Linda Benjamin is a lively writer, and GIRL’S GUIDE TO AGING WITH GRIT AND GUSTO reflects that on every page. There are stories here, true stories ranging from deeply touching to inspirational to laugh-out-loud funny, and all of them are written with a warmth and life that make them a pleasure to read. Benjamin has a generous, joyous sense of humor that never stoops to malice when turned on others, or to unkind self-deprecation when turned on herself. She’s certainly not afraid to laugh at herself, but it is the gentle laughter of an older woman seeing the mistakes, failed expectations, and foibles of her youth with love and compassion. She is also not afraid to talk about the fear and anxiety that come with being newly single in a world whose expectation is marriage until death, a world that expected her to largely put aside her career and independence for her husband’s sake and then left her off-balance and off-kilter when that husband left.
It takes courage to make a new start for oneself as an older woman in a society that values youth above all, but Benjamin demonstrates with her own example, that such courage is not only possible but necessary for all of us, given that the only constant in life is change, and that none of us may quite have the old age we planned and envisioned for ourselves decades earlier. She encourages healthy risk-taking by example, whether it be accepting an invitation to celebrate Hanukkah with Isaac Bashevis Singer himself, building new communities and families of choice with friends, learning about new therapeutic techniques, or traveling overseas to meet her new baby grandson. Failures and false starts, setbacks and bad dates–are all here–but so is the confidence earned by learning that those things are all survivable, and may even be gateways for new opportunities and new experiences. This is, on the whole, a highly encouraging book – not one that will tell you that life in old age is guaranteed to be sunshine and roses, far from it, but one that teaches that life’s storms are survivable, even the ones that make you feel like the rug’s just been pulled out from under you.
Linda Benjamin’s GIRL’S GUIDE TO AGING WITH GRIT AND GUSTO is a lively, humorous account of the author’s own experiences of making a new start (or, more accurately, starts) for herself as a divorcee in her golden years, and is full of frequently, wise advice and healthy encouragement.
~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader