A Book That Will Push Your Emotions To The Edge

⭐⭐⭐⭐ (and a half)

     For the Disney read-a-thon one of the prompts for Lion King was Scar: read a book that will push your emotions to the edge and it has to be read in one day. For this I chose Woman Last Seen in Her Thirties by Camille Pagan. Part of the description of this book says:

‘At fifty-three, Maggie Harris has a good marriage and two mostly happy children. Perpetually anxious, she’s also accumulated a list of semi-reasonable fears: falling air conditioners, the IRS, identity theft, skydiving, and airbag recalls. But never once did Maggie worry that her husband of nearly thirty years would leave her.”

     With that description, I thought that this book would surely push my emotions over the edge since I am definitely perpetually anxious, although not all of my fears could be considered reasonable, and fear being middle-age and my husband deciding ‘just kidding. I don’t love you.’ However, this book pushed way more emotions then I thought it would.

     First of all, if my husband of 20 plus years decides to leave me - will I be as neurotic and dense as this character is? Probably, which is truly terrifying, but you put in so much work into a relationship you don’t expect it to just end. You would do anything to get it back, right?

     Second, I was not expecting how much Maggie’s mother’s death would push my emotions. Well, mostly because I had no idea it was something that would be discussed but also because of how close in ages Maggie and her mother were to my mother and I. Maggie was 34 and her mother 54 when she passed. I am 33 and my mother was 55. I think reading “My mother’s death taught me that when you think you are bypassing heartache, all you’re really doing is borrowing happiness from another day” was so enlightening. Yes, that’s exactly it. I keep trying to bypass all the heartache. I only feel it when I absolutely have to, when it hits me when it is least expected. It is all going to come down on me in the future but I can’t seem to let go right now. It is much easier to pretend none of it has happened.

     Third and last, how absolutely terrifying and exhilarating must it be to be doing it all over (but better) in your fifties!

     The very last quote of the book was everything I needed to hear.

“For now, I had the good fortune of more chances to fail and succeed, more love to give and receive - more life. And while I didn’t know what my future held, I would follow my mother’s lead. I would summon my strength and go find out what was next.”