Did I Say That Out Loud?, Kristin van Ogtrop
Did I Say That Out Loud?, Kristin van Ogtrop
1 Rating(s)
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Did I Say That Out Loud?
Midlife Indignities and How to Survive Them

Author: Kristin van Ogtrop

Narrator: Kristin van Ogtrop

Unabridged: 7 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/13/2021


Synopsis

From the former editor-in-chief of Real Simple, enjoy this hilarious and deeply insightful take on the indignities of middle age and how to weather them with grace: "A pure pleasure to read" (Cathi Hanauer, author of Gone).
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Do you hate the term “middle age?” So does Kristin van Ogtrop, who is still trying to come up with a less annoying way to describe those years when you find yourself both satisfied and outraged, confident and confused, full of appreciation but occasional disdain for the world around you. Like an intimate chat with your best friend, this mostly funny, sometimes sad, always affirming volume from longtime magazine journalist van Ogtrop is a celebration of that period of life when mild humiliations are significantly outweighed by a self-actualized triumph of the spirit. Finally!
 
Featuring stories from her own life, as well as anecdotes from her unwitting friends and family, van Ogtrop encourages you to laugh at the small irritations of midlife: neglectful children, stealth insomnia, forks that try to kill you, t.v. remotes that won’t find Netflix, abdominal muscles that can’t seem to get the job done. But also to acknowledge the things you may have lost:  innocence, unbridled optimism, smooth skin. Dear friends. Parents. It’s all here: the sublime and the ridiculous, living together in the pages of this book as they do in your heart, like a big messy family, in this no-better-term-for-it middle age.

Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Jason on 2024-05-12 12:09:15

The descriptions make this sound like it will be a much funnier read than I thought it was. It's also not clear, that although it presents as stories about "midlife", this is a bit of a mis-characterization. It's actually a "woman's midlife". It's much less generic mid-life than descriptions make it sound. There's nothing wrong with this, but as a male, I did find parts of it harder to connect to. Speaking of connection, the author is someone who has had a very non-average life, and it's harder to relate to. While many of her experiences can and do happen to anyone, and _are_ bad, many of them don't get experienced by average people (have you had dinner with Bono of U2?), or the context makes it harder to relate to. For example, she was a very highly placed person in national magazines. Why does this matter? Because there's an extensive section that goes over the trials and tribulations she had building a house in the Hamptons and what life there is like. That's not something many of us can relate to, and sometimes it makes her seem like she doesn't really appreciate her situation. Her problems are often the ones on a higher perch looking down. While I'm sure they were awful to endure, her problem was that of being the person doing the firing, not the one being fired. I made it through the book, and as with anyone, she had some rough things happen, which you feel sorry for. Other parts, it's harder to get there. Mostly, you hope for more entertaining stories, but it too often came across as "woe is me" (from my house in the Hamptons). A little too much unintentional humble bragging maybe?