TOBY YOUNG & DR TANYA BYRON!
Toby Young, himself a father of a two year-old daughter and a baby, said:
“I thought The Ivy Chronicles was quite entertaining and funny in parts, it was full of zingy one liners. I didn't think it was a chicklit because of the age of the protagonist and also the issues that the book was dealing with - a middle aged woman transforming her life. It was a more a middle-aged-woman-lit and a comic novel generally”.
"I thought it was interesting that it was written from a Jewish perspective and is full of fast-talking Jewish New Yorkers as I liked that part of New York when I lived there."
He said that the book "describes accurately the intensity of competition of parents trying to get their children into primary schools in New York and the spectacle of parents jumping through hoops to get their children into the best schools". He had read recently in the UK press about a mother who spent all day queuing around the block in order to try and obtain a place for her child to go to the only decent school in Brixton.
Some of the parents described within the book were not too dissimilar from a lot of New Yorkers that Toby came across during time living in the US. In The Ivy Chornicles many of the characters are obsessed with getting their kids into the best schools, not necessarily because they want this for their kids, but so that they can brag about it to their equally wealthy friends. Toby said that during his time in New York he came across a lot of professionals who were just obsessed with status generally.
Child Psychologist and Little Angels presenter Dr Tanya Byron says The Ivy Chronicles is the type of book that you could take on holiday and dip in and out of easily while you were lounging by the pool. She says it was obvious Karen knew her subject matter really well.
“I thought the book started out brilliantly, very Ally McBeal in the bizarre and surreal things that happened to Ivy. Some of the language used in the book was very amusing, describing the way adolescents grow into their noses was very funny. However, I really didn’t empathise with Ivy at all and I thought she was really weak. I wondered how did this woman survive for nearly 15 years in the uber tough corporate New York world."
"I can easily see this will be a Hollywood film especially after the success of films like Bridget Jones, though I can’t see Catherine Zeta Jones as Ivy."
"I think she described perfectly the intense pressure parents and schools put on children to succeed. Although I’m not that familiar with the Baby Ivys system in the US, you’d be surprised how similar the story is here in terms of pressure on small children to succeed."
Tanya too has two children under the age of ten – a boy and a girl.
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