On Our Nightstand: Tales from the XX Side
Women have overcome steep odds and lived to tell the tale. Suffrage, feminism, workplace discrimination, #MeToo and other women’s movements throughout history have led to where we are today, with still so much work to do. It seems a good time to highlight some terrific memoirs by female writers that will inspire you, no matter which chromosomes helped make you who you are.
Brooke Shields is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman
by Brooke Shields, Flatiron Books, 240 pages, $29.99
I went into this book expecting to be underwhelmed at best, irritated at worst. By the end of the prologue, I was already happily hooked. Conversational in tone, the book is your own private coffee klatch with Shields as she dishes on what it’s like to be a famous 59-year-old whose first claim to fame — indeed, a focus throughout her career — was her looks. Even women who don’t turn heads or whose careers don’t rely on the fit of their Calvin Kleins will identify with the ways in which older women begin to become invisible within a society fixated on youth. Shields may be famous, but to a certain extent we all are in this together.
Using herself as an example, including self-deprecatingly noting the absurdity of some of her beliefs and the stupidity of some of her actions, Shields talks about the ways in which she loves growing into the many opportunities that come with getting older: Say no to things you’re not comfortable with or interested in! Don’t obsess about what other people think! And she talks candidly about the changes that aging brings to women in particular. Turns out that, yes, Shields also struggles with a low libido and chin hair.
If you want a down-to-earth story about aging and ways to make it a great next chapter, diving into Shields’ latest memoir is a good step to take.
Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason
by Gina Frangello, Counterpoint Press, 320 pages, $16.95
Gina Frangello was happily-ish married until she wasn’t, and she had a longtime affair that led to a very messy divorce in her late 40s. She also was diagnosed with breast cancer and fast-forwarded into menopause as a result of the treatments, parenting her three children, taking care of her elderly ailing parents and trying to make ends meet. This book is her mind dump about that time and it is absolutely riveting as she navigates the challenges and her rage at the various injustices happening to her.
Women of a certain age everywhere will read this book and think to themselves at least once, YES! That is exactly how I feel! — this, even if their own lives seem like a fairy tale compared to what’s going on in Frangello’s world. Blow Your House Down is an ode to being a woman in midlife. It’s enlightening, funny and a bit shocking in parts. Definitely worth a read.
Educated
by Tara Westover, Penguin Random House, 352 pages, $20
I read — or I should say consumed — this book in 2018 when it first came out and immediately bought three copies for my daughter and closest women friends. “Read this,” I said, “and you will realize no hurdle is too big to overcome and that your life is, even in its most challenging moments, likely a cakewalk.” Or words to that effect.
In her debut memoir, Westover chronicles her life growing up with survivalist parents in the Idaho wilderness. Her father, who she says in the book likely had undiagnosed bipolar disease, kept the family so far off the grid that she literally didn’t get a birth certificate until she was 9 (and basically chose a date for her birthday since no one could remember). No one ever had medical care. Instead their mother, who apparently has a successful essential oils and herbs business, created tinctures and mended broken bones herself.
Westover, influenced by one of her brothers who “escaped” and got a college degree, ultimately educates herself and enters a classroom for the first time when she is 17. She now holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University and her book, a No. 1 New York Times bestseller for two years when it was published, is a multiple award winner. If this book somehow escaped your radar, run, don’t walk, to your closest bookstore and get a copy. You won’t be sorry.
Top image source: iStockphoto.com/PeopleImages
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