Lois WyseCritiques

This was my very favorite book when I was three: the one I insisted on being read to me every night, over and over. I have no real memory of the plot, except that the little girl was naughty in refusing to go to bed, until (SPOILER ALERT!) her mom gives her a night cap with hand-shaped flaps to cover her ears, to keep the noise out. The book comes with a night cap (which we lost instantly) and I'm actually tempted to buy it just to see it again.

I bought this book for my wife very early in our marriage. The poems in it are not great literature, but they are sweet. I think I bought it because I liked the title and, as renters, we still had to go to a laundromat to do our washing, and I never felt more married than when I had to sit in a public laundromat and wait for our stuff to wash and dry. Lois Wyse was a very successful business executive who, with her husband, ran an ad agency. She died in 2007, but she coined this slogan, which goes on and on: "With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good."

LOVE POEMS FOR THE VERY MARRIED came out in 1967, the year we were married. Yup. Fifty years ago. If I felt so "very married" then, imagine how I feel now. But we're still here, still together - very married. For which I am thankful every day. Thanks for your words, Lois, and R.I.P., knowing your words mattered, and not just to Smucker's. (Five stars for its sentimental value)

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

Fairly good.
Noted during my 1980's attempt to read every book in my small town library.½

I am looking forward to being a grandmother and "Funny people say I don't look old enough to be one!"

Spanning from 1926 to 1961, this is the story of Sophie Namath and Mac Sloan, both from poor families of Hungarian descent, who meet on a trolly car and fall in love. They immediately discover they share a love of poetry and the ambition of achieving the “American Dream” - a family, a home, and their own successful business. It’s a classical ‘love at first sight’! Sophie starts out by making poppyseed strudel in her kitchen and Mac is good at selling, and over time they raise a family and despite the depression and World War II, they build an empire of restaurants and hotels.

Typical of novels focused on entertaining women in the 1970’s and 1980’s - Sophie is portrayed as a strong successful business woman - Type A personality. And typical of parents who are overachievers, they have a myriad of problems with their daughter and two sons.

Lois Wyse worked as a journalist for the local Cleveland newspapers and later for "Vogue" and "Cosmopolitan". And she was a successful business woman herself - an executive of an Advertising Agency she and her husband founded, so many of the details of the plot seem authentic.

It’s an entertaining story with lots of action, good dialogue, and interesting characters. In fact, it’s a great story up until the last 10 pages when Lois Wyse seems to have tired of the plot and forced it to a hasty, contrived conclusion. What a shame because up to that moment, the book is a real page-turner.½

As a Grahdmother I can identify and even laugh.

Lois Wyse's book of love poems break away from tradition with a more straight forward approach. I particuarly enjoyed her poem titled "The Widow" because I felt she captured the lonliness and longing for the spouse a widow goes through. I'ts a quick read so it's worth the effort.