Why We Can't Sleep (Calhoun) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
[It] grew out of an article for O Magazine that went viral, so perhaps it’s facile to say that it reads like a book that grew out of an article ... The results of this format are mixed. Some statistics feel cherry-picked or just hard to prove…. By contrast, the economic and labor statistics are both convincing and sobering…. Calhoun’s essential premise is highly persuasive.…. [T]here are pleasures to be had in the familiar pop cultural references and the darkly amusing anecdotes…. Ultimately, however, so many women appear that they blur together…. I wished Calhoun had included fewer women’s stories but gone into those stories in greater detail.
Curtis Sittenfeld - New York Times Book Review


The book makes a powerful argument to Gen X women…. Calhoun speaks directly to her own generation, peppering the book with so many specific cultural touchstones, from the Challenger explosion to Koosh balls to the slime-filled TV show Double Dare, that I found reading Why We Can’t Sleep to be a singular experience—driving home her point that Gen X is so often overlooked.
Emily Bobrow - Wall Street Journal


[A]sprint through everything—and I mean everything—that is bothering Generation X women…. [A] remarkably slender and breezy book…. Reading Why We Can’t Sleep is like attending a party where the hostess didn’t want to leave anyone off the list: It’s noisy, crowded and everyone remains a stranger. And they’re all complaining.… The advice is common-sensical, a little corny and hardly a panacea for the multitude of problems she’s spent the previous 200 pages describing…. But the final chapter is the most accessible and engaging in the book. Calhoun’s ambitious wide-angle shot of Gen X midlife malaise is blurry and overwhelming. Paradoxically, when she zeroes in on a specific woman with a first and last name, a strong voice, and a textured backstory—herself—that larger picture starts to come into focus.
Jennifer Reese - Washington Post


[A]n engaging hybrid of first-person confession, reportage, pop culture analysis, and statistics… it aspires to something larger than memoir.
New Republic


[B]racing, empowering study…. Calhoun persuasively reassures Gen X women that they can find a way out of their midlife crises by “facing up to our lives as they really are.” Women of every generation will find much to relate to in this humorous yet pragmatic account.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred revicw) Built on personal narratives and research-based data,… Calhoun asks why she and others continue to feel miserable despite traditional markers of success…. Her research offers women ways to look at but not devalue their own experiences . —Emily Bowles, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
Library Journal


An assured, affable guide, Calhoun balances bleakness with humor and the hope inherent in sharing stories that will make other women feel less alone. She also gives good advice for finding support through midlife hardship. This is a conversation starter.
Booklist


Calhoun argues that Generation X women find middle age harder than those older or younger. … [and] that aging inevitably means that some life choices are no longer viable. An occasionally amusing and insightful but scattershot exploration of midlife woes.
Kirkus Reviews