Stepping on the Blender & Other Times Life Gets Messy: And Other Times Life Gets Messy

by Katherine Snow Smith

Can you go home again? Go home to the town where you went to college, where your future lay before you, shiny, uncluttered and ready for discovery? Thirty years later, you have three grown children, a marriage and divorce, a successful career to remind you there's less time on the clock and more baggage. Katherine Snow Smith writes with humor and tenderness about aging, loss and launching the next act in a rich life. It's "Just be sure to consider your whole story, know it's not over yet, get a good therapist and pack some L'Oréal root cover-up."

208 pages, Paperback

Published November 4, 2023

Reviews

[Amy Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book of essays I picked up on a whim from a library display. I didn't know anything about it and had never heard of the author but liked the title. It was pretty good. Easy and quick to read and fairly entertaining. It turns out that the author's family is from Dobson, NC, which is about 30 minutes from where I grew up, and she's my age, so there were a lot of references that meant something to me personally. My hometown of Yadkinville even gets a mention at one point. I did feel like the stories and essays were a bit disjointed and lacked a cohesive throughline, but the one overarching theme was about the major changes the author went through in her early 50s. She divorced after 24 years of marriage at the same time that her youngest went to college and her parents' health was failing. I could definitely relate to the feeling of being unmoored after that last child leaves home.

[Leah Mealey · Rating 3 out of 5]

read this for book club and got to meet the author! not a life changing read for me but i enjoyed her storytelling and especially liked the way that she was able to relate stories from different parts of her life to each other in each chapter

[Jackie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book felt like the author’s diary was published. There was no theme, cohesiveness, or lessons revealed that I hadn’t learned on my own by age 16. I’m truly struggling to understand what the point of this book was.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book called to me at the Tombolo bookstore in St Pete. I am also going through a divorce in the Tampa Bay Area and packing whatever I can in my car and moving back to NC.

The similarities were so bizarre that I just happen to pickup this book. This book honestly just made me smile. I love that the author wrote about different experiences with friends/family and her life but kept such a positive energy through all of those times. At this time I needed a light read that I could relate to and this book definitely fulfilled that for me.

[MB Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Katherine's stories in a day... a day I needed to avoid the news and fill my time with a friendly tale. I moved to Raleigh in my 40s with three boys under 10 and my husband from a New York City suburb. Writers, newscasters, reporters filled the bus each day to travel to work. I embraced the southern writers world in NC including ACSnow colorful stories. They made me feel at home. Katherine helped me appreciate how it would have been to grow up in the world my boys grew up in. Thanks for sharing and making me smile!

[Janice · Rating 1 out of 5]

A truly pointless book. Very mundane details of a very mundane life. The first chapter was funny and held some promise, but it was downhill from there. The only reason I gave it a star is that I am from the Triangle region of NC and it was mildly interesting to read about places and people I know. Don’t bother unless you are desperate to meet your Reading Challenge goal for 2024!

[Nacho Mama · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this. It was nothing amazing or life changing, but it was an easy read and fun reflection on life. Sometimes that's all you want. I would say the part of the book that I enjoyed the most was the author's reflection of her experiences with her father, the highly acclaimed editor and columnist for The Raleigh Times and News & Observer.

[Lindsay Bomstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Katherine’s writing is a perfect companion. It’s not demanding and it’s funny, honest, vulnerable, and touching. Her words get me out of a funk, make me laugh and cry. This sweet and humorous book did all of that and I really enjoyed it!

[Mmmm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the author's first book and unfortunately, this one, felt as an unnecessary extension of the first one. There is only so much one can mine form their own life and their immediate family to make for two books worth of reading material.

[Elizabeth Bernstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

read this for a book club — I found it hard to connect to the stories and therefore to be vested in the outcome / find a narrative arch throughout

[Meagan Scotti · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry but this book gave me absolutely nothing.

[Cassie Bustamante · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny memoir about family, life, divorce, dating — a great read for anyone navigating the messy middle

[Becky Barrier Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! So well written with humor and wisdom. So relatable! Can’t wait to read her first memoir.

[Susan Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read but more of an autobiography of this authors life than anything else.