The Pull of the Moon

by Elizabeth Berg

Now in trade-from the New York Times bestselling author of Range of Motion.

"Not a novel about a woman leaving home, but...a human being finding her way back."-Chicago Tribune

"Turning 50 seems to turn women crazy. When Nan hits this mark, she hits the road, leaving behind her home and husband. Driving west from Boston, she consults only her own pleasure. And while this sounds easy, it is often arduous for Nan, who can hardly remember what her own pleasure is...[The Pull of the Moon] is upbeat from beginning to end."-Boston Sunday Globe

"Measured, delicate, and impossible to walk away from."-Entertainment Weekly

Genres: Fiction, Chick Lit, Book Club, Contemporary, Womens Fiction, Adult Fiction, Novels

Hardcover

First published April 16, 1996

About the author

Elizabeth Berg is an American novelist.
She was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and lived in Boston prior to her residence in Chicago. She studied English and Humanities at the University of Minnesota, but later ended up with a nursing degree. Her writing career started when she won an essay contest in Parents magazine. Since her debut novel in 1993, her novels have sold in large numbers and have received several awards and nominations, although some critics have tagged them as sentimental. She won the New England Book Awards in 1997.
The novels Durable Goods, Joy School, and True to Form form a trilogy about the 12-year-old Katie Nash, in part based on the author's own experience as a daughter in a military family. Her essay "The Pretend Knitter" appears in the anthology Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting, published by W. W. Norton & Company in November 2013.

Reviews

[J9 · Rating 5 out of 5]

My aunt is a renowned doctor living in Memphis. She was one of the first women breast surgeons and her and her husband founded the Mroz-Baier clinic for breast cancer in Memphis. They are innovators and have made great strides towards the cure of breast cancer. I have a box full of newspaper clippings and pictures of them with prominent people like President Clinton and Barbara Bush. My Aunt is someone who I look up to and admire greatly.

So when she sent this book to me, and told me she had read it several times and it was one of her favorites, I had to give it a try. Labeled Chick Lit(I hate that name, it makes it sound sappy), my stack of Elizabeth Berg books was ever growing, but still unread. I knew she had to have some merit, no one writes that many books and doesn't have some sort of impact, but again, they looked like typical woman's literature, and I hesitated. So my Aunt sending me one, finally made me pick one up.

Now my Aunt belongs to my Dad's family, the side that grew up on my Grandfather's farm. Stoic, hardworking, and not very open about their thoughts or feelings, sometimes it's hard to get a read on them. This book opened up a whole new world of wonder about my Aunt, and as I sat underlining or highlighting every other word, I hoped that someday my thoughts written in this dusty little paperwork, would open up a whole new world of insight to my children who might read it.

I had a boss once who was talking about why he chose a particular book as his favorite. He said it wasn't the deepest book out there, but it spoke to him, and described very well the thoughts he sometimes had. That's how I feel about Pull of the Moon. Berg has a simple way to describe what this woman, Nan, is feeling as she takes off from her everyday life, for a road trip and to "find" herself. A monotonous marriage and the fear of getting older is what drives her, but she learns so much more about herself than she knew. From meeting new people, and attempting new experiences, to trying to get over her fear of the dark by sleeping in the forest alone at night, she pushes the boundaries of the rules she's lived the last 50 years by. About her marriage...

"...you'll see the small lines starting in each other's faces, and though your hands may be in your laps they will also be reaching out to touch those lines with a tenderness you weren't sure was in you. You'll think, Oh well, all right. You'll have come to a certain kind of appreciation that moves beyond all the definitions of love you've ever had."

And in writing a letter to her husband...

"I try to cast my thoughts out, meaning to share all of them with you, Martin, and then slowly pull the line back in, your not having seen much at all. You stop listening so I seize up, or I seize up so you stop listening, I'm not sure..."

Before I got married, we were required to go to a sort of marriage counseling with the pastor who would be doing our ceremony. I remember him and his wife sitting there, talking to us and saying, as he smiled gently at his wife, "I kind of see marriage as two rocks with a lot of rough edges. You bang against each other over and over and eventually the edges are smoothed out." I think the above two passages of Berg's describes this perfectly. I feel like I'm fluctuating between the "Why won't you listen to me more?" and the "Oh well, all right."

