No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club: Diary of a Sixtieth Year

If I'm let loose in one of those "as many books as will fill this box for $5" sales, this book is bound to happen. Bought for title and the cover with only a cursory glance at the summary, I am not this books target market.

A diary-turned-memoir this is a book specifically aimed at post-menopausal, over 60 women who are also mothers; if the reader is also single, so much the better. As I'm only 1 of those things my ability to identify with Ironside is rather limited.

Still, eventually I'm going to be all those things except a mother, and sooner than I consider ideal, so it was compelling enough to keep me reading. Ironside starts out really rather unlikeable; at one point early on I told MT I'd be surprised if she'd kept any of her show more friends after the book came out because she was not kind at all. She excoriates anyone over 60 that does anything remotely active and waxes rhapsodic about the joys of getting old with "giving up sex" at the top of her list.

Then her son gives her her first grandchild and a not insignificant portion of the rest of the book is a gooey love fest with her grandson at the center. It's at about the same point in the book the it also became obvious that her whole never having sex again thing is going to go the way of all ridiculous resolutions - she doth protest too much. By the end Ironside is redeemed and the desire to call this a coming of age book for the senior set becomes irresistible.

This isn't a book I'd have spent money on, but as a book in a box full of books that cost me pennies, it was't bad. No doubt that if I were to reread this book in a couple of decades, I'll find much more to identify with. show less

"One of the funny things about being old is that when you're four years old, you can only imagine yourself as a one-, two- or three-year-old. But when you're sixty, you've got a vast range of years to choose from. So one day I feel like a miserable three-year-old, the next like a girlish twenty-five-year-old, hop straight into feeling like a mature sixty-year-old and back, before you know it, to being a precocious twelve-year-old. The cast of selves increases and increases until eventually you've got a veritable Wagner opera of people on stage to pick from."

Marie Sharp is about to turn 60 so she decides to take one last stab at keeping a diary. Everyone in her world seems to be resisting old age but Marie is diving into it head first. show more To Marie sixty means freedom; no longer will she feel obligated to "improve" herself. "That's what's so great about being old. You no longer have to think about going to university, or go bungee jumping! It's a huge release ... " Lack of bungee jumping aside, Marie's life is pretty rich. Marie has Michelle, a beautiful young French girl renting out one of Marie's rooms; a brand new grandbaby; and a handful of good friends. Her best friend, Penny, is a hypochondriac of the highest order. One of the sentences in the book about her had me in tears of laughter. Quite a few times reading this I laughed, literally, out loud. This was a fun and entertaining book with a little wisdom (I especially loved the passage about grief), romance and drama thrown in for good measure.

Utterly forgettable but lots of fun. I was just happy to read something that made me laugh. show less

Ok, sure, five stars is, objectively, too high. But it's spot on for me. I am *so* glad to meet someone else who isn't scared of the word 'old' and who doesn't want to live a 'third age.' Now, if I could only have a grandchild and get to babysit it often, I wouldn't mind achieving 60, seven years from now.

Mostly it's funny, but one serious bit did earn a book dart:

"We are here... to be kind.... Life is one big mystery. If you ask what it means you just waste time when you could be making someone else's life happier."

So, now I wonder if this is memoir, novel inspired by life, or pure fiction, and if the author has written anything else....

Marie Sharp may be a little creaky in the bones as she heads toward the big 6-0, but she is fine with it. She'd rather do without all the moving-to-Florida, bicycling-across-Mongolia-for-the-hell-of-it hoopla that her friends insist upon. She has already led an exciting life: She came of age in the 1960's, after all. Now, with both a new grandchild and a new man on the horizon, all she wants to do is accept the happy, sassy curmudgeon she has become and "start doing old things."

Marie Sharp claims to be looking forward to turning 60, liking the person she’s become, and no longer feeling compelled to learn a language, bicycle across Mongolia, go paragliding, or join the University of the Third Age. She can finally be comfortable and satisfied with who she is, just as she is now.

She was a witty and likeable narrator, but I was bothered by what was either a deliberately painted lack of self-awareness on her part, or simply inconsistent characterisation. Marie says, for example, that one of the good things about being older is being free of some of the anxiety that plagued her in younger years, but displays consistently high levels of anxiety.

And although the interesting and vividly painted narrator made for a show more promising start, unfortunately what felt to me like the lack of any real character or plot development detracted from its initial appeal. show less

If you are the sort of woman who wakes up unable to get the word 'Matabileland' out of your head, this is the diary for you.

Made me laugh, and realise with gratitude there is someone else on the planet who fears, rejoices and criticises life in much the way I do - (just wish I had Virginia's light writing style. And, had me surfing the internet half-way through to check if there is a follow-on diary, as I didn't want this to end. And yes, hurrah, there is.

Subtitle: Diary of a 60th Year
Well, that pretty much sums up the (non)plot of this charming little novel. Marie Sharp is turning 60 and she’s a little cranky. She’s perfectly content with her age and doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. She doesn’t need advice on how to look and feel younger, thank you very much. One friend is determined to find a new lover, but Marie is horrified at the prospect, and (frankly) glad to have left all that hullabaloo behind her. Things change a bit for her when a new man enters her life – her grandson.

This was slow to get started and I began wondering if I was reading the same book that people had commented so favorably about over the years. But the diary style grew on me, as did show more Marie. I appreciated her no-nonsense approach to many events, her compassion when it came to her friends, her wild flights of imagination when considering how she might bungle being a Granny, her absolute delight at being so besotted by this tiny pink creature who actually smiled at her, and her slow awakening to the possibility of love coming into her life. show less