A review by sonia_reppe
Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning by Claire Dederer
4.0
Partly a mid-life memoir, partly a coming-of-age memoir, the best part about this was the wonderfully described Seattle in the 80s and 90s. (This is partly a love letter to Seattle of yore when most people had not heard of Seattle).
I expected mid-life sexual escapades but there weren't any until finally that one at the end. The opening three chapters urge "we're all going to die, get it while you can," but when her husband goes on an extensive work trip, she just lays in bed and eats pomegranates. There is a description of sex with her husband early on, but after that, it mainly turned into a memoir of her teen and college years (Oberlin), and a strange obsession with Roman Polanski, with hearty doses of self-pity and sadness about menopause.
Was Roman Polanski like a metaphor? Because with all this book's ruminations on female sexuality, how females need to be protected but also free to make their own sexual choices, in the end, menopause is the biggest f***er of all.
I expected mid-life sexual escapades but there weren't any until finally that one at the end. The opening three chapters urge "we're all going to die, get it while you can," but when her husband goes on an extensive work trip, she just lays in bed and eats pomegranates. There is a description of sex with her husband early on, but after that, it mainly turned into a memoir of her teen and college years (Oberlin), and a strange obsession with Roman Polanski, with hearty doses of self-pity and sadness about menopause.
Was Roman Polanski like a metaphor? Because with all this book's ruminations on female sexuality, how females need to be protected but also free to make their own sexual choices, in the end, menopause is the biggest f***er of all.