Valerie Frankel

It's been widely reported that the SAT administered at my daughter's school in Brooklyn on May 5, 2012, has been invalidated by the College Board. Two hundred kids from 50 city schools took the test at the Packer Collegiate Institute that day. It was...

The story now unfolding on Wall Street doesn't star a dynamic up-and-coming trader, or a veteran hedge fund manager. The stars of this year's drama don't work in a Wall Street bank. Many of them don't have jobs at all because of Wall Street banks. If they convinced...

In my new memoir, It's Hard Not to Hate You, about releasing anger in order to prevent major emotional meltdowns, I just had to include a chapter on the pet peeves and daily annoyances that send me into a hyperactive blind rage. What makes your blood pressure rise?

As a socially awkward person, I've always been envious of women with packed calendars and mailboxes bursting the evites. I went to just three parties last year -- and two of them were for work. Should I be worried that I have, like, five real friends?

My "real" connections...

Last Friday, I saw a preview performance of The Book Of Mormon, the Broadway musical written by South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Avenue Q's Robert Lopez. I wondered how Parker and Stone's tendency toward scatological sacrilege would work on staid, conservative Broadway, which has been playing it...

Lady Gaga has always been thoroughly modern Madonna. She pulled herself out of obscurity by Madonna's bra straps. "Alejandro" sounds like "La Isla Bonita." "Paparazzi" reminds me of "Papa Don't Preach" (maybe just the repetition of "papa"). The fame monster has taken sound and style cues from the material girl...

Amy Chua has claimed that her bestseller "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" is not a parenting guide for lax Westerners. She insists that it's a memoir of her own experiences and not meant to supply "news you can use" -- as we in the ladies' magazine business call it.

I watched Sarah Palin's Alaska, hoping to indulge in snarky fun, swapping snide comments with my husband. Sure, we chuckled when she said her daughter liked "socialization" with her peers. Yes, my ovaries shriveled when, after Todd Palin caught a salmon for dinner, she said, "He brings home the bacon,...

During the Real Housewives of New Yorkreunion show, Kelly Killoren Bensimon asked the other housewives to celebrate her for who she really is.

But celebrate what, exactly?

Her coherence? Compared to Bensimon, my 11-year-old daughter with ADD sounds like Mark Twain. My 14-year old daughter managed to stop...

In my family, we've had some dramatic Thanksgivings. The year Grandma got drunk, called us "selfish pigs," and then locked herself in her Caddie with a bottle of Scotch springs to mind. Even on the relatively calm holidays, however, drama ensued if only in my head. For most people, Thanksgiving...

The burning question sane women have about Sarah Palin: "Just who the hell does she think she is?"

I'll tell you who she is: Sarah Palin is a Pretty Girl. Due to her Miss Alaska runner-up credentials, Palin has enjoyed a life, thus far, of getting what she wants, whenever...