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CJC

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  • 6
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  • 8
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A plodding story told in the most painful way

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 06-22-24

I finish nearly all my audiobooks and enjoy 98% of them. This one, however, was a dud that lost me twice and I now see I was wrong to have bothered picking it back up. Lack of sympathetic characters, storytelling that is somehow both boring and confusing. I wanted to listen to a book that centered elder characters but don’t feel I have any new perspective from this book. The one small subset of readers who I imagine may enjoy this book are lovers of Arthurian tales.

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Wouldn’t recommend except to Christians flailing in midlife

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 05-18-23

I read this book as it was recommended for a seminar I attended. Not coming from a Christian mindset, I was often relieved to find the author taking a feminist perspective and I feel grateful she is in leadership positions in her faith tradition. She seems like a thoughtful and powerful person.
Overall however, this book feels like she took a tidy and worthwhile one-hour lecture and stretched it into a book. I felt some chapters lacked distinction from each other as the author worked to fill them out. I bristled at proscriptive nonsense like “it’s ok to use hormones but don’t OVER-medicate with them” what does this even mean? I really don’t like it when people give women this idea that there’s a “right” way to navigate their menopause transition. I almost stopped reading when she took aim at women who put their “flabby thighs in tight leggings”. Ladies, one of the gifts of menopause is not giving a rip about what others think and I hope you wear whatever your heart desires. I think the author was declaring women don’t need to dress to appear younger but it didn’t land for me.
Special snark because I am a certified menopause practitioner : she touts non-sense about “natural” hormones in the beginning (this is marketing but I get that she’s not a healthcare provider and thought her sources were reliable) and she turns the “i” in perimenopause into an “a” when she pronounces it which is jarring when you have to hear it 5000 times.
I do think that women who have earnestly lived a Christian life and find themselves grappling with their midlife transformation will find more help than harm in this book. Still, I doubt I will recommend it to friends or patients.

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Interesting historical story, bland modern story

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 08-03-22

A pivotal moment in the story (grandmas reaction after Avery mentions Arcadia) makes no sense by the end. Hard to care about rich modern day family’s struggles. In the end, average, but I appreciated the history.

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Unique and lovely

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 02-13-20

Poetic and probing. I loved that there were same sex partnerships and strong women characters. Eventually stopped what I was doing and just listened to the last few hours.

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6 people found this helpful

Courtroom warning

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 02-06-20

If I’d known the a good part of the final act was a courtroom drama I might have waited, having just finished Where the Crawdads Sing. Very similar, in that both focus on poor rural US, communion with nature, misunderstood and mistrusted women and miscarriages of justice.

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