of witticisms, including a few puns that are real groaners. Suffice it to say that the book carries you from page to page, from chapter to chapter and delivers the goods all the way to the end. We want more from Cynthia!

Imagine yourself a middle-aged housewife of a nondescript town in Minnesota. Imagine yourself being 14.5 million dollars richer.

"Ladies with Options" is a humerous and well-written story of a group of 4 houswifes, 2 librarians, and one grad student turning $ into a fortune enough to rival Bill Gates' on the stock market. Told from the perspective of their lawyer, and daughter of one of the housewifes, the story is both unbelievable and funny.

What would you do if all of the sudden you had a couple extra million to spend at leisure? That's what the book's about, of course. The book is just so very fun to read, with a touch of romance and characters that seem real. The escapades of these ladies are hillarious. You'll be amazed at what a bunch of old ladies can do when they put their minds to it.

I recommend this book to everyone. It's positively delightful, and you won't regret reading it.

In early-'80s Minnesota, some small-town women decide they're tired of living life on the margins, so they start BUYING on marginstocks, that is. Thanks to their pink-haired tech guru, Skye Terrell, they latch onto winners like Dell and Microsoftand boy, do they get rich.

Getting rich means the chance to turn the tables on all the bosses, neighbors and family whove dissed them over the years. But it also means the chance to rise above the way they've been treated, and much of the fun comes in the inventive ways the Larksdale Ladies deal with treacherous boyfriends, crooked accountants, envious husbands and, finally, the rust belt threat to their whole way of life.

One of the cable networks, naming LADIES to its summer's-best reading list, called it "Bridget Jones meets the Beardstown Ladies" and that sounds pretty fair. The plot's a comic romp like an old-time screwball comedy; but the narrator, a newly-minted lawyer named Sophia Peters, has a hip, modern way of laughing at the whole world, herself included. The result is admittedly pretty light stuff (with heart), but also a very upbeat, jolly read. Perfect for chasing the summeror winterblues.

I loved it!

In 1983, it came to the attention of the Mostly Methodist Club, a group of eight mostly middle-aged, married Larksdale, Minnesota women that it was time to take charge of their lives. Between pensions, social security and meager savings, these ladies were looking at a pretty miserable retirement and old age. So with a little research and self teaching, they organized themselves into the Larksdale Ladies Independence Club (LLIC), put up $1500 each and carefully and cautiously began investing. But, when their youngest member, Skye, befriends a computer geek who tells her all about this amazing Seattle software company that is going to revolutionize the whole industry, they decide to buy Microsoft on opening day and the rest, as they say, is history. By 1986, the LLIC had over 1 million in their account and things were really beginning to take off for everyone..... Cynthia Hartwick has written a delightful and entertaining novel that pulls you into the story from page one and doesn't let you go until the very satisfying end of the novel. Her fast paced plot is full of great, witty writing and vivid scenes. But it's her strong, endearing and unique characters that make this novel stand out and you'll find yourself rooting for these mid-western ladies to the end as they take control of not just their financial lives, but their entire lives and make all their dreams come true. Told with insight, wisdom and laugh-out-loud humor, Ladies With Options is a winner.

What if a group of women friends in a little mid-western town pooled their cookie-jar money and invested it in the mid-1980's stock market and secretly became millionaires? All the fun of rags to riches Cinderella transformations. And blowing husbands', families' and friends' minds. This is a hilarious, heart-warming read. A complete hoot and a joy ride. If you missed your chance to get rich then, live it now. Pick up an option on the ladies. It'll pay off big time. You'll be glad you made this investment.

