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A review by okiecozyreader
How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.25
“Where’s the fun in aging gracefully?” said Daphne. “Personally, I intend to age as disgracefully as possible.” P52
If you liked Iona Iverson (who gets a mention in this book!), I think you would enjoy this motley group of characters from a community center, who begin as not really friends but grow to care about each other through some strange situations, beginning with a police stop of their vehicle. Many in the van think it’s them and admit their guilt, while the officer gets nowhere finding the person of interest.The community center is set to be demolished, and as they get to know each other more, the more they want to preserve it for others.
“Why was it that people assumed you could throw a total group of strangers together and, just because they were approximately the same age, they’d get along? It might work with five-year-olds, but not with septuagenarians who’d accumulated vastly different life experience, bad habits, and entrenched opinions.” Daphne p38
Funny, witty and a little wild, this story made me laugh and was good for my soul.
“I prefer my friends to have experience, wisdom, and a few guilty secrets,”… p367
Yarnsky was my favorite!!
“This is CREATIVITY! YOU UTTER PHILISTINE!” said Daphne. “It’s the work of the infamous Hammersmith Banksy of yarn bombing. Yarnsy, if you like. Do you want to be the official who’s all over the internet for destroying a unique work of art?!?”
In the author’s note, Pooley writes “It often feels like the only role of a pensioner in fiction is that of a sad, lonely, hopeless technophobe, adrift in modern society, who is then saved by the kindness of a younger person…
I wanted to create older characters who are bossing it. Pensioners who are showing the younger generation how to navigate life, rather than vice versa.”
“When researching the Hatton Garden jewelry heist of 2015, carried out by a gang of eight men who were almost all in their sixties and seventies. It made me realize that the invisibility of aging is the best disguise.
…
I loved the idea of older people who refuse to age gracefully, or to play by the rules.”
If you liked Iona Iverson (who gets a mention in this book!), I think you would enjoy this motley group of characters from a community center, who begin as not really friends but grow to care about each other through some strange situations, beginning with a police stop of their vehicle. Many in the van think it’s them and admit their guilt, while the officer gets nowhere finding the person of interest.The community center is set to be demolished, and as they get to know each other more, the more they want to preserve it for others.
“Why was it that people assumed you could throw a total group of strangers together and, just because they were approximately the same age, they’d get along? It might work with five-year-olds, but not with septuagenarians who’d accumulated vastly different life experience, bad habits, and entrenched opinions.” Daphne p38
Funny, witty and a little wild, this story made me laugh and was good for my soul.
“I prefer my friends to have experience, wisdom, and a few guilty secrets,”… p367
Yarnsky was my favorite!!
“This is CREATIVITY! YOU UTTER PHILISTINE!” said Daphne. “It’s the work of the infamous Hammersmith Banksy of yarn bombing. Yarnsy, if you like. Do you want to be the official who’s all over the internet for destroying a unique work of art?!?”
In the author’s note, Pooley writes “It often feels like the only role of a pensioner in fiction is that of a sad, lonely, hopeless technophobe, adrift in modern society, who is then saved by the kindness of a younger person…
I wanted to create older characters who are bossing it. Pensioners who are showing the younger generation how to navigate life, rather than vice versa.”
“When researching the Hatton Garden jewelry heist of 2015, carried out by a gang of eight men who were almost all in their sixties and seventies. It made me realize that the invisibility of aging is the best disguise.
…
I loved the idea of older people who refuse to age gracefully, or to play by the rules.”