Separation Anxiety – Laura Zigman

Separation Anxiety – Laura Zigman

About The Book

Revolves around a woman who carries a dog on a sling like a baby as some weird coping mechanism.

Judy never intended to start wearing the dog. But when she stumbled across her son Teddy’s old baby sling during a halfhearted basement cleaning, something in her snapped. So: the dog went into the sling, Judy felt connected to another living being, and she’s repeated the process every day since.

Life hasn’t gone according to Judy’s plan. Her career as a children’s book author offered a glimpse of success before taking an embarrassing nose dive. Teddy, now a teenager, treats her with some combination of mortification and indifference. Her best friend is dying. And her husband, Gary, has become a pot-addled professional “snackologist” who she can’t afford to divorce. On top of it all, she has a painfully ironic job writing articles for a self-help website—a poor fit for someone seemingly incapable of helping herself.

Wickedly funny and surprisingly tender, Separation Anxiety offers a frank portrait of middle-aged limbo, examining the ebb and flow of life’s most important relationships. Tapping into the insecurities and anxieties that most of us keep under wraps, and with a voice that is at once gleefully irreverent and genuinely touching, Laura Zigman has crafted a new classic for anyone taking fumbling steps toward happiness. 

Goodreads

My Review: What in the name of hell

This book was described in so many reviews as ‘hilarious’ and ‘wickedly funny’. I didn’t find it funny, couldn’t relate to any of the characters nor this very action of carrying a dog like a baby. Maybe it’s because I don’t understand people who treat their pets AS their children (not exactly on the same league as LIKE their children, but both are foreign concepts to me). I don’t know. It’s just a weird one. The only part that made me feel some type of way was the deterioration of her marriage

I sigh. I’m so lonely I might die. I could reach out to Gary, but the divide between the past and the present feels too far, too deep, too wide. It is too late for us. It’s been too late for a long time.

Laura Zigman

Why You Should Read It

Nah, man. Hard pass.