I've slept through the night once that I remember since the birth of my twins in 2006. Now it's a good night when I wake up only once. If I'm lucky, I'll fall asleep again by 3. Often on these nights, I feel alone and anxious. And I know a lot of other women who deal with the same thing. Enter Ada Calhoun and this book, to tell me just how NOT alone we middle-aged female insomniacs are. Using anecdotes, interviews with experts, and statistics, she explains that it has to do with demographics, the realities of the job market we entered, the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis, the pressure created by social media and constant online access, perimenopause, and expectations set when we were young (we Gen Xers were the first generation of women raised to believe we could "have it all:" professional careers, happy families, financial stability, lots of adventures, and a good sleep every night). Older generations of women may smile knowingly at this. What did we expect? Did we think divorce and menopause and single parenting and middle-class money issues and being lonely would be easy? No, we didn't. We just didn't expect it to all hit at once. Calhoun's project is not to wallow in victimhood. It's to point out the facts, often in a humorous way, tell stories designed to make us feel less like failures, and remind us that this, too, shall pass. In addition to her impressive bibliography, she offers a Midlife Crisis Mixtape (if you don't know what a mixtape is, you need to turn in your Gen X card). Highly recommended to all of my female friends who also can't sleep.
