A review by katieoyama
Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis by Ada Calhoun

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.