Berg also touches upon the sweet bitterness of getting older, the body that doesn't seem her own anymore, and the woman who doesn't care so much anymore what people think so she can get away with more. On life's regrets she writes...

"I am so often struck by what we do not do..."

And when talking about her feelings and running away from them...

"Today I woke up and felt the old pull of sadness back. It's like a robe that is too heavy, weighing down my shoulders, dragging up dirt as it follows along behind me. This was disappointing. I thought I'd escaped something."

Berg creates a feeling and atmosphere in her book that is both concise and general at the same time. The epistolary format was a brilliant move, because it makes us feel like Nan is our friend, just another woman trying to understand her life. There is something in this book for all women. I can't imagine there's a woman out there that can't relate to at least a little of what Nan is experiencing.

I loved this book. Perhaps it's because I'm coming up on 40 and am starting to feel it or maybe it's because this September I celebrate my ten year anniversary with my husband, I'm not sure. But this book really touched me and for now, it's become one of my favorites. Not a classic by any means, but an enjoyable read, especially for a women who feels alone, to know there are many other women out there that have the same thoughts.

[Barbara Mader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I'd give it one star but for the moments of good writing. The protagonist, Nan, seemed to be a navel-gazing, rather shallow bore of a woman who gets mad at her husband, men in general, and the world at large when she is soooo unfairly subjected to aging like everyone else. Yawn.

She runs away from home, and the book consists of letters to her husband and entries in a journal. By the end of the book it seems to me she hasn't changed at all except to take a tiny bit more responsibility for her own life and feelings, though unfortunately she also seems to plan on taking charge of her husband's life as well--this is what I want, my way or the highway--and we never get to see anything from this guy's point of view at all. Really, Nan mostly wants to stay in her bubble of money, youth, and beauty, and does seem completely clueless about how other people live. Her purported "interest" in the little people she comes across on her travels is a sad, condescending joke.

Very readable despite the lack of any real energy in the book. Took a few hours, maybe. I've read worse.

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Pull Of The Moon is about a woman having a mid-life crises who runs away from her husband to "find herself". The book was written in journal/letter form. As soon as I started reading The Pull Of The Moon, I immediately disliked the demanding self indulgence of the main character. I became sympathetic instead towards her husband who seemed kind of sweet for the most part, never really having done anything very hurtful to her. There were a few parts where we were supposed to feel sorry for her because of his indifference, but she just seemed so overly dramatic and impossible to satisfy that I couldn't muster up the compassion. Instead I found myself thinking, "He's probably doing his best." I think the worst part of the book though was her relations to the people she met. She seemed to meet everyone with such a condescending shallowness, and yet she herself was upset about not being seen.? She stereotypes each person she encounters by their outward appearance coming up with her own made up prejudice details of who they are and what they do. An elderly man strikes up a friendly conversation with her and she is bored with him deciding that he's the type of guy who wears cheap socks and doesn't change them frequently. The most laughable though was when the main character drives up to a trailer park and meets a woman with lots of black eyeliner, smokers breath, with a laundry basket on her hip. Seriously. She is invited in for lunch only to be surprised it actually looks like a clean home instead of being covered with dirty dishes like she expected. She brings this unrealistic, outrageously stereotyped woman to the mall to buy her something and of course all the lady wants to buy is some trashy on sale clothes and a potato peeler while the main character, of course, buys some books. I found the entire book from start to finish filled with this same condescending tone. She was self centered and unable to deal with things in a mature manner. In the end, there was little forgiveness, but more of an "I'm-going-to-run-the-show-now" type mentality. It was ironic too because the main character seemed to think she was having some deep transcendent experience. But all of her supposed depth came across to me as very shallow.

To be fair to the author, I think I will read another one of her books because I have heard such great things about her. As I read through other reviews of this book, I saw many people say it was not nearly as good as her other works. They too found the main character difficult to relate to.

[Kathie Giorgio · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I'm going to tell you a story with this review.
I originally read this book when it was published, back in 1996. I was 36 years old and in a very unhappy marriage. I'd read Berg's previous books and wanted to go see her when she came through town on book tour. My then-husband gave me permission (permission!) to go, but told me I was not to buy the new book.
I listened to Elizabeth read the first pages. Before she was done, I was on my feet, buying the book. And I paid for it, in more ways than one. But it was so worth it.
A couple weeks ago, I kept hearing a line in my head. "The time of losses is upon me." I puzzled over it, trying to place it, and then zeroed in on this book again. I am 56 years old now. And when I reread the first pages, I had to read the book again. It was powerful the first time; it was life-saving the second time.
I'm not going to tell you what the book is about. You can read that on the description. But I will tell you this. This book should be required reading for any woman 50 years and older. It should be the requisite present on a woman's 50th birthday. This book...
Oh, this book.
I am filled with awe over the beyond-beautiful writing. And I am full of gratitude for Elizabeth Berg.

