No One Tells You This: A Memoir

I thoroughly enjoyed every word of this book.At the end of relationship that was abusive at is worst and the best I ever had at its best, I drank in these words as a reminder of something I once used to know but had forgotten: I am exactly where I am supposed to be. And, how I handle it is completely up to me. Freedom or prison, is just a perspective. I felt her story was authentic in a community and human way and soulful in a deep and human way without being preachy or pedantic. I laughed and almost cried. And being from Montana and having lived on the East Coast, I could feel and taste the cool air of Wyoming with her. This book was a perfectly timed balm to my soul. Thanks, Glynnis for sharing with us, single, older, childless women who have chosen this life.

The book journeys through the constant spinning wheels inside the mind of a talented writer battle with identity in every sense: her own, her family’s, hers friends’, her city, and beyond.I found myself deeply moved - as though her work had landed in my hands at precisely the right time.A beautiful portrayal of love and what happens after when the living are just to keep living.

Thank you Glynnis, for putting into words the rarely voiced fears of the woman choosing the single life. This book made me laugh and made me cry. I highlighted many passages to help me remember the hope and happiness represented here as well.

So I read a memoir once a month and this kept coming up on my suggestions. It took me FOREVER to read. It was very slow and, to me anyway, very hard to relate to. I had a very hard time relating to the book's speaker and author. It's not poorly written, I just couldn't get into it.

As a 39 year old childless, partnered but unmarried woman I was drawn to this book with hopes of gathering help in sorting out my struggles. I got that, and I feel, a lot more. There’s something about this book that transcends and is more than the some of its parts. It gives a much needed example of and real view into a 40+ childless, unmarried woman’s joys (SO NEEDED). It is also a wonderful ode to friendship. And it is a love letter from a daughter to a mother. It gradually builds a very powerful case for retaining control of our lives as women. I found the possibilities it illuminates exhilarating. This is a fascinating time to be a woman, and Glynnis is riding that wave.

A total original, MacNicol has the ability to put impossible-to-describe feelings into words. (I kept taking screenshots and sending them to friends - is there a better review than that?) I devoured this story of adventure, joy, blind item dating, friendship, tragedy, and resilience. This is the story of a truly happy (but not carefree - in fact, caretaking) childless woman in her 40s and it's the memoir we need now. MacNicol is the role model I've been looking for. One of the best books of the year and a perfect complement to all the great mom memoirs out this year! There are many ways to live a good life and here is one of them. LOVED IT!

I had arrived in a land without stories.The idea that I could be a source of envy was still something of a revelation. On paper at least— single, childless, forty— I was still the definition of the thing most women believe they should avoid.“Some people are made to be in relationships, and some just aren’t.”She said it the way one might remark that some people were born with a good singing voice, and some were not. It was an offhand observation, but it was the first time it had been suggested to me that being alone might be a natural-born aptitude, and not a flaw.At the age of nearly forty, Glynnis MacNicol hears alarm bells ringing: she’s unmarried and childless, not the definition of success in our society. This rollicking read is the story of that fortieth year, a year of reckoning and recalibrating. Having arrived in a “land without stories” MacNicol sets out to redefine what it means to be single. It’s a busy year – helping her separated sister in Canada with her new-born and two other children, trying to get her dementia-afflicted mother into a care home – while scurrying back and forth to her home in New York and her life as a freelance writer, and attempting to keep a toe in dating waters. MacNicol lets us in on her sorry love life to date – from being with a married man to another who segued in and out of her life whenever he felt like it. There is also a road trip to a dude ranch in Montana, a time of healing and reconsidering. Through the journey recounted in this memoir MacNicol provides a framework for both herself and single women over forty – and permission to be that way, even though society sometimes screams otherwise. Well written, wise, funny, true and highly recommended.

On paper, Glynnis and I have very different lives, but the story that she tells is universal. That ever present self-doubt (example: "Am I making this decision because I want to do this or because I worry I will feel like I missed out"; "Will this make me happy or am I already happy?") felt so familiar and so immediate that I could not put the book down. I have one year old toddler twins, so when I tell you that I stayed up very late two nights in a row because I had to keep reading, you will understand how moving this book is. Nothing keeps a mother of twin toddlers from going to bed on time... well, nothing except this book!

The references to the authors Mothers illness was difficult to read at times - too close to home. A possible book club recommendation.

I enjoyed reading this book and the sincerity with which she speaks about her mother's death. At times I was expecting a little more insight, but perhaps that's for me to discover in my own life.

This is so much more then a memoir. Its a; personal, thought provoking, funny, sad, exhilarating journey that we are all lucky that Glynnis Macnicol has shared with the world. Her story is so relatable to both men and women, those with and without children, and reminds us that no one is defined by just one thing.... that marriage is not an end or a beginning, and that happiness is not reserved for one path only. Its a great read!

I read a review for this book in a woman’s magazine which portrayed it to be an female empowering story. Unfortunately I didn’t find that to be the case. It was still a good read but I found it more depressing than anything else.

Finding myself single at age 40 (albeit not childless) I turned to my ever faithful companion, literature, for reflections of my thoughts. Disappointingly, most books about being single seemed to focus on seeing this period as a hiatus before finding 'the one'. This book was glorious in its unashamed suggestion that 'the one' might be the one person who's been there all along - oneself. I revelled in the tales of adventure and both recognised myself and a future version of my hoped for self in the author's reflections. It certainly left me wanting more - for my own life, now that it is (almost) fully mine to direct.