I Feel Bad About My Neck

Customer Reviews

• Enough with denial - embrace it ;-)  Aug 2, 2006 (248 of 270 found this helpful)

  I've loved Nora Ephron ever since Sleepless In Seattle and You've Got Mail. Heartburn (which she wrote) turned into a hit film, and so I knew when I saw that she wrote another book again, I thought I'd pick it up. It's a collection of amusing essays all about growing older.
  She says that there are so many books out there about what to do after menopause etc, but none addressed your neck change as you age so she thought this was a cute and funny title.
  She talks about maintenance being a second career because a lot of women are pre-empting age. For example, hair dying, botox etc. She talks about her husbands theory of women either being birds, muffins or horses and that is the shape of your face. If you are a muffin, you can have a zillion face lifts and be fine, but other shaped faces - not so much.
  She talks more seriously about reaching 60 and start loosing friends. You have to come to grips with reality and realise that we aren't invincible and won't die - it's getting closer to being on the cards.
  She also mentions things she wishes she'd known; You can't be friends with people who call after 11pm, Write everything down, Back up your files etc. She's very funny (a very dry sense of humour) and it shows through this book. It's a good read that is sometimes serious but overall will be thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining. If you are a fan of her movies, you will definately love I Feel Bad About My Neck ...

• Witty, clever but leightweight...  Dec 15, 2006 (52 of 55 found this helpful)

  Nora Ephron is witty, clever and has her finger on the pulse of American women everywhere in her delightful book, I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. My only complaint is that at 137 pages (and small pages at that), it's a rather lightweight book.
  
  Ephron writes about so many of the problems we women face: hairstyles, maintenance routines, raising children, empty nesting, reading glasses, cooking, purses, living in New York City, aging, and the death of good friends. Some of her observations are brutally honest. She talks about how a neck is a telltale sign of aging. "The neck is a dead giveaway. Our faces are lies and our necks are the truth. You have to cut open a redwood tree to see how old it is, but you wouldn't have to do that if it had a neck." She has a refreshing list of "What I Wish I'd Known" including "Never marry a man you wouldn't want to be divorced from" and "The empty nest is underrated."
  
  I' m not real big on make-up routines, I wear glasses all the time and love my poker-straight hair. So some of her musings I found funny but didn't necessarily relate. But where Ephron and I see eye to eye is about reading. "Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person." One of my favorite chapters is "On Rapture," about the state of rapture she feels when she discovers a good book. She also lists some books that changed her life. The chapters where she discusses reading are the best in the book.
  
  I Feel Bad About My Neck got raves from most of the book critics that reviewed this book. While I enjoyed it, I just was expecting more from Ephron.

• Not ten bucks worth  Nov 7, 2006 (30 of 31 found this helpful)

  I'm annoyed with myself that I paid over ten bucks at Sam's for something that I read in one sitting and that offered minimal humor and little insight into aging or anything else. Just about any woman of a certain age with some writing skill could have written this slim book -- though most could not have written the irrelevant, boring, and overlong section on the travails of owning an apartment in New York. But an unknown author with the same skills and ideas would not have had such a skimpy book published. Nora Ephron is a very funny woman who writes charming screenplays and articles, but as another reviewer pointed out, once you've heard her speak you don't need to read this book.

• Total ripoff  Dec 17, 2007 (22 of 22 found this helpful)

  I have never felt compelled to write a review until I finished this book! This book was so random and thoughtless it was irritating! It was an insult to read it!

• I Feel Bad about My Neck  Sep 20, 2006 (51 of 57 found this helpful)

  What started out to be a funny, light read turned out to be bitterness about aging. Yes, aging can be hell if you haven't developed your spiritual self and realized that everything material is temporary. I am reminded of the line from the song THE ROSE, "it's the soul afraid of dying that never learned to live." I scanned much of this book because I found it pretty shallow. Nora, don't try to apply your thoughts to everyone. I am 71 and I value the wisdom of old age much more than a flawless neck. In spite of your age, you still have a lot to learn. It can be the most fun you've ever had in your 60+ years.