Cathy GuisewiteRecensioni

Fantastic. Her life still resonates so strongly with me. Loved this book

*Diets that don’t work
*The temptation of chocolate
*Recognizing that yes, you really do need nine pairs of almost but not quite identical black pumps
*The agony of swimsuit-trying-on season
*The endless search for the perfect jeans
*The elusive promise of cosmetics
*The fruitless search for organization and perfection

These are all themes that frequently appeared in the 'Cathy' comic strip over its 34-year run, and strip creator Cathy Guisewite has, not surprisingly, revisited them all in her book of essays, Fifty Things That Aren't My Fault (including, apparently, coming up with only 48 entries).

Added to that are further sources of angst from Guisewite’s personal life – being an empty-nester worrying about the innocence and vulnerability of her only child leaving home for college at precisely the same time she worries about the frailty and vulnerability of her aging parents. Those topics turn more heartfelt than humorous as one progresses into the collection, and the reader who is looking for laughs at their own foibles may find, instead, a great deal of soul-searching about trying to hold on to the people we love even as they are slipping away from us.

Cathy Guisewite comes out of retirement and brings her Cathy Andrews comic strip character with her to reflect on life in lockdown for an affluent White woman during the COVID-19 pandemic. I haven't read a Cathy strip in years, but quickly fell back into the rhythm of Guisewite's gentle "Ack!" humor about hair, eating, and shopping. It ain't deep, but it's comfortable.

Continuity buffs may worry about the utter absence of husband Irving Hillman and the daughter they were expecting in the final strip of the original series in 2010.

I loved the Cathy comic strip. There were so many things in this book that I really could relate to...and there were so many things that I have friends that do the very same things that Cathy did in the same situations. The entries were funny, they were sad sometimes, and they were all thought provoking. Those readers younger than 55 will see what they will almost mostly have to look forward to...those of us older will just smile and nod...since we've probably been there and done that.

I love Cathy.

This is the first publishing that Cathy G has put out in years. The mentality is the same as the Cathy strip--kind of a written version though. She touches on real life issues like divorce, parents getting older, etc.

If you liked the "Cathy" cartoon strip, you will like this book, because it's the same but without the graphics. Cathy jokes and complains about her weight, how her clothes don't fit, her shoes, her parents, driving, shopping for clothes, food, temptations, her dog, etc. She is still whining and joking about those things, but since this is subtitled "Essays From the Grown-Up Years" she has also added topics about her college-age daughter and her 90-year-old parents. So there are lots of comic chapters about how she is now dealing with helping her aging parents who don't want her help. Some of the issues reminded me of Roz Chast's Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? and I'm sure many readers will be able to relate, as they identified with Cathy throughout her younger lifestyle experiences of dating, dieting, buying a bathing suit, etc.

The good things - Cathy is able to accurately and entertainingly describe dealing with her elderly parents: the computer, the worry about getting to the airport, the TV remote, her concern for their safety, etc. I liked her insight into how she cheats on her diets, explains her wardrobe size and style fluctuations, and interacts with her sisters regarding her parents.

I thought I would like this book more than I did. I think I had forgotten how much of a complainer Cathy was, and those jokes have gotten old. Or maybe I have?

Cathy was a four panel daily comic strip, when newspaper comic strips were in their prime. Cathy Guisewite, its creator, did that job, alone in a room, for 34 years. Now, she has written Fifty Things That Are Not My Fault, a comic strip in prose. This time it is really and specifically autobiographical.

The book gives Guisewite the ability to broaden her stories, build up to her punchlines , and most of all, expose her humanity. Because Fifty Things is nothing if not a summary of all the internal conflicts humans are capable of. The central column of the book, and the source of all her angst, is the three generation spread between her, her 19 year old daughter, and her 90 year old parents. Out of that Guisewite reaps a bounty of hypocrisy, irrationality, gullibility and most of all, self-consciousness.

