Click here to read reviewer Carolynn Evans' take on Sleeping with Ward Cleaver.
Have you ever been married? Ten years and five kids down the road, you look at your husband to find a stranger sleeping next to you? Claire Doolittle can surely relate. Claire used to be a daredevil, a go-getter, Claire used to take life by the horns. That is until one day she realizes
that her husband takes her for granted, not to mention her kids. Jack Doolittle used to make her world go round…and round…and… (you get the idea).
Then Jack's brother died, taking a huge piece of Jack with him, the piece that was fun loving and carefree.
Now all that is left for Claire and the kids is that other piece of Jack, the piece that is focused on work, grumpy all the time, and yells at the kids for the smallest infractions:
the piece that is Ward Cleaver in the making. How can Claire stay married to this man
with whom she has pledged eternity? Simple. She loves him, and she knows that she can get the old Jack back, but that it will take a lot of hard work and patience.
Sleeping with Ward Cleaver
was for the most part a somewhat boring read for me. Maybe because I'm not married yet and do not know the complexities that go along with partnership, I found that I had to take breaks from this book and read other ones just to keep on going till the last page. The better part of the book is Claire hating the fact that her husband has turned into Ward Cleaver and does not even imagine that she has anything to do with that fact. After all, it
does take two, right? In all things in a relationship? Things do get interesting toward the end of the book, when Claire hires herself as a Private Investigator and follows her husband on his work vacation to Miami. Covertly spying on Jack and his younger and blond assistant is entertaining and hilarious, not to mention
that when Jack finds out that his wife is in Miami, the novel gets juicer by the minute.
Sleeping with Ward Cleaver starts out as somewhat of a dry read but does get a whole lot better in the middle. I would recommend it if you want a couple of laughs (because it is funny with kids involved) or if you
simply want something to while away the time. Sleeping with Ward Cleaver was entertaining
enough for me to give it three stars for effort.