[Camille · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the first book of Elizabeth Berg's that I was truly disapointed in. I have absolutely adored everything thing else of hers that I have read but this character was irritating. Nan is a spoiled, self centered woman with nothing better to do than spend way too much time feeling sorry for herself. Nan's problem?? She's 50. At 50 yrs old, she doesn't have to work, can spend hundreds of $$ on cosmetics that she promptly throws in the trash, her husband can afford to retire at any time, she has a strong, smart , independent daughter who is in college and all Nan can do is hope her butt looks good to younger men.. I couldn't wait to be done with Nan, she was extremely shallow, self important, spoiled and aggravating.
I also found the conversations she would have with total strangers to be unrealistic.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. It is a book about a woman who is 50 and takes a road trip by herself. She writes letters home to her husband and keeps a journal. Berg says a lot of things that most women just think about. I would recommend this book to women in their 50's and to younger just married women too. I think it would be an eye-opener to men too.
This is a quick read - I watched it during the Men's Finals at Wimbeldon - and was done before the fifth set started

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) This is my second contemporary novel from Berg. I find her work effortlessly readable. She’s comparable to those other Elizabeths, McCracken and Strout, but also to Alice Hoffman and Anne Tyler. This one reminded me most of Tyler’s Ladder of Years in that both are about a middle-aged woman who takes a break from her marriage to figure out what she wants from life. Nan, “a fifty-year-old runaway,” takes off from her suburban Boston home and drives west, stopping at motels and cabins, eating at diners, and meeting the locals; eventually she gets as far as South Dakota. Her narration is in the form of letters to her husband, Martin, alternated with italicized passages from her journal. She reflects on everything that has made up her life – her upbringing, her marriage and other sexual encounters, raising her daughter, Ruthie – as well as on the small-town folk she meets in Iowa and Minnesota. The moon is a symbol of the femininity Nan fears she’s losing through menopause and hopes to reclaim on this journey.

[ꕥ Ange_Lives_To_Read ꕥ · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn’t really give this much of a chance, but I passionately hated the 5 or so pages that I did read.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read Year of Pleasures a few years ago and enjoyed it very much, but for some reason didn’t read anything else by Berg until now. Pull of the Moon made me wonder why. I remembered as I read this latest book that her novels are the sort I gulp down, written with beautifully crafted thoughts in a simple way. I also remembered that she often wrote as if echoing my thoughts.

In Pull of the Moon, this feeling was even more pronounced perhaps because Berg’s character, Nan, is 50 and struggling within the ‘sticky middle’ of youth and old age. I’m a couple years younger and not able to completely relate to Nan in every aspect of her experience, but it’s close enough to resonate.

”I am preoccupied with my body,” Nan writes in her journal. Overly watchful of change. It’s like being a teenager again, without the cuteness. Without the promise.

The book, written as alternating letter and journal entries, begins with Nan’s first letter to her husband, written from the road after leaving him a note that she’s left on a road trip of sorts. In the letter, she tells him that she’s sorry she said she’d only be gone a couple days, because she’s not ready to come back yet. She assures him she loves him and she’s safe, but that she needs this time to think. ”Martin, I am fifty years old. The time of losses is upon me. Maybe that’s it. I don’t know. I saw Kotex in the drugstore the other day and began to weep. Then I saw a mother with a very little girl, helping her pick out crayons, and this, too, undid me. I had to leave without buying what I came for.”

Nan is struggling through menopause and with her sense of identity. She freely admits she chose to be a stay-at-home mother and that she fiercely loved that period of her life, but realizes she’s unsure how to define herself now that that part of her life is over. Some of the observations Nan makes about being a young mother are pitch perfect. In one of the letters she writes to her husband she talks about how she both loved and lived for their daughter, but how, at times, she “could feel some brightness of mind dulling” in the mundane day-to-day task of caring for a child and home. “It is such a violent love, that of a mother for a young child. And I had to be there no matter the cost.”

