Customer Reviews

The Playgroup: A Novel

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I wasn't surprised that The Playgroup was funny and sexy... but I was surprised that it also dared to explore much more interesting questions than other "light read" Nanny Diaries-style novels. Even as it made me laugh out loud, The Playgroup brought out deeper and sometimes sadder issues for its mommy-protagonist... addressing difficulties I think will be familiar to any modern urban woman: How do we reconcile our "hip" exterior vision of ourselves with our fragile inner search for identity and love? The review from Ashland is so right... this book will easily make a great movie!

Nelsie Spencer's "The Playgroup" catches you off guard -- it's not just a social satire, but also an exploration of motherhood, marriage, expressions of love in all its forms, self-denial and revelation. It's a brave book and a grand achievement for Spencer. Someone should make a movie out of this.

Drawn by the sexy cover art, I was well pleased by "The Playgroup". It's really, really funny, but with a pulsing undercurrent of dysfunction. (I wanted to SHOOT her mother Sara- the scenes between her and her daughter Ellie ALONE make this book worthwhile). I found it heartbreaking, tender, and outrageous. You won't be bored, or disappointed- the author obviously has extensive experience in "WaspWorld" and skewers it deftly. I also love the scene where she tapes a gift box to her behindular area as a birthday gift for her dreamy hubby Peter (the "Lyon Burke" of the new millenium)
Bravo "The Playgroup"!

This is the kind of book that makes the reader think: "Gee, if thing got published, certainly I can spend an afternoon writing and get published." Absolutely agree with the previous writer re: embarrassing sex scenes which I think are the worst offense, of many, in this book. I'm all for some seduction in a book but these read like the writer's fantasies described in the crudest and most immature manner. They remind me of a friend who uses the same language while the rest of us give eachother awkward and uncomfortable looks (and all of us discuss our sex lives openly). The characters are ridiculous, completely unbelievable, and nobody I would ever want to meet. It's hard to get involved with them because you find yourself looking down on them. If I were 14 this might be a fun read, but at 34, married, kids and a very successful career, I found it nothing but irritating. Did make it to chapter 4 though.

I've been infatuated with mommy lit for the past few months, and devouring all kinds of fun tales of moms coming of "age" (my fave, thus far, is The Yummy Mummy by Polly Williams). They all have this in common: they're set in New York or London (check), the moms have put careers on hold to be with their kids and they're trying to regain their "selves" (check), they're early in their relationship with their husbands/boyfriends and still trying to figure out if this is *really* the right guy, especially given the upheaval since baby (check), they have plenty of money (check), they have troubled relationships with their own mothers (check, with a vengeance), there's another man who presents a likely alternative to their husband and with whom they have some minor flirtation (check, check, check).

Ok, so this has all the usual stuff. But what really threw me was the sex. I know all the other reviewers love the sex scenes. But here's where I'm different -- I'm the mom she *says* she is in the first chapter, the woman who is really paying lots more attention to her mommy hormones than her libido, at least while the children are babies. She makes some comment about how she's not interested in sex, but if she puts on the "uniform" and starts doing it, she finds she enjoys it by the end. Ahem.

Every time she sees her husband, she gets naked. Every time she's alone with her husband for an instant, she *wants* to get naked. When she's having sex, she's fantasizing about other men and other women. The dirty talk is truly Penthouse quality.

If I wanted to read a steamy novel about lesbian sex, hey! I'd buy a steamy novel about lesbian sex. This purports to be a novel about a mom finding herself. It's way more about sex than it is about moms. And, though it was interesting in between the sex scenes, it was too cliched and painfully baudy for this mama.

If you like to read Penthouse, you'll love this novel. If you like to read Jennifer Weiner, keeping clicking.

(Oh yeah and I am so done with reading about the trials and tribulations of Upper West Side mamas trying to fit in with Upper East Side mamas. Come on. Mamas the world wide have plenty more problems than whether to wear pearls or funky beads from the Village to a cocktail party. Like, whether or not they can get affordable medical insurance. I just don't care any more about what stupid present you're going to take to a three-year-old's $20k birthday party.)

I read this book last summer, and I could not put it down! I found myself reading the good juicy parts out loud to my husband! This book is a quick read that you won't want to end!

I confess. I buy and read all the novels the bookstores display as being "for me," trying to not judge them by their covers which seem designed to attract my "inner-Seventeen-reading-teenager," but I could see at once The Playgroup was something different. I got a little nervous when the jacket mentioned The Nanny Diaries, but a quick glance through The Playgroups' pages increased my suspicion that I had found something rare here -- a new novel for adults. The Playgroup is as every bit as fun and entertaining as the Nanny-Bridget-Shopping-Girl novels, but it's so much more: truly involving, the kind of book that plays on your mind during the day between readings, and you find yourself wondering about the characters and what they will do next. It takes a superior writer attacking an ambitious subject to create that kind of bond between the reader and the writing. The Playgroup is an ambitious, superior and extremly rewarding book.

this is a real page-turner--funny, hip, edgy, but with darker
themes. ellie is a tough but vulnerable heroine and she takes the reader into her view of Manhattan east/west side mommydom and her unique (?) experiences there. Pitch-perfect for her age-group. don't miss this one!!!

I read "The Playgroup" in one sitting, and I disagree with the reviewer who read only three chapters of it. It described a New York culture without a lot of stereotyping-- but when those descriptions do made their brief appearences, they are very funny (and are based in truth, come on East Siders, confess!) The sex scenes were lively, hot, and plentiful, and the descriptions of Ellie's juggling and managment of her two toddlers were very true and dead-on.

I also applaud Nelsie Spencer for bringing Bulemia and the recovery from this disease into the spotlight. It's not an issue that's covered often enough, and Spencer doesn't overdramatize it.

The Playgroup

Ellie is a 40 year old stand up comic, mother of 2. She's happily married and lives on the Upper East Side in New York. When she takes her kids to a posh playgroup on the East Side, things change for her when she meets Missy, which is the opposite of Ellie: confident, loaded with money, beautiful and seems to have it all under control. Ellie on the other side has been ditched by her best friend and ex-co-writer, she sometimes feels overwhelmed with motherhood, she lives in a small and not interior designed house, etc. The book follows Ellie through her relationship with Missy, which seems to take over her life, and not in a good way. I found this story really entertaining and fun, but still deep enough to show the value of family, marriage, friendship, work etc. Ellie seems human just like any of us, and she finds out that she has to pay for her mistakes one way or another, which isn't always easy. I would really recommend this book.