I See You Made an Effort

Book 71 of my 2015 Reading Challenge

read from October 4 - 7

I See You Made an Effort: Compliments, Indignities, and Survival Stories 

from the Edge of 50 by Annabelle Gurwitch

Summary (via the book jacket)

Whether she is falling in lust at the Genius Bar, navigating the extensive - and treacherously expensive - antiaging offerings at a department store beauty counter, coping with the assisted suicide of her best friend, negotiating the ins and outs of acceptable behavior with her teenage kid or the thudding financial reality of the "never-tirement" generation that leads her to petty theft, Gurwitch's essays prove her a remarkably astute writer in her prime (in so many ways). Is this the beginning of the Eileen Fisher years? Where does one conduct an affair with a younger man? Is fifty the new forty? Or is fifty still...fifty?

My Opinion

The essays are on the longer side which is great if you connect with them but it can feel like forever if you don't.  It was a mixed bag for me so sometimes I really enjoyed what I was reading and other times I was waiting for the end and hoping the next chapter was better.

She had some great quips.  I love the phrase "having always been one good poop away from a flat stomach".  Or when describing riding in the car with her teenage son..."the remaining hour and a half he was sleeping, and although unconscious, he still managed to communicate his disdain through hostile body language".

A Few Quotes from the Book

"I have first-world problems. I know this, but they are still my first world problems. It's not that I want any one of these extravagances or that I think these things will make me happy, but there's something about knowing I will probably never have them that's not unlike how devastatingly sad I felt when I realized the window for having children had closed forever."

"...even though I have heard about the inexplicable vagaries of online dating from my girlfriends who are in their forties or fifties and newcomers to it. My fifty-one-year-old friend Denise was just match with two people by one of the most popular fee-based sites: her brother and a homeless guy who goes by the name Bling-Bling."