A hilarious and deeply insightful take on the indignities of middle age and how to weather them with grace—from the former editor-in-chief of Real Simple
Do you hate the term “middle age?” So does Kristin van Ogtrop, who is still trying to come up with a less annoying way to describe those years when you find yourself both satisfied and outraged, confident and confused, full of appreciation but occasional disdain for the world around you. Like an intimate chat with your best friend, this mostly funny, sometimes sad, always affirming volume from long-time magazine journalist van Ogtrop is a celebration of that period of life when mild humiliations are—finally—significantly outweighed by a self-actualized triumph of the spirit.
Featuring stories from her own life as well as anecdotes from her unwitting friends and family, van Ogtrop encourages you to laugh at the small irritations of midlife: neglectful children, stealth insomnia, forks that try to kill you, television remotes that won’t find Netflix, abdominal muscles that can’t seem to get the job done. But it is also to acknowledge the things you may have lost: innocence, unbridled optimism, smooth skin, as well as dear friends and parents. It’s all here: the sublime and the ridiculous, living together in the pages of this book as they do in your heart, like a big messy family, in this no-better-term-for-it middle age.
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KJ Dell’Antonia, New York Times bestselling author