My Formerly Hot Life: Dispatches From Just The Other Side Of Young (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
My review is mixed. I liked the concept - women in this 'tween' stage of adulthood can certainly benefit from having a kindred spirit help them feel like they are not alone. On that note, I thought she made some interesting points and observations. If I were only judging based on the concept, I'd give it 5 stars.When I read a book, however, I'm not just judging it on concept, I'm judging on execution, too. That's where I felt like this lacked. Granted, I understand that there is a difficult balance to strike with a book that stems from a blog. To avoid alienating the core audience - the blog fans - the writing style can't take a big departure from the blog. Unfortunately, her blog is written in a very cavalier style. It's not that I don't like her style; I do, really. But I think reading a blog is different than reading a book. About 1/3 through the book, I thought, "Hmmm, not the best style to read in book format" and really only kept reading because I liked what she had to say. It's not a good pitch point.If you can stand to read her blog style for long periods, by all means, read this book. If you pick it up in the book store and like it, then buy it. Because you'll probably want to digest it in chapter-size segments (meaning, read a chapter, go do something else), and borrowing it from the library makes that more difficult.Despite being a very different person than the author in more ways than you can count, I still felt like what she had to say was interesting and helpful. This was a lot more straightforward than Eat, Pray, Love, but I think there is a similar message, about self-acceptance. The biggest difference is that Stephanie Dolgoff doesn't imply that you have to go through some life-altering journey in order to get to the same place. But I think they both say the same thing - just wait, whatever your journey to get there, self-acceptance will come if you let it happen. I guess I should feel lucky that it happened a lot earlier in life for me, because, apparently, that's not really the norm. Then again, when have I ever fit into 'normal'? Dolgoff is such an insightful, witty writer. Her path may be different from mine (and, man, I wish I'd lived some of that New York life!), but so what? The issues resonate nonetheless for this 44-year old. I hear they're making this into a TV series and will personally look forward to checking that and future writings out. Any woman who can mock herself and wave her bat wings with abandon deserves a second look. She seems like she'd be a fun girlfriend and mom.
What do You think about My Formerly Hot Life: Dispatches From Just The Other Side Of Young (2010)?
Little nuggets. The scenario of trying to get friends together for a night out rings very true.
—andrei
couldn't finish... some stories were okay and I could relate but it wasn't that great.
—nicki
Funny, and rings all too true as I hit forty.
—Natasha
