Fifty Is Not a Four-Letter Word

December 1, 2008
Kelsey's middling midlife crisis tale follows the travails of British magazine editor Hope Lyndhurst-Steele, whose 50th birthday ends up being far more traumatic than she could have imagined. Her teenage son is chasing a trampy single mom, her husband wants to move out, her estranged mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer and she's ousted from her job. Hope already feels sorry for herself, so all of this seems likely to crush her until she uses the knocks to gain a new perspective on her life and discover inner strengths. Kelsey unfortunately allows her heroine to be annoyingly self-involved for most of the book, and while her turnaround is refreshing, it comes too late to hook the reader. Save the grating narrator, this menopausal empowerment tale is safely by-the-numbers.

January 15, 2009
A first novel that offers a uniquely British twist on the erosion of a middle-aged woman's confidence.
Hope Lyndhurst-Steele, high-powered editor of the Cosmopolitan -like London glossy Jasmine, experiences the usual midlife malaise as she approaches her 50th birthday. Her sex life with husband Jack, a laid-back physiotherapist, is ho-hum. Her 18-year-old son Olly, about to take a gap year before starting university, is frustratingly uncommunicative. But things really go sour after a New Year's party (her birthday falls on Jan. 1) at which, fueled by too many mojitos, Hope topples to the floor in mid-salsa. Deposed in a Machiavellian office coup that rebrands Jasmine as a neo- ' 50s Good Housekeeping, she heads for Paris to stock up on marriage-salvaging lingerie. In a brasserie, she meets hunky American professor Dan and falls in lust. On her return to London after a one-night stand, Jack, surprising Hope in midflirt with a bitter diatribe about how self-absorbed and insufferable she's been, moves out. Her mother, with whom Hope has always had an uneasy dtente (Mum blamed early marriage and kids for stunting her emotional and artistic growth), announces that she's dying of cancer. Best friend Maddy, pregnant by her late sister's husband Ed (they got together while sis was in hospice), feels such remorse that she refuses to tell Ed he's the father; when Hope does, it's goodbye BFF. Hope's new friends Sally and Nick, bereaved parents struggling to found a haven for critically ill children, are not as saintly as they appear. Is Sally having an affair with Jack or is he just working out the knots in her back? Is Nick coming on to Hope during a benefit trek across Morocco? The trek helps put Hope's problems in perspective, and she moves toward reconciliation with the people she's alienated, whether intentionally or not.

Episodic and preachy in spots, but Hope's candid, sardonic voice and the author's biting wit elevate the book above the formulaic.

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February 1, 2009
Hope Lyndhurst-Steele has it alla wonderful, loving husband; a great son; a job she loves as a magazine editor; and a lovely housein London. After her much-dreaded fiftieth birthday, everything she has come to rely on disappears. She is dismissed from her job and replaced witha younger, smarmier editor; her 18-year-old son starts dating the single mother down the street; and her husband leaves her. No wonder Hope is in a funk. Andthere is worsenews on the horizon. Her mother announces at dinner that she is dying. How we cope with adversity offersgreat insight intopeople.Hopes method is sleep, food, andhuge doses of self-pity until she starts to wake up and realize that her life is not over, and that just maybe being 50 is the right place for her to be. Kelsey, a magazine editor herself, creates a witty foray into one womans psyche as she accepts her ageand provesthat there is, indeed, life and adventure after the 50-year milestone.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)