Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Woman Last Seen in Her Thirties, by Camille Pagán {ends 3/15}
It's an age-old story: woman meets man, man woos woman, woman spends her best years believing their love is the everlasting kind. The pair watches with teary eyes as their progeny take flight from their suburban nest, knowing they'll return in times of crisis or when their laundry needs to be washed and folded.
Woman embraces aging with hair dye and ample amounts of wine. Man faces his impending mortality by convincing himself that a younger woman is the answer to his waning energy and flagging libido. Certain their sparkling future is worth the collateral damage, the May-December duo ride into the sunset as our heroine stands int he shadows, stunned by this unexpected rewrite.
Yes, mine is a tale as old as time. Beauty replaces the beast.
Camille Pagán is a Michigan author whose books I immensely enjoy, and the fact that they're often set in Ann Arbor is fun as well. (I believe she's a UM alum, too)
This one was partially set in Ann Arbor and was very good.
Official synopsis:
At fifty-three, Maggie Harris has a good marriage and two mostly happy children. Perpetually anxious, she’s also accumulated a list of semi-reasonable fears: falling air conditioners, the IRS, identity theft, skydiving, and airbag recalls. But never once did Maggie worry that her husband of nearly thirty years would leave her.
On the day Adam walks out the door, everything that makes Maggie secure goes with him. Only then does she realize that while she’s been busy caring for everyone else, she’s become invisible to the world—and to herself.
Maggie cautiously begins to rebuild her life with a trip to Rome, a new career, and even a rebound romance. But when a fresh crisis strikes and an uncertain future looms, she must decide: How much will she risk to remain the woman she’s just become.
Maggie has the task of learning to know herself again—she met her husband in college, got married at 23, and is now 53 and shares two children (now adults) with him. One day, however, he decides he wants a divorce, and she must decide what she wants to do with her life ... now that he isn't present in it.
Overall I liked this book, and I'm glad it ended the way it did, as well. Maggie is an interesting character overall, and the supporting characters were fleshed out well too. It's hard to be set in your ways and then have your world upended, but after the initial shock of it, she flourishes, even though it does take her a while to realize that she will be fine on her own.
Copy of Woman Last Seen in Her Thirties, by Camille Pagán
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