By nature and training,I am polite, and always raised my hand in school and do not talk above a whisper in the library, opera, or in church. On the plane reading "Ladies", my laughter uncorked, drowning out the crying child in the second row. People turned. I managed to limit myself to perioding chortling. People noticed. Some perhaps considered a misplaced peanut would require the Heimlich maneuver and they were dutifully trying to remember their last date of certification. Others knew it was not alimentary but literary. The woman next to me noted the title "Ladies W/ Optns" in her PDA. The man across the aisle, dodging the patroling flight attendant, leaned over, squinting to see the page in the bad plane lighting, and withdrew at page end, muffling his guffaw with a paper napkin. Just other "eavesreader" drawn to the wit of Cynthia Hartwick. (I left "Ladies" open on the seat when I went to the restroom. Discrete sharing seemed polite). Cynthia Hartwick has a knack for hitting on the sublime humor in lives of "our sort" of real people. She takes average moments in fairly normal (but quirky) lives and, with the skill of a diamond cutter, makes them sparkle by adding just the right angle. The book is hilarious and moving, novel yet strangely nostalgic, and leaves readers satisfied yet hungering for more. (Reminds me of that dessert my aunt makes!) I hope Ms Hartwick obliges her fans. I love to laugh!

"Ladies with Options" breezes by with laughs on every page. Every character is an individual, and most are much like someone you've known, but the humor is never at their expense. Many of the laughs are in the way Sophia, the narrator, tells the story -- she's smart (a lot smarter than she lets on, in fact) and a little amazed at the unlikely success of the Larksdale Ladies Investment Club, for which she is the attorney. In some ways she's just along for the ride, but because her mother is a member of the club, she has more than just an attorney's view of the goings-on. She sees a group of rather conventional women growing into their new roles as stock market winners, and she sees how old ways of thinking begin to bend and break under the pressure of new ways of conducting their lives. The humor is not condescending, however. It is as if these ordinary people have had extraordinary abilities waiting to be released by new circumstances. The new circumstances are not an unmixed blessing, though, and marriages, friendships, and careers have to be adjusted. We see how even changes for the better can have unexpected consequences -- sometimes hilarious, but sometimes not entirely pleasant. Although you're never far from a quip or falling-down funny turn of events, you're also seeing real people cope with their own self-discovery. "Ladies with Options" is a funny book that reads in a whirlwind of good humor, but you'll also remember it for its lessons about the fast-changing world we all live in.

The story is told by Sophia (with a long I) Peters, whose mother belongs to a loose-knit group, the Mostly Methodist Club, in Larksdale, Minnesota, 1983. The ladies of the club come to a realization that they are not well-prepared for retirement, and so they begin a gradual transformation into the Larksdale Ladies Independence Club, the hottest little investment club you ever heard of. Using some unorthodox methods of stock-picking they are soon making money hand over fist. When they invest in a little-known company called Microsoft--well--the sky's the limit.

But, there is more to life than beating the stock market. There are families, relationships, husbands with fragile self-esteem, tyrannical bosses, men who are jerks, social change, economic change, and possibly the end of the little town of Larksdale. How will "the ladies" meet these challenges? Will money spoil them? Will their men be able to cope with their success? Will Sophia ever find true love? Will they all survive the economic down-turn? You will just have to read the book to find out.

This is not a perfect book. There are too many lovable, warm-hearted characters, too many improbable situations, too many miraculous escapes from disaster, too many problems too easily solved, too many cute one-liners, and yet--the book works. The story moves right along and I found I couldn't put it down. Great literature it is not, but as a fun, light-hearted read, I recommend it. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber

Without knowing anything about this book I picked it up and read it in a day. Great plot, wonderful characters, it kept me happily turning page after page and I was saddened to see it end.

I'm planning to buy multiple copies to give as gifts and am quite sure that I'll read it again and again.

I took this book on a business trip with me and could barely stand to put it down when I needed to! So I carried it around with me in my briefcase and read at every opportunity.....in restaurants, at gas stations, etc. This was a truly great read...entertaining, not too serious. The author did a great job of storytelling by making the story flow into itself...it just kept going, and going, and going...until suddenly you were finished! I would recommend this book to anyone that likes a good enjoyable read! Good airplane or vacation book too!