Love and Trouble

Love and Trouble by Claire Dederer

Published by Tinder Press

February 2018

You did everything right!

You made some friends you could count on.  You got a job. You found a mate, a really nice one, and you bought a house and had kids.  You didn't even think about it that much, you just did it.  You worked really hard, all the time.  You were a faithful wife and, ti's okay to say it out loud, an above-average mom.

And then one day it's as if a switch is flipped.  This day comes in April 2011.  The spring you are fourty-four years old.  You don't know it yet, but on this  day, your season in hell has begun.

As you sit there, you find that all of a sudden you can't stop thinking about her.  The girl you were.

This is Claire Dederer's second book, her first is Poser and is about her yoga journey, which I swiftly purchased on being sent this to review, and both books are about her life.  This is Claire's recount of what I guess could be described as her 'mid-life crisis'.  

She hits 44 and then begins to think - is this it?!  She has a great husband, great house, great job, great kids so why isn't she satisfied?  Why isn't this enough?  She starts to go back through her childhood diaries to try to make sense of what has come before and what she needs to be happy in the now. 

This is a blisteringly honest book and I am sure some of its reveals caused some emotional moments in her relationship with her husband.  There aren't many books by women talking about mid-life stuff, it's as if it doesn't exist in our female world.  But it does.  And it should be addressed, brutally and honestly as Claire Dederer does. As a woman of a certain age myself Love and Trouble does give one cause to ponder - is this it? 

Happy Reading

Miss Chapters x