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The Panic Years: A Guide to Surviving Smug Married Friends, Bad Taffeta, and Life on the Wrong Side of 25 without a Ring
Have you ever found yourself thinking, “If one more friend gets engaged I’m going to scream”?
Do the words taffeta and crinoline make you break into a cold sweat?
Does reading the wedding announcements section in the newspaper induce outright hyperventilation?
If so, congratulations! You’ve hit the Panic Years.
According to author Doree Lewak, the Panic Years mark the point (usually around your twenty-sixth birthday) when your dating agenda fundamentally changes—from dating for a fling to dating for a ring. Suddenly your newly married friends feel more like enemies, weddings become mocking reminders of your own single status, and you contemplate going on a reality TV show to find true love. What’s a girl to do?
In The Panic Years, Lewak delivers a hilarious and helpful road map for conquering the Panic and finding Mr. Right. As Lewak shows, you can win the race to the altar by changing your tactics from Panicked to Proactive—and keeping your sense of humor along the way. You will learn how
Cope with Panic by Proxy—pushy friends and parents.
Successfully hunt for PFs (Potential Fiancés).
Project hotness and desirability.
Set—and stick to—dating time lines.
Avoid being bitter at your friends’ weddings — and ruining all their pictures with that scowl on your face.
Get the ring and the proposal and seal the deal!
Packed with true-life stories from the Panic trenches as well as indispensable advice, The Panic Years is the ultimate guide for anyone who wants to survive her single years (with sanity intact), snag her perfect guy, and remain fabulous throughout it all.
You know you’re in the Panic Years
Your mom slips you the number of her tennis partner’s son … for the fifth time.
You’ve walked down the aisle dozens of times—just not as a bride.
Your “concerned friends” chip in for a subscription to Match.com for your birthday.
It’s down to you and the five-year-old flower girl at the bouquet toss.
Upon hearing “Guess what? I’m engaged!” for the second time in one week, you disconnect your phone.
You actively scheme to win back your ex—even though he’s already engaged to someone else.
Do the words taffeta and crinoline make you break into a cold sweat?
Does reading the wedding announcements section in the newspaper induce outright hyperventilation?
If so, congratulations! You’ve hit the Panic Years.
According to author Doree Lewak, the Panic Years mark the point (usually around your twenty-sixth birthday) when your dating agenda fundamentally changes—from dating for a fling to dating for a ring. Suddenly your newly married friends feel more like enemies, weddings become mocking reminders of your own single status, and you contemplate going on a reality TV show to find true love. What’s a girl to do?
In The Panic Years, Lewak delivers a hilarious and helpful road map for conquering the Panic and finding Mr. Right. As Lewak shows, you can win the race to the altar by changing your tactics from Panicked to Proactive—and keeping your sense of humor along the way. You will learn how
Cope with Panic by Proxy—pushy friends and parents.
Successfully hunt for PFs (Potential Fiancés).
Project hotness and desirability.
Set—and stick to—dating time lines.
Avoid being bitter at your friends’ weddings — and ruining all their pictures with that scowl on your face.
Get the ring and the proposal and seal the deal!
Packed with true-life stories from the Panic trenches as well as indispensable advice, The Panic Years is the ultimate guide for anyone who wants to survive her single years (with sanity intact), snag her perfect guy, and remain fabulous throughout it all.
You know you’re in the Panic Years
Your mom slips you the number of her tennis partner’s son … for the fifth time.
You’ve walked down the aisle dozens of times—just not as a bride.
Your “concerned friends” chip in for a subscription to Match.com for your birthday.
It’s down to you and the five-year-old flower girl at the bouquet toss.
Upon hearing “Guess what? I’m engaged!” for the second time in one week, you disconnect your phone.
You actively scheme to win back your ex—even though he’s already engaged to someone else.
- GenresNonfictionSelf Help
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
4 people are currently reading
27 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 31, 2008
I'm giving the author 2 stars because I respect the effort and her sense of humor.
But overall, I am insulted. This book implies that all married women are pious, smug, dullards; and all unmarried women "over a certain age" of 24 are desparate, catty, jealous, and obsessed with getting married in a hurry, possibly at the expense of finding someone who truly makes them happy.
I wasn't looking for tips to find a man, catch a man, and keep a man, I just thought this book would be more about appreciating how much freedom one has as a singleton along with some snappy comeback lines for when married people occasionally do act like the "witless married dullard" stereotype.
But overall, I am insulted. This book implies that all married women are pious, smug, dullards; and all unmarried women "over a certain age" of 24 are desparate, catty, jealous, and obsessed with getting married in a hurry, possibly at the expense of finding someone who truly makes them happy.
I wasn't looking for tips to find a man, catch a man, and keep a man, I just thought this book would be more about appreciating how much freedom one has as a singleton along with some snappy comeback lines for when married people occasionally do act like the "witless married dullard" stereotype.
November 7, 2008
I thought this book would be clever and funny. It was just dumb. Seriously-if the author believes everything she wrote...I feel sorry for her.
April 30, 2008
Okay, I have to change my review from the initial hopes I had posted. Let me start by saying that when I read the preface and the author revealed she was 27, I should have taken that as a bad sign :). I assumed that one who would talk about "panic years" with being single would be quite a bit older than that - especially since the title talks about being on the "wrong side of 25" (please - 27 is BARELY over 25!).
