Bloomer

by Carol Lefevre

It is a daunting prospect to grow old in a time and place that does not value old people, but the generation known as Boomers should not be so easily dismissed.

Carol Lefevre's Bloomer documents the year in which she turned seventy, an age designated 'young old' in the stages of later life. Framed by the turning of the seasons in her small suburban garden, memoir threads through meditations on various aspects of ageing – from its hidden grief and potential for loneliness to the ways we experience time and memory and our relationship with the past and with our own mortality.

This is a gorgeous, optimistic and eloquent book for everyone who is alive and getting older yet can still find a younger version of themselves somewhere inside. It is for anyone with an interest in the challenges and rewards of ageing, and most of all it is for those who want to subvert the negative imagery around Boomers and emerge instead as Bloomers, people not at the end of things but still on their way and fully intent on embracing a late-life flourishing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Audiobook

288 pages, Hardcover

First published March 25, 2025

Reviews

[EmG ReadsDaily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fabulously wise, engaging and thought-provoking, coming-into-old-age memoir.

If you are able to get your hands on a physical copy, it is well worth it for the artwork and appendices. I appreciate how Carol included snippets from her discussions with others about their personal experiences.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5* rounded up, although I think I’d like to come back to this one day and read it again. Enjoying your life to your fullest and continuing to grow as a person no matter what age is what I want as I age. There were some parts that talked about the way young people think about older people, and so much of that is very true, but there were also parts I don’t find my opinions align with, especially the comparison of generations. This was a small part though so just being nit-picky.

[Geetha Chandran · Rating 4 out of 5]

a lovely reflection on ageing, or more to the point beiing ageless. on the garden. writing. growing. blooming. audiobook

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

'm not making much progress with #20BooksofWinter.  My current book is The Tin Drum by Gunther Grass, but I was so easily distracted by this beautiful, beautiful book from Carol Lefevre... beautiful as an object, with exquisite artwork by Margaret Ambridge on and within the covers designed by George Saad, and beautiful in its celebration of life and a philosophy of ageing. 

Interspersed among the meditations on a 70th year which included some alarming health challenges, are excerpts from Lefevre's garden journal as the book progresses through Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring.

On the walk to the café, passing under the century-old plane trees, their withered leaves drift and fall around me like papery hands, or airborne starfish. The breeze tumbles them along the road with a scraping sound, a seasonal death rattle.  Autumn is a kind of death cleaning, a process of making way for rest and regrowth.

Sadness is still a weight in my chest.  I sense that people expect me to be getting over it.  I see them thinking that my mother was ninety-five, a good innings, and I know I was lucky to have her in my life for so long.  But what they don't seem to understand is that you're never ready to say goodbye to the very few people you truly love. (Extract from my garden journal. March 2021, p.71)

I wish I had the self-discipline to keep such a journal because I also cherish my garden, and I also associate aspects of it with events in my life. There is a beautiful camellia given to me by my dear friend and author Ros Collins, in memory of my father and I think of him every time I walk past it.  It flowers in April, the month in which he died two weeks before his 92nd birthday.  A careless gardener employed to do some weeding destroyed the rose that Ros gave me in memory of my mother, yet strangely I still see it there, and may perhaps not replace it.  Perhaps it is a forerunner of the Imagined Garden I may one day have...

Lefevre recognises that a time will come when an imagined garden will one day take the place of the one she loves but that sometimes tires her now.  Her chapter about imagined gardens references those of famous authors and garden designers, and hers will be beautiful too:

Already I plan a Garden of Lost Flowers, to give sanctuary to such beauties as Medusagyne oppositifolia, a jellyfish tree endemic to the island of Mahé in the Seychelles, and Viola cryana, the cry violet, or cry pansy, an extinct plant species that was once endemic to Yonne [in France].  The Garden Where Nothing Is Forgotten and All Is Forgiven must, I think, be a blue garden, though one in which the purple-blues will be admissible. (p.183)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/07/09/b...

[Katrina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the thinking that this book provoked and have chosen it for our Book Club as I believe it will provoke an interesting conversation. We are all aging and coming to terms with issues like purpose, loss, aging bodies, unpredictable futures, grief, down sizing, health and of course dying affect us all. We don’t hold these conversations openly enough as such I was pleased to see it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows which is often the way conversations with our elders provokes on the tough stuff of aging. It was a bit slow at times but I read far too many murder mysteries so may expect an unrealistic pace. As a gardener I enjoyed the metaphor of Blooming and her sharing garden lore and snippets from her journal.