She is self-conscious about her looks, her clothing, her size, her shape, her relationships to all three generations, and how she has, despite all efforts to the contrary, proven to be normal. She fights with her daughter, slamming her for every little thing, knowing all the while it is precisely the wrong thing to be doing. She interferes with her parents, who, after 90 years, know who they are and how they want to live. That is, without middle–aged daughters telling them to clear out the house, rearrange their belongings, move into assisted living, use medic alarm necklaces and other bothers to make their three daughters feel less burdened and guilty.

There is every possible foible covered in depth and with humor, from the gym to the mall, from child rearing to separation anxiety, from junk accumulation to more separation anxiety. She knows what’s wrong in every case, and in every case she goes ahead anyway. The contradictions are endless, and if there is a point to it all, it is that they are also universal.

Her humor is as delightful as ever. Her stories are beautifully structured with sarcasm, self-contradiction and self-pity. If truth be known, she is actually at fault for most of the fifty things, but it’s okay, we all are.

I found a line in her story of her probably 2000th trip to the mall that shows how delightful the whole book really is. She says of shopping: “There’s something magical about taking something that isn’t a problem yet home to meet the rest of my life.”

David Wineberg

Thanks to Goodreads and Putnam for this ARC.

I have loved Cathy since I started reading her comic strip 34 years ago (can it be that long)? Hard to believe that she was only 26 when she started. I was so disheartened when she decided to stop writing it. She's had many books over the years but this is her first book of essays she calls it and the only one I've read.

I learned so much about her, her writing, her family, her adopted daughter, her parents getting older. I laughed through the whole book and cried when she realized her parents were elderly and how they were set in their own ways no matter how much she tried to "update them." That made me laugh even more.

Thank you Cathy for writing this wonderful book and for sharing your life with me.

I enjoyed the comical take on being a single woman and some of the things the world says single women should/should not do.

I was a little confused because the second set of collected comics seems to chronologically come before the first set of collected ones in this volume (particularly with the buying a condo/house storyline).

How can one resist this title - with a subtitle of Cathy's Cookbook for the Well-Balanced Woman, and sub-sub titled The Whom Needs Him Anyway Cookbook. Chapters are self-explanatory : Romance Food, Swimsuit Food, Slob-Out Food, Grown-Up Food and Consolation Food. Recipes have daft but very funny names : If the Way to His Heart is Through His Stomach This Will be a Direct Hit Pilaf, I Refuse to be Victimized By the Gene Pool Cake, etc. but the recipes are actually worth doing.

This small book has proved very useful for cooking for parties when I am asked to bring something along. It has a sort of Bridget Jones feel to it with sections on romance food, swimsuit food, slob out food, party food and food for when you have been dumped! The rice salad proved a bit garlicky, but in the past the couscous salad has been an unexpected hit.

Cathy continues to cope with life, diet, food, and a romantic interest in Irving. And let's not forget an obsessive mother!

a good collection of "Cathy" comics½

A small, funny book of Cathy comic strips.

Reflections is a nice easy read, a funny yet often accurate portrayal of women today. It's not always a flattering picture, there are many stereotypes, and my feminist side leans towards Andrea, but I have to admit that some of the strips actually hit home sometimes.

When "Cathy" first came out in the late '70's, I gave it the benefit of the doubt for its subject matter. It was one of the few strips about a single woman attempting to balance romance, work and parents. But eventually its shortcomings rose to the top. It is formulaic, occasionally clever, rarely funny, and frustrating in how it presents the title character as a stereotypical mushbrain, blinded by love of a neglectful boyfriend, ready to sacrifice all for a husband and children, vaguely aware of the possibilities open to her while constantly pushing them aside. In short, "Cathy" began as a strip (amateurishly drawn, by the way) with real possibilities that were rarely explored. It pretends to be an anthem for independent women, but Cathy only displays all the qualities that kept them down throughout history.

Cathy's daily problems with food, weight, and diets.