I was hoping to find a book with some cute anecdotes about life as a singleton, and then, as other reviews posted here have suggested, find discussion about the positives of life as a single woman. Instead, I found myself becoming depressed as I read on! First of all, there are several instances where being single past 30, in particular, is looked down upon or commented upon negatively (great for my self-esteem). Also, I really felt the overall tone of the book was quite bitter and negative, especially for something that bills itself as helping you not to be the bitter unmarried one. There's some strong profanity which, although not frequent, bothered me since, again, I kind of thought we were trying to be positive. And as I started to read the last section of the book, it felt as if it was becoming a "how to trick a man into wanting to marry you" guide. I have to confess that I actually stopped reading because it was really starting to bother me, and I hardly ever do that. Can't really say I'd recommend this to others.
I was hoping to find a book with some cute anecdotes about life as a singleton, and then, as other reviews posted here have suggested, find discussion about the positives of life as a single woman. Instead, I found myself becoming depressed as I read on! First of all, there are several instances where being single past 30, in particular, is looked down upon or commented upon negatively (great for my self-esteem). Also, I really felt the overall tone of the book was quite bitter and negative, especially for something that bills itself as helping you not to be the bitter unmarried one. There's some strong profanity which, although not frequent, bothered me since, again, I kind of thought we were trying to be positive. And as I started to read the last section of the book, it felt as if it was becoming a "how to trick a man into wanting to marry you" guide. I have to confess that I actually stopped reading because it was really starting to bother me, and I hardly ever do that. Can't really say I'd recommend this to others.
May 4, 2009
A guide for helping SPS (Self Pitying Spinsters, author's acronym) through those horrible Panic Years, when their peers are getting married right and left and they simply being bankrupted being bridesmaids. And how old are these MOS (Marriage-Obsessed Shrews, my acronym)? 25! (And no, they live in Manhattan, not Montana). Wonderfully bad stuff, with the ultimate punchline being Doree's age when she wrote it: 27.
February 3, 2010
Okay, so this book was supposed to calm the fears of women in the Panic Years (unmarried 25-30 year olds), but I wasn’t even feeling panic until I read it. I thought it was going to help me be less bitter about the weddings that seem to be popping up all around me all the damn time, but instead it just reinforced my insecurities. Awesome. Skip this one.
March 28, 2023
Not anything like the book I was hoping for. Instead of lighthearted snark mocking the wedding industrial complex and marriage-obsessed peers, we get fatphobia, ageism, slut shaming, manipulative games and suggestions on how to trick a man into finding you charming and slightly helpless. There is zero actual humor. This book reeks of desperation and is full of sexist garbage. The last chapter concludes that “marriage isn’t everything,” and encourages readers not to panic. Skip this one.
April 14, 2008
Some say that reviewing your own book might be considered a conflict of interest. To those people, I say you obviously attended the same charm school as Eliot Spitzer.
Now, getting back to this OBJECTIVE review of the most engaging and rapturously-funny book I've ever read...
When I hear praise like "every line is a gem" and "this is a true literary tour de force," I can't help but think that I couldn't have said it better myself.
For those on the fence (both in terms of panicking and/ or buying the book), let me tell you a little about it.
The goal for writing it was to take what's admittedly a very serious and earnest topic and address it with levity -- because I think it's that absence of genuine lightheartedness and fun that is seriously contributing to the "Panic Years" phenomenon.
While the book is very smart, fun and funny, it's also brimming with practical advice and panic pointers to help keep the Panic at bay every day. When you start to feel panicked, you must get proactive -- and this book will surely help!
Now, getting back to this OBJECTIVE review of the most engaging and rapturously-funny book I've ever read...
When I hear praise like "every line is a gem" and "this is a true literary tour de force," I can't help but think that I couldn't have said it better myself.
For those on the fence (both in terms of panicking and/ or buying the book), let me tell you a little about it.
The goal for writing it was to take what's admittedly a very serious and earnest topic and address it with levity -- because I think it's that absence of genuine lightheartedness and fun that is seriously contributing to the "Panic Years" phenomenon.
While the book is very smart, fun and funny, it's also brimming with practical advice and panic pointers to help keep the Panic at bay every day. When you start to feel panicked, you must get proactive -- and this book will surely help!
June 28, 2012
I heard about this book from someone I took a grad class with over the summer, and she made it sound like it would be a very entertaining read. Although it was well-written and funny at times, the author seemed to fluctuate between cursing out single life and cursing out married life (you are either Self-Pitying Spinster, SPS, or a Witless Married Dullard, WMD). It seems you can't be happy with either! Some of the stories she related from friends were like train wrecks, you couldn't turn away (or put the book down) but you couldn't believe that someone actually did those things either! I do have to say in one of the last chapters I had to laugh because the author makes mention about the most exciting thing to happen to someone recently married is an out of control sump pump, and well yeah that just happened last week to me... :-P So I had to laugh at that.
April 16, 2012
While older single women may resent the idea that it’s a bad sign to be unmarried at 25 (what century are these women living in, anyway?), the book has some good advice. It’s not about necessarily snagging a man, although that’s in there, too, but dealing with all those other pushy people who seem to think you’re not complete unless you have a husband. Calming your fears even while it gently pushes you towards the shore, “The Panic Years” shows how you can stop panicking. Desperation isn’t likely to land you a husband and, besides, who says that married people get all the fun?
April 21, 2011
When a friend suggested (read: demanded) I read this book after a recent breakup, I rolled by eyes, but complied. I'm glad I did! Not only did this humor-laced book take my mind off an marriage-phobic jerk, it really helped me crystallize the kind of relationship I should actually have, and the one I deserve. A great, fast and really funny read!
Read
May 6, 2008Read it for research. God it's bad.
January 26, 2012
Read this many, many times. It's full of wisdom, but has a good dose of humor thrown in as well.
March 3, 2010
I loved this one. I took a lot of it in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, but loved it all the same.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews