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A review by mdabkowski
Midlife by Jhenifer Pabillano, Sarah Chan
5.0
You don't realize how close "midlife" is until you're sitting in it. For our parents, they marked the occasion with jokey tombstone cakes and "Over The Hill" banners. A one-sized fits all approach to middle age. But in typical elder millennial fashion, we've got to make it special. It's got to be unique to us.
Enter "Midlife." This essay collection samples enough "midlife" experiences that you're bound to see yourself or a flash of yourself in these clever first-person narratives. Happy childless spinster? You're in there. Pregnancy didn't quite fill you with warming joy the way you thought? You're there, too. Divorced, moving to a new city, feeling melancholy, feeling newly confident, thinking your job isn't quite doing it for you, once over-identified with Bridget Jones---- yeah, you're on the page, too.
If you're finding your midlife to-do list out of control, this collection is easy to pick up and put down. Each essay clocks in at 4-5 pages, so you can commit to a full start-to-finish narrative without worrying that you'll lose the plot in four days when you can read again. I also quite enjoyed the sly charts and graphs interspersed throughout. Example: '"90s Rom-Coms as Midlife Angst"- Groundhog Day was #1, obviously. Also, if you're lucky enough to snag a hardcover copy, DO IT. It's gorgeous and looks extremely high-end and artsy on your curated living room bookshelf.
There's obvious joy and thoughtfulness on these pages. The writers all worked at the same college newspaper, and their affection for each other and that time in their life is clear. It brings the words into the real world-- these are real people, working at full jobs, just like you. They were once starry-eyed and dreamy and staring down a world of possibilities, just like you. And, just like you, they're now living in the middle of that world, perhaps unclear how they got to this exact moment and not seeing as many options as they once did. But... seeing the comfort in having less options, too. Enjoying what they do have instead of dreaming of what could be. There's comfort in these essays. You may even be inspired to capture your own midlife essay.
Enter "Midlife." This essay collection samples enough "midlife" experiences that you're bound to see yourself or a flash of yourself in these clever first-person narratives. Happy childless spinster? You're in there. Pregnancy didn't quite fill you with warming joy the way you thought? You're there, too. Divorced, moving to a new city, feeling melancholy, feeling newly confident, thinking your job isn't quite doing it for you, once over-identified with Bridget Jones---- yeah, you're on the page, too.
If you're finding your midlife to-do list out of control, this collection is easy to pick up and put down. Each essay clocks in at 4-5 pages, so you can commit to a full start-to-finish narrative without worrying that you'll lose the plot in four days when you can read again. I also quite enjoyed the sly charts and graphs interspersed throughout. Example: '"90s Rom-Coms as Midlife Angst"- Groundhog Day was #1, obviously. Also, if you're lucky enough to snag a hardcover copy, DO IT. It's gorgeous and looks extremely high-end and artsy on your curated living room bookshelf.
There's obvious joy and thoughtfulness on these pages. The writers all worked at the same college newspaper, and their affection for each other and that time in their life is clear. It brings the words into the real world-- these are real people, working at full jobs, just like you. They were once starry-eyed and dreamy and staring down a world of possibilities, just like you. And, just like you, they're now living in the middle of that world, perhaps unclear how they got to this exact moment and not seeing as many options as they once did. But... seeing the comfort in having less options, too. Enjoying what they do have instead of dreaming of what could be. There's comfort in these essays. You may even be inspired to capture your own midlife essay.