making terrible decisions, midlife version

You are stuck in the longest, most boring work meeting ever (since the one last week, and maybe the one the week before that). Do you tell your boss the meeting is pointless? Do you quit? Do you forget that you’re married and hit on Hot Rusell via text to see what happens? Or do you just get up and leave the office?

You are bored in your marriage. Do you try couples counseling? The swingers club down the street? Renovating the kitchen? Do you get divorced? Do you try a dating app? Do you decide to have another baby, even if you’d be raising her or him by yourself?

Should you fly off to Brazil on a moment’s notice? Should you buy a motorcycle? Should you go clubbing with your mother? Should you invest in cryptocurrency? Should you help the (seemingly) nice little old lady at the airport with her luggage? Should you try yoga?

So many choices!

Life is filled with decisions, but we don’t often get to find out the results of them immediately. That’s why Create Your Own Midlife Crisis is so helpful. You can just turn to the page you’re directed to and find out why your choices were wrong and what the terrible consequences are right away. And then you can start over and do it all again, with new and equally bad choices, and with more consequences that may be more bad or less bad than the last ones.

Maybe you’ll end up in jail. Maybe you’ll end up in the hospital. Maybe you’ll end up on a reality show where you pit your comedic catchphrase against the comedic catchphrases of other comedians. Or maybe you just end up with a regular marriage and a regular daughter and a regular job. And then you can ask yourself how you ended up there.

I loved Create Your Own Midlife Crisis. Author Marie Phillips has created a series of bad decisions that take you down hilarious pathways and into absurd new realities. This would be the perfect gift for your girlfriends on milestone birthdays, or anyone who suddenly becomes single or who tries to run away to Brazil or who gets fired or who decides to go clubbing after the age of 30. No matter what your midlife crisis looks like, this book will help you laugh about it, especially if there is a lot of wine involved while you’re reading it.

Egalleys for Create Your Own Midlife Crisis were provided by Chronicle Books through Edelweiss, with many thanks.

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snapshot 6.6

the bookshop across the street