No One Tells Everything

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On a writing assignment, Glynnