Generation Ex: Tales from the Second Wives Club

This book was exactly what I needed! The author did an exceptional job at writing this book to be "laugh out loud funny", and is written in such a way that you can't help but put all of the frustrating things about your boyfriend/spouse's Ex into perspective. I'm sure that in the future, instead of allowing myself to become upset and stressed with my new man's reports of the latest phone call from his Ex, I will instead recall the chapter in Karen's book where she describes and labels the different types of phone calls that one can receive from the Ex. The description of the "Going Mental, F*** You Division" call is my absolute favorite.This book is a must read for anyone involved in the circle of Ex's - and will definitely be a re-read for me! Offers a great perspective into all of those annoying, frustrating, and stressful situations that you will no doubt encounter at some point.Warning: if you are one of those types who has no sense of humor and can only recognize all of the pain and suffering involved in divorce situations, this book is NOT for you. If, however, you're ready and willing to accept things as they are and "move on", this book will be exactly what you've been looking for!

If you're like me and you've pulled out hair or pounded your head against the wall at the antics of your husband's ex, this book is absolutely the read you need. Laugh out loud funny in parts, poignant in others, this book is reality with a capital "R". I guarantee you will see something of your own experiences in Karbo's tales of frustration. You gotta read this.

I've been married thirty years. I'm not Gen-X or whatever they're calling themselves now. I think multiplying sex partners is probably a good way of multiplying germs that haven't even ever been discovered yet. And they might be bad germs. That said, I wouldn't have ever read this book on my own (like you might'nt've already guessed), but it tumbled into my hands on a recommendation a whole lot better than this one, and I never let go of the covers until I was done with it, which, believe me, required a 'git away from me I'm busy' growl every now and then. This book? Well, it's a little bit of story and a little bit of fact, but what it is mostly is a whole lot of fun. If you think that in divorce and disharmony, in alimony and acrimony, you can't find even a bit of levity and disacrimony, well buddy, think agin and read here..

I get surly when I hear Karen Karbo compared to Erma Bombeck, just because she's funny, and because she happens to write about domestic issues (hey, so did Tolstoy). A better analogy for Karbo's work would be the deliciously-apt cultural anthropology that Nora Ephron did for Esquire Magazine in the 70s. Karbo's barbed humor, and talent for a howling aphorism, bring Dorothy Parker to mind, with the notable difference that Karbo is in excellent mental health--a shrewd, savvy, but SANE observer of the human comedy. GENERATION EX is a complex book--not exactly how-to, not exactly memoir, not exactly reporting--but a wonderful combination of all of those elements. Highly recommended.

Although most adults in the United States now know someone who has been divorced, grew up in a household where the parents divorced, or have been divorced themselves, most don't understand the full implications of that change in marital status. The divorce doesn't end the relationship. It just changes it, often for the worse, especially if children were born to the couple. When people remarry or date again, they end up being connected to all kinds of exes in the process. This book fills in the gaps for those who are still naive in this area.Ms. Karbo has a fine comic sense, and employs it well to describe her experience with Matthew after her own divorce. He was someone she met while teaching a class for children, and she was impressed by him. While they were dating, he would avoid the subject of his ex-wife. The two of them came home one night to find Ms. Karbo's underwear cut up and to hear violent threats from Claudia, his former wife. They ended up at the Holiday Inn for the night. The rest of the book recounts how the relationship developed with Matthew and Claudia. In between, she uses historical and current examples to illuminate the points she wants to make about divorced people.With her own divorce having been amicable, Ms. Karbo didn't know what to make of this experience. She mentioned it to others, and one woman asked, "You're not married to Ron Garber, are you? That's his ex-wife's thing." She learned that "a lot of people, an entire generation of exes, were having many of the same experiences."In most cases, the effect of the divorce was to cause the ill feelings to fester. She discovered this when she met Adele, the crazy ex-wife, on a plane trip. Adele described catching her supervisor and her husband in the marital bed together after she came home from being fired. With the heat of her description, Ms. Karbo assumed this must have just occurred. It had been more than nine years earlier.Basically, ex-wives either become incredibly angry towards the ex-husband, or stay attached to the ex-husband and take it out on all of the women in his life, even those who come along years later. The book honestly recounts all of the manipulative things that the first, second, and third wives do in this escalating battle of the sexes . . . while the men tend to stay aloof if children are involved. The book also warns against the men and women who divorce, but never quite separate. They seem available, but they are still in the earlier relationship. The historical examples range from Henry VIII (who was a bigamist with his first and second wives, and eventually chopped off the head of the second wife, Anne Boleyn), to Picasso (who never quite got around to completely leaving the last wife or girlfriend when he took a new mistress), and to Medea (who poisoned the wedding gown to deny a rival's marriage).You will also learn about how all of this is discussed at the beauty salon, at ex-wives' dinners, at weddings, and with roommat