My book review for No One Tells You This is going to be a long one, Tartlets. #sorrynotsorry
I think the hardest reviews to write are about the books I identify with most strongly. There’s so much to say! While I have all the room in the world to write my thoughts down (it is my blog), I know I have to reel it in. I don’t want to scare people away with a review that’s almost as long as the book itself.
What is No One Tells You This about?
I don’t read much nonfiction, but this “a year in the life” memoir from Glynnis MacNicol was a welcome deviation from my normal TBR pile. The book begins with MacNicol approaching her 40th birthday with uncertainty and trepidation, and it ends up in a pleasantly reassuring space.
Amidst all the highs and lows she faces in a year, the author drives home the fact that she loves her life, despite what others may think of it. She loves her freedom and her sense of adventure; she loves where she’s been and where she is going, wherever that may be. She has lived her life on her own terms, and while she may not be fitting into the mold that society has cast for women of her age, she fits within her own life very well, and that’s more than so many people can say.
Why I decided to read No One Tells You This
I first learned about No One Tells You This from a New York Times article, which centered on the fact that MacNicol is a single, childless, 40 year-old woman writer in NYC.
I’m a 35 year-old writer who works in NYC. I’m happily married, but my husband and I don’t have children. We’re not sure we want children, and the ever-present “will we or won’t we?” debate had been rearing its ugly head more often than usual when I stumbled across that NYT article. Most of my friends already have children. If they don’t, they’re sure they want them and are just waiting for “the right time.”
Bottom line: most people I know are not going to remain double-income-no-kids-yet for life. And that made me feel a little lonely, a little bit of an outsider. I read the book description for No One Tells You This and thought, Yes. Yes, Glynnis will understand.
What I loved about No One Tells You This (apart from, well, everything)
MacNicol writes with raw, honest emotion that’s often laced with sarcasm, humor, and just a little bit of bitterness. However, she’s never bitter toward her own life; only toward how others often view a 40-year-old successful writer and independent woman…who also happens to be without a partner or children.
I found No One Tells You This amazingly, almost disturbingly relatable, especially the stories centered around relationships and romance. I got married considerably later than most of my friends, and I still remember all too well the drudgery of dating. The depressing realizations that someone is not “the one.” The undeniable albeit unwarranted sense of failure as another relationship, whether fledging or long term, went up in smoke.
MacNicol’s dating adventures conjured up feelings and memories buried not that deeply below the surface. In one chapter, she visits Iceland and meets an attractive hiking guide. Even though she’s exhausted, MacNicol cancels her pre-booked spa day in order to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to spend time with him, even though that time is spent scaling a glacier in the freezing rain.
Reading this passage while in bed next to my husband, my first thought was, Oh, Glynnis. What’s the point? Then, I blocked out the person next to me and remembered what it was like to be there. There, in the dating trenches, where a kind word or the graze of a hand on your hair is enough to make you believe you’re not the failure the rest of the world sees when looking at a single woman of a certain age.
Yup. I would have gone glacier hiking on three hours of sleep, too.
This memoir is more than just romance and dating
Although MacNicol discusses relationships, No One Tells You This isn’t a Sex and the City-esque dating memoir, which I admit I was somewhat expecting.
Instead, she moves into deeper, more personal territory. She opens up about her desire (or, lack thereof) to have children; about her mother becoming suddenly and rapidly ill with Alzheimer’s; about the ups and downs of her writing career; and about her circle of friends that has become like family to her.
All of these topics — and more — offer real, honest connections between reader and author, but the part about children and motherhood struck the deepest chord with me.
“Should I have Kids?” — The Great Motherhood Question
In a cluster of chapters, MacNicol helps out her sister, who has just given birth to her third child. MacNicol takes on all the normal “mom duties” with her older niece and nephew and finds herself in another kind of trench — or, in “the deep end,” as she calls it. She experiences the mundane and exhausting parts of being a parent, not the rose-colored version that she (and I) feel so many women only see when they decide to have children.
Parenting can be lovely, but it can be a downright mess, too. At one point, MacNicol acknowledges that perhaps she knows too much about the negative side of motherhood, which may color her viewpoint – another aspect to which I found myself relating. I constantly cite the negatives of childrearing when discussing it with my husband.
My favorite moment in No One Tells You This finds MacNicol holding her sister’s newborn up to her face and forcing herself to sweep aside all the negative things she knows about parenting, all the struggles both financially and emotionally it will include, to ask herself the question that all childless-by-choice women of a certain age ask themselves: “Do I want this?”
She goes on to bittersweetly admit that sometimes the answer to “Do I want this?” never comes. That the feeling that envelopes so many women just never appears for others.
I damn near cried as I read this passage. It was as if MacNicol had plucked thoughts out of my brain and emotions out of my heart, and placed them in her book. I’ve asked myself this question every day for years, and I have yet to formulate a true answer. Reading about someone else grappling with the exact same Motherhood Question was comforting, like finding the face of a friend in a room full of strangers.
This is what No One Tells You This does: it offers you a friend.
Should you read No One Tells You This?
I finished No One Tells You This feeling extremely satisfied. Vindicated, even. To be completely understood by a total stranger is a rare gift. To identify with so many other aspects of the author’s life and emotions was an unexpected delight. In a paraphrase of her own words, I’d like to say to MacNicol: “Thanks for existing, and then telling us about it.”
You should absolutely read this book if you’re grappling with dating and romance; if you’re grappling with the question of whether to have kids or not; if you’re dealing with aging parents or a career that isn’t quite what you hoped it would be by now. If you enjoyed reading Ghosts by Dolly Alderton, you’re going to love No One Tells You This.
What’s the book-inspired recipe for No One Tells You This?
Be sure to check out my book-inspired recipe – Mushroom Brie Mac and Cheese!
