The Bastard on the Couch

Very disappointing, the title is totally misleading. Since I already listened to the "Bitch in the House", there was no need to repeat the female essays. I really liked to listen to the male essays and found them interesting and funny, but it should have been only the male essays, after all that is what the audio title suggested. My suggestion: don't rent the audio, buy the book. As far as the idea goes, since I am one of those feminists myself I totally enjoyed both the female and male side of the story. I only wish there had been more of the latter. I give two stars because the title and audio is misleading, the essays are really good.

Whether you'll like this one depends on your views about gender roles. Independent, strong angry fish/bicycle woman might like it. If you're the type who has traditional ideas of men/women roles, might consider having the wife stay home and raise the children, or - God forbid - might even consider taking your husband's last name, this is NOT the book for you. Written and read by a bunch of sniveling, self-absorbed, angry, so-called "progressive" NYC writers, these folks seem to have no clue as to what makes a male/female relationship work. The men readily admit their wives are their superior in every way - one guy talks of only having a "play" steering wheel - his wife does all the real steering in the marriage. The women, on the other hand, can't seem to figure out why they're such angry and mean spirited at home. Perhaps it's because they relish in bossing their incompetent husbands around and yelling at their kids, while trying to do their "fulfilling" writing at home.

The men's essays are interesting and well done, but the book repeats some of the women's essays from "Bitch in the House". This padding of a repeat essay every other track on the audiobook was disappointing. You don't really get 5 CD's worth of original material.

A good listen but it seemed to share extreme bastards veiws rather than just the ordinary bastard.

Although I found the essays in this book entertaining, insightful, funny and even touching, I was disappointed in this audio version and confused by the misleading description offered on the Audiobooks web site. Unlike the print version of Bastard, which contains great essays exclusively by male writers, the audio version features a great number (almost half) of essays by female writers -- all of them taken from the companion book, The Bitch in the House. Having already read Bitch, I was looking forward to hearing a male rebuttal, but what I got was a regurgitated bunch of (very good) essays. If you haven't read either book, you'll enjoy this one. But if you're looking for a Audio CD that's true to the Bastard book, you might feel cheated -- as I did.