Helen’s Reviews > Girls of a Certain Age > Status Update

And her brother fighting in Afghanistan got engaged. A lot is happening but she’s also trying to find herself but she doesn’t have anyone who really believes in her. She says she wants to be a writer but her coworker doesn’t seem convinced or not enough to let her touch hawthornes desk. I could feel her need to be wanted
3.8 stars
Very creeped out by Ted though, what was his deal??

The Wayside was home to several famous authors, their life happened at her workplace but what about her own? And life did happen, she got to experience some responsibility by doing a tour on her own, she saw a coworker in the midst of a breakdown and called an ambulance, the creepy man at work slept with her which was horrifying especially since he knew her age, fuck Ted! Her and Julie spent less time together

The Wayside is the last story here and follows the summer between senior year of high school and freshman year of college of our main character who is mostly watching life happen and wonders how life can happen to her. Er friend Julie has life happen to her but she also realizes she doesn’t know how to make life happen to her or what that would mean to her.

When Chris left the bar the woman’s girlfriend hits her (hard) and her friends are all holding her back. Chris sits down and recounts what happened and how “It felt good, it felt like justice.” Which was an interesting line. I think this story was about how people don’t know how to bond, she’ll take a class on it but doesn’t know how to implement it. I mostly liked this story
3.8 stars

This girl, Wendy, is always telling the main character about their class assignments and one night the main character leaves a bar and sees Wendy who had been working on flash cards fora test they have the next day and the mc, Chris, forgot about. They go to Wendy’s house to study since Chris asked and they hook up but it didn’t satisfy either of them. Chris goes to a bar and talked, maybe more, with a girl with a gf

“Human Bonding” follows a woman taking a human Bo ding class in college. She’s a senior from what I could remember and is only just now taking this credit, we’ve all been there. There’s a freshman in her class though who very much looks like a freshman and our character borrows a pen from her since she’s one of those students who color coordinates her notes so she has many to choose from.

The Lunatic Report while not a great name is my other favorite story. This girl doesn’t entirely understand what goes on in that area of the hospital but she meets someone and she wants to help her only to find out that her situation is more complicated and what they both thought this patient needed wasn’t really what was needed. Difficult to describe my feelings for it but I liked it
4 stars

Unattached was an interesting one and it took me a while to realize that she somehow levitated into this tree while running and I don’t really understand what this story was meaning to say. Was it saying that there’s nothing to ground her and she feels directionless? Maybe
2.5 stars

How to Wait discusses a woman married to a man in the military and the sense that they are drifting apart and how she’s so worried for him. This was one of the shortest stories and I think it could have been even a little bit longer
2 stars

When she sees the look on this woman’s face she realizes, or at least feels, that everyone has been lying to her about her speech and all the things they said she could do. This was a heartbreaking story because of the truth in it, you can see why the girl would want to run out and be by herself but you can also believe that someone would look at her the way she was looked at and her knowing what her look meant
3