I perfectly remember that time of my life and how I would have begged, borrowed, and stolen to remain home with and continue to care for my daughter. At the same time, I can remember lamenting, “I feel like my brain is leaking out my ear!” It was crucial that I be the one to perform all the mundane tasks necessary to raise her even though they sometimes made me feel my brain was atrophying. “I made her baby food. I picked out her toys and clothes. I took her to school every day, I pulled her shades down for her naps, I took her to the doctor, I braided her hair and buckled her shoes, and mounted her artwork on the refrigerator. And I wanted to. I wanted to.”

The letter/journal form of the book gives Berg license to ramble a bit, but it works in this case. Nan’s thoughts and impressions on being female are visited through different moments in her life. She touches on the subject of gender roles, how a certain freedom is lost once girls reach puberty, how women both anxiously await and then loathe their periods, and how when that time of their lives is over, they grieve it. Berg also revisits, through Nan, the different periods and nuances of women’s sexuality, from their first time, to the expectations, to the waning desire. This particularly rang true: ”I think every woman I know has a story like that, some incident of paralyzed humiliation involving a man and sex.”

I suppose this book resonated so strongly for me because I read it on trip back to Delaware from New York City after moving our twenty-one-year-old daughter into her first apartment. It struck me that even though I’m in the ‘sticky middle’ of my life and the role I most identified with (stay-at-home mother) is over, there remains in me the girl I was and the young woman I became. As Augusten Burroughs said of this book¸ “the present tucked inside this book is the realization that you still are the child you once were — you just never take your watch off anymore.”

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took this trip myself. I graduated from Law School at 42, and passed the bar in California, then had to take it in Virginia when my husband took a new job. Upon arriving in Virginia I found that my daughter needed more than a part time parent, and my husband's new job had him on the road constantly. Depending on her needs, I consulted part time, and sometimes not at all, as she wound her way through a difficult adolescence. By 2003, she was 19, and vacillating between pulling me too tightly into her life and wanting to push me off an abyss. I no longer knew who I was and what I liked after years of planning everything that the others wanted.

I took a 6,000 mile road trip up, down and over, visiting friends from all my ages, childhood,adolescence, college, adulthood and law school. Making friends of cousins I barely knew and searching for myself and what i liked. I drove the backroads of America, searching for the quirky and the pieces of myself going back to the town I was born in for the first time since i was 2. My husband joined me for a long weekend with friends, then went home while i continued my journey. Finally, when it was time to come home...I got on the freeway and came home. I think many women need this journey of rediscovery and power when their children have grown...to remind themselves of themselves.

I was glad to read of someone else's journey.

[Wendy Welch · Rating 5 out of 5]

NOW we're talking functional dysfunction! This is such a nice take on the woman-comes-of-age-in-second-childhood theme - which we have about 4,000 of in our bookstore. It takes a gifted writer with some insight to make a plot that stands out.

The biggest difference between Berg's and the also-rans seems to be that in this book, not everything is the man's fault, and she still LOVES her husband. She's just frustrated. And she understands that. Self-aware angst is very refreshing. Also some tongue in cheek humor and some great archetypal moments of women connecting.

Men, when your female life partner is approaching 50, get her a copy of this book. And then read The Dollhouse by Ibsen. It might help, 'cause hopefully, this one is not gonna get made into a Lifetime movie.

[Antof9 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fascinating book! It definitely had a lot of melancholy, but I wasn't filled with despair or depression while reading it. I just wrote on another thing I read recently that lately I require "hope" in my reading. This is the oldest character Berg has written yet that I've read, and although she didn't disappoint, I find myself prefering her younger characters.

Re the beauty shop scene -- I know I would have stood up and shouted, "Brava!" had I been there :)

One of the things I like so much about Elizabeth Berg is that she writes things that have actually happened to me. Not the entire story and plot, per se, but the way she describes things is just spot-on. For example, "I pulled over and I wept so hard the car was shaking ..." I myself have done this very thing. And oddly, one of the things I noticed after crying for a while was that the car was shaking. This is real, and only those people who have done this would know it. And then further down the same page, such a poetic piece of writing. She's describing something upsetting: "and the feeling would have been of all my eggs being walked on by boots." Brilliant!

I found this part rather thought-provoking. Enough to mark the page, anyway: in describing how they have come into affluence, she describes buying new cars before the new-car smell has gone from the old one. New furniture, fashions, etc. "... for what? So that we can sit out on our (new) deck in the summer and drink vodka and tonics out of vodka-and-tonic glasses with limes that have been cut with the (new) lime cutter? It's always bothered me, what we lost when we stopped being able to fit our things into the trunk of our car. ... [Martin] says it's a luxury of being rich to wish you were poor. I don't want to be poor. I just want to be appreciative." (emphasis mine)

Again, I just love Berg's comments: "She wore a sweatshirt and jeans and lovely pearl studs in her ears -- dressing up a bit of herself so she wouldn't forget how, no doubt. You will see this in mothers of small children: they dress up from the neck up. Everything else is in danger of peanut butter." Isn't that awesome? It's almost a slogan.

I turned 40 the year I read this, so it's interesting to think about things like menopause, getting older, becoming part of the scenery, how menopause was for my mother (I made her life miserable), etc. This was a good book to read at this time in my life, and it made me rather introspective. It's possibly the deepest Berg I've read yet, too.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

My second read, and I did enjoy it, particularly the last couple of pages. She perfectly explains the experience of many women, who kind of put their own lives on hold or to the side to take care of their families, and then sort of wake up out of a dream one day and need to reset. The main character goes on a road trip, alone, to do this, and it really works for her. Alone trips are wonderful and I highly recommend them. :)

[Vannetta Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Really exquisite writing.

I came across this author as I was doing research on "women's fiction." What is meant by that? What does it look and sound like? I couldn't have landed at a better place.

This book is tender and vulnerable and wise. It's a woman's journey away from home so that she can come to terms with her past and her present. I found myself highlighting so much of it that at times I felt as if the entire thing would be in my "notes." But I wanted to be able to go back and read certain lines again. I love when a book does that to you, when you whisper to yourself, "read slower" but then, you don't.

Highly recommend.
Note: This is a mainstream book. It has a little language and a few sexual references that might embarrass you, but I think all of that is handled with skill and finesse.

[Kathy Striano-Preece · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn’t do it anymore. I could not stand the selfish main character. At 50 and going through a mid life crisis, her biggest problem is that her thighs are big. She insults her husband for aging. How dare he. I am 48 so coming close to 50 and with all the high school and college friends fighting cancer, MS and losing loved ones, I wanted to shake this character into reality.

[Paula Cappa · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you enjoy plotless meandering books, this one is for you. I’m not keen on them. This story is about a woman in a mid-life crisis, running away on a road trip to malls, diners, motels, trailer parks, main street front porches, K-Mart and coupon shoppers, etc., etc., and the people she encounters there in order to escape her family and her husband. Okay, she’s searching for herself at 50 years old (a little late for coming of age) but the self-indulgent, me, me, me became quite redundant and weary by middle of the book. I will say that Berg wrote with some sensitive insights along the way and Nan made some jazzy remarks about life and the meaningful/meaningless variety of everyday trials. At the end I said, okay, so what. I don’t know, this book was like a stroll in the park, pretty language and descriptions, some views that strike a note, but way too tedious with the small things over and over again. Not for me. As a writer, editor, reader, I need really good storytelling. This one didn’t do it. I will try Berg’s other books though.

[Susan Rys · Rating 1 out of 5]

Snooze fest-- this book was boring and depressing. I kept waiting for something interesting to happen, and I was disappointed at the end.

[Judy Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE PULL OF THE MOON is another great book by Elizabeth Berg! Every woman over the age of 50 needs to read this one. I am making my way back through all her audiobooks after reading The Story of Arthur Truluv, coming Nov 21.

Recommend the audiobook (narrated by the author). Outstanding! More to follow.

[Carol Sente · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, delightful book from an author I was not aware of. Apparently Elizabeth Berg has written several books about women. This one is about Nan, who runs away from her life and husband after turning 50 to go on an extended road trip to discover what is important to her. She had been so busy being a mother and adapting to her partner’s wants that she didn’t really process her own thoughts and desires. She flourishes on her road trip, deciding what to do next one step at a time and in rediscovering herself, she finds her way. I enjoyed the author’s technique of communicating Nan’s thoughts through her writing in her turquoise journal and writing frequent letters to her husband Martin to let him know where she is and what she is thinking. This book reminds us to embrace each decade, adapt and spend enough quiet time understanding what it is that makes a good life from our own perspective.

[Stevie Holcomb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book. Every woman reaching a point in her life that is life changing (Nan turns 50 here, I'm turning 40 in May) really should read this. It's all about how it's ok to be who you are, to understand that, and to rejoice about it--too. It's hard understanding ourselves, as women. Men may not know this, but we don't understand ourselves either.

Written in a series of journal entries and letters to her husband (and one to her daughter) you really feel this woman's inner thoughts as your own, too. She may not be you, but she is too. Wonderful explanations, wonderful feelings, lovely writing. Berg does it again.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's always bothered me, what we lost when we stopped being able to fit our things into the trunk of our car.

I rarely get too far or too involved in this author's books because they're always about women I have nothing in common with - well-off, privileged women who can afford to run away from their lives just because they can. How many readers are able to do that? However there were some ideas and observations that were totally enjoyable, and a few jarring and quotable passages that will stay with me forever.

I asked if he hit her and she said oh, no, never. She said that might be better, actually, then she could watch something heal.

[Lori · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a fan of this book. In fact the more I think about the message the more upset I become. It's about a womans mid-life crisis and what she does about it. While I can empathize with a few things, overall I thought it was depressing. I don't think my life or my relationship is like that, and I desperately hope it doesn't become that way. I found myself wanting to just shake her out of the victim role and tell her to suck it up. There are some things you have to deal with and there are some things you can change, and her problems were fixable, so stop whining about it and just do it.

[Fishgirl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was going to give this a four as I feel it's not the best of Elizabeth Berg's novels but I realized I'd pay to read anything she wrote, even a grocery list, and so five stars it is. It's a novel told in epistolary form and it's about menopause. I really wish I'd read this five years ago but better late than never. Menopause. It's the pause that dares not speak it's name, I tell you. In our youth obsessed culture, menopause is seen as failure. Elizabeth Berg sees people, does she ever. They may be wearing clothes and going about their daily tasks but they're buck naked before her. She can see who they are, all the tiny nuances, all they'd like to hide or forget. It would be remiss of me to not mention she's kind. You know me, I like the KIND authors with the BIG hearts.
I think people should talk and write about menopause much more frankly. I really do. I'm disinclined to write a book about menopause. I mean, if I had all the time in the world I would put it on the "to do" list. It would say "write and tell the truth in both a serious and funny way about the change of life." I like how they used to call it that. The change of life! It sounds like a revival meeting! Come and be changed! No more leg shaving! Grey hair! Random excessive sweating to the point where people you are trying to immunize say, "Can you stand further away from me? You're so hot!" Hahahaha. Oh well. Crying in the aisle at Cheerios. Giving hard earned money to an electrolysis technician and listening to Dire Staits blue-toothing through the digital hearing aids while she jabs needles and zaps your face because at the end of the day, the facial hair thing was making you want to buy stock in Tweezerman. Think to yourself why was it not called Tweezerwoman. I digress.
I'm done. I'm done menopause, not this review. Two more thoughts. I am pretty cool about self-acceptance. I realize the electrolysis thing sounds hair-ist. Everyone has their breaking point. That was mine.
I think women should prepare for menopause with the same focus and attention they prepare for the zombie apocalypse. Just think "things are going to get really bad and you need to be ready for years." If I was going to write a book about menopause it would have chapters outlining all the ways menopause attacks like a small and vicious dog who bites your leg and will not be shaken off. And here I apologize to all of you who feel I may be dissing small dogs. I just laughed. Yeah, I'm done menopause. It was an apocalypse.
Do not let this be your first Elizabeth Berg novel (but read them all). She's the real thing.

Cheers,
Pam/Fishgirl

[Havebooks Willread · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, Berg gets people, you know it??

The timing of this book is ironic to me. I listened to a podcast featuring a middle-aged lady who told her story of "casting off the restraints of societal expectations" and chasing her "personal truth" to the point that she left her faith and her husband to marry another woman. Then I chatted with a friend who is having some hormonal changes and weepingly asked if she was going crazy. And then I randomly chose this book to read because I can't go to the library (coronovirus) and this was available to checkout online now (and I can always count on Berg for great characterization).

A 50-year-old woman leaves her husband a note, gets in her car, and drives off across the country for an extended period. To mourn her youth? To figure out who she is? To examine her marriage? To prepare for the future? I'm still a little over three years away from her landmark, but the book (written as a series of alternating journal entries and letters to her husband) resonated with me. It was real, it was honest, and it was hopeful. It makes me examine the differences in how women approach this season.

Don't you wonder a little? Some say they've lived for everyone else all this time, been selfless, and now it's time to live for me. Nan looked at herself and her relationships honestly and saw how she had contributed to her own lack of contentment and determined to make changes within the life she had to make it better rather than just tossing it all aside for somethings different. I finished it in one day yet here I am two days later still pondering this one.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book years ago and just read it again. Love it. Love Elizabeth Berg. It's about a 50-year-old woman who takes a road trip to rediscover the girl she used to be. My favorite passage from the book:

Here is a forties photograph of a woman that I found in last Sunday's paper. She is seated on the grass, wearing a suit and a hat, her purse centered in her lap. She is smiling, but her eyes ache, and behind her, I know this, her hands are clenched. She can't relax. She has forgotten the grass. I kept staring at her, thinking, this is me.Checking my purse three times for keys before I leave the house. Stacking mail in order of the size of the envelopes. Answering the phone every single time it rings, writing "paper towels" on the grocery list the second after I use the last one. I too have forgotten the grass. But I used to do one-handed cartwheels and then collapse into it for the fine sight of the blades close up. And there was no sense of any kind of time. And I was not holding in my stomach or thinking what does my opinion mean to others. I was not regretting any part of myself. There was only sun-rich color, and smell, and the slight give of the soft earth beneath me. My mind was in my heart, anchored like a bright kite in a safe place.

How can yo not love that?

[Ginger Hallett · Rating 2 out of 5]

50-year-old Nan runs away from home and husband to “find” herself; a very female story, written as if the main character is Everywoman. She tells her story via letters to her husband (things she wants him to know about her, him and them together) and entries in a journal (things much more private, which she may or may not tell her husband later). Although I am in my late 50's, and tried to relate to her, I was put off by her affluent lifestyle. Unrealistically, Nan had no financial worries at all, no responsibilities, an extremely supportive grown daughter, and a husband who apparently waited for her. Some passages were raw and gripping, such as her first sexual experience, and she did say some other things that I identify with, but overall I was not all that carried away with this book. The wastefulness she recounts irked me--buying stuff and then throwing it all away, like a spoiled child. I found Nan to be far too self-centered for my liking.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an easy-to-read little book I've been working my way through when I want something light and simple. It's about a woman named Nan who calls herself a "fifty-year-old runaway." She is going through menopause, so her hormones and emotions are making her emotional and reflective. She takes off on a road trip, meeting people along the way and staying in little towns. Every day she writes a letter to her husband and also makes a journal entry. The book alternates between the two.
Some of this I couldn't relate to, never having been married and never having been through menopause. However, the author makes some observations that are fairly universal for all of us who grew up female---the things we longed for and dreamed about and our disappointments and self-doubts.

[Donna Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again, Elizabeth Berg spoke directly into my life. I love that her characters deal with aging and with realistic relationships. In this book, Nan is menopausal and feeling helpless in the face of her changing life and aging body. She takes off on a road trip, during which she records her experiences and discoveries in a journal and in letters to her husband and daughter. I felt like I was on the road with her. Her experiences and realizations were brave and beautiful. For example, in one letter to her daughter, she remembers throwing a pie party at the daughter’s suggestion and advises Ruthie to never forget that an impulse can become reality. I so often forget that! Her observations about her relationship with her husband are so true! I loved this book. I love all of her books.

[Angie Palau · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bit too much drivel for me.

I thought the premise was interesting, and I appreciated getting to learn the word "Epistilary"... but other than that, this book left me completely unmoved. Maybe when I'm going through my "life's change" this book will resonate more... but I doubt it. I thought the writing was mediocre and the character not particularly likeable or engaging. If it weren't for the lively mocking we gave it in book club, I probably wouldn't even have liked it one-star's-worth.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book brought up a lot of hidden emotions in me. The book made me think about the life that we live and the life that we miss living, the possibilities we've missed. Also about aging. It was a good book, yet it also was a hard one to read. Makes you face things you have buried and tried to forget. About settling for second best...or just settling for one way of life when there were so many other choices we could have made. Now as we are entering the golden years, looking back on what we've missed out on is hard. The book made me think of Anne Tyler's writing.