[Caren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Lefevre’s memoir, written to mark her having turned 70. As she documents this momentous year, entering “young old age”, her meditations and memories glisten with optimism as she negates the ageism that plagues our culture, especially for women. Her perspective is exhilarating as she proposes that “old age’s gift” is the “freedom to be one’s true self.” Lefevre sets her fellow Boomers (me!) the task to “talk about the challenges and rewards of ageing”, to rescue “the word ‘old’ from its position of being an insult” and to “reclaim it as a term of respect.”
Beautifully written, the author uses her garden and the changing seasons as the backdrop and metaphor for enriching our lives and contradicting the portrayal of old age as the dismal end of life. She acknowledges the grief and loneliness that are both hidden and evident as we age but celebrates the options open to Boomers to flourish as we consider our mortality. The references to well-known figures from the past – writers, philosophers, artists, scientists, psychologists – elevate her discussions from what could have been mundane, sugar-coated comments about ageing and our responses to the shortened time left to us. The included artworks also heightened the reader’s response to her chapters, divided by the seasons and introduced by extracts from her garden journal. What a rewarding read!

[Jenny Esots · Rating 4 out of 5]

A treatise on ageing.
Reframing ageing from an outlook of decay and decline to one of blooming.
As someone who is on the doorstep of a significant birthday this book was a refreshing read.
Negativity is a killer. It changes the way your brain works. Shrinks the hippocampus.page 182
'Habitual negativity rewires the brain, and ultimately damages it by shrinking the hippocampus - one of the main areas that is destroyed by Alzheimer's disease.'
Hence positivity is good for you and ageing is a process of refining.
This book is set out via the Seasons interspersed with journal entries.
At one point the author works up to taking on the challenge of going through decades of old letters which have been kept in an old suitcase. I have a stash of letters like this..............what to do?
This is a blend of memoir/essays and non fiction commentary.
Reflections/essays on ageing and rewriting the script. However I am NOT ready to give way to the grey, even though it is a pain to keep up regular dye sessions at the hairdresser.
There is a section on grieving and finding meaning and purpose.
With a visit now and then by the resident blackbird in the authors garden.
I found myself trying to imagine the garden and longing for a picture or two.
Perhaps this is scope for another book(!)

[Alib · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely book that tackles the topic of aging, challenging the current negative view of becoming old and providing much needed thinking & reading on what it means to age, particularly as a woman but also relevant to men. Lefevre has just turned 70 in the book and I am 50 - at these milestone birthdays it is good to reflect and take stock of what is important in life. Beautifully written with a gardening backdrop - the interview extracts at the back left me inspired to live authentically and appreciate the present.

[Cláuꕤdia · Rating 4 out of 5]

{4.5 stars}

Fantastic book. I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading it but was a very pleasant surprise. It’s soothing for the soul and gives hope for the later years of our lives.

Also loved how it felt a little like a research paper in the sense of all the other references that enriched the book even more.

It will be a favorite.

[Tearna Lancaster · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was absolutely amazing, and should become prescribed reading for high school kids!!!
It reminds me of my friend Wendy, who when I was younger told me that women become invisible once they hit 60. At the time I didn't understand what she meant, but now that I'm almost 40 and more aware of my surroundings, its so true!

[Adams Hub · Rating 5 out of 5]

This summary honestly touched me. Even just from these few paragraphs, I felt a mix of warmth, reflection and quiet strength. I love how ageing is shown not as an ending but as a season full of growth, emotion and rediscovery. The idea of Boomers becoming Bloomers feels genuinely uplifting. It left me feeling hopeful and oddly comforted, like ageing can still be beautiful and meaningful.

[MaritzaJohnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very good and provides a lot of useful information. When I have free time, I often combine reading books and playing geometry dash lite, it is very helpful for me to reduce stress and find joy in playing.

[Gloria (Ms. G's Bookshelf)]

RTC

[Leonie Youngberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a lovely book. Beautifully written and narrated (I listened to the audiobook), it is a thoughtful exploration of ageing.

[Farrells Bookshop · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good reflective look on ageing and how it can be looked at positively!

Read by Suzie

[Amy :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a beautiful combination of memoir and observations of nature.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thoughtful book on aging and the importance of gardening, of savouring life and not giving into the negativity that surrounds old age.

[Maria Bell · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting reflective read.