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bak8382's review against another edition
4.0
This book is aimed at Generation X women, and as I'm only a couple of years younger than the youngest of that generation, making me an old millennial, there was still a lot here that I could relate to. There was the stark reminder that Generation X was the last to finish college without social media and all the pressure that comes with it. I graduated the same year that Facebook was invented and I think that's why I've never used it, if I was still in college when it was introduced I would have been all over it. There's a lot of uncertainty and anxiety in this time of women's lives and Calhoun covers a lot of that while also bringing some hope for the future. This was published in early 2020 before the pandemic really took hold in the US, and I wish the book could be updated to discuss that as well.
connieaw's review against another edition
4.0
This book is for all of my GEN X friends. Especially the 76% of you that aren't stay-at-home moms.
katieoyama's review against another edition
1.0
Honestly thought about not finishing the book, but mercifully a ton of the pages were citations. While I understand this is focused on a specific generation, this book fell far short of my expectations. It’s mostly anecdotal stories from a small sample size that don’t focus on how stresses of middle age/generational struggles impact sleep. Instead, it reads like an essay on why married, upper-middle class, cis, white, middle aged women deserve to be the most miserable. The author note says she spoke to a diverse pool of 200 women for the book, but there’s very little intersectionality addressed. There’s not even mention of pay disparity based on race in the chapter on the gender wage gap.
stevensabby's review against another edition
5.0
I. Feel. Seen.
I have never felt like I “belonged” to GenX, even though my birth year says I do. But this book helped me to see myself in light of the cultural atmosphere into which I was born and raised. I never knew how *normal* my experience of my life is/has been—particularly as I have entered my 40s.
I also found myself scribbling the names of my friends in the margins, seeing so many reflections of the struggles we share with each other: care-giving, financial insecurity, the “angles and filters” necessary for social media, hormonal changes, fears for which we can find no rational basis. Except, as Calhoun so beautifully articulates, there IS a rational basis. We are not wrong: our lives (while also, often, deeply privileged) are wildly difficult in ways the generations before and after us do not experience.
If you are a woman, particularly a GenX woman in or approaching your 40s/50s, I cannot recommend this book enough.
I have never felt like I “belonged” to GenX, even though my birth year says I do. But this book helped me to see myself in light of the cultural atmosphere into which I was born and raised. I never knew how *normal* my experience of my life is/has been—particularly as I have entered my 40s.
I also found myself scribbling the names of my friends in the margins, seeing so many reflections of the struggles we share with each other: care-giving, financial insecurity, the “angles and filters” necessary for social media, hormonal changes, fears for which we can find no rational basis. Except, as Calhoun so beautifully articulates, there IS a rational basis. We are not wrong: our lives (while also, often, deeply privileged) are wildly difficult in ways the generations before and after us do not experience.
If you are a woman, particularly a GenX woman in or approaching your 40s/50s, I cannot recommend this book enough.
chawkinsknell's review against another edition
This book felt so whiny that I was unable to care as much as I should have. I’ve really enjoyed Calhoun’s other work, so I was disappointed.
melissakuzma's review against another edition
5.0
If you’re in your 40s or early 50s, and you haven’t read this book, you’re missing out. You will feel very seen, as the millennials would say. Don’t miss the mixtape at the end!
leigh_reidelberger's review against another edition
3.0
I have many thoughts on this book that I need to sort through. I like some of what she discusses, but there definitely are times when she sounded super out of touch, and while she says she talked to a lot of middle class women, it was more upper middle class. Those interviewed are not majority of the people I know, so it's like, here's your grain of salt.
I wanted more of the statistics and the impact of the current events of the times, how that shaped and defined Gen X- that part was *really* intriguing- but most of the personal anecdotes were a little eye roll inducing.
I wanted more of the statistics and the impact of the current events of the times, how that shaped and defined Gen X- that part was *really* intriguing- but most of the personal anecdotes were a little eye roll inducing.
brontherun's review against another edition
4.0
For my women friends in your mid-life years (that ever-widening defined time) this book may be comforting to you. It is not revolutionary, as many of the ideas around next-wave feminism, Gen X psychology, and the current career/personal responsibility duality for women have all been touched on in multiple other sources. But what Calhoun does is bring these threads together in an way to reassure us that are, indeed, reasons we have landed in the tight squeeze where we now find ourselves.
As we take care of parents, pursue careers, raise kids or not, lead in our community, and attempt to meet the internalized ideals of where we should be in our life we are haunted by ghosts. "When you turn and look back down the years, you glimpse the ghost of the other lives you might have led. All your houses are haunted by the person you might have been."
Calhoun interviews women and so opens our eyes to the near universality of this situation, regardless of education, career, family, or affluence status. She shows some encouraging stories of overcoming our individual crises - seeing our way through it with the help of our friends and therapists (and often plastic surgeons, personal trainers, life coaches, yogis, salon professionals, etc).
Essentially, the issues keeping us awake at night are real, not imagined. But we can let go of expectations, drop the unnecessary aspects of our life, add in the critical missing pieces, and climb our way out to the other side.
As we take care of parents, pursue careers, raise kids or not, lead in our community, and attempt to meet the internalized ideals of where we should be in our life we are haunted by ghosts. "When you turn and look back down the years, you glimpse the ghost of the other lives you might have led. All your houses are haunted by the person you might have been."
Calhoun interviews women and so opens our eyes to the near universality of this situation, regardless of education, career, family, or affluence status. She shows some encouraging stories of overcoming our individual crises - seeing our way through it with the help of our friends and therapists (and often plastic surgeons, personal trainers, life coaches, yogis, salon professionals, etc).
Essentially, the issues keeping us awake at night are real, not imagined. But we can let go of expectations, drop the unnecessary aspects of our life, add in the critical missing pieces, and climb our way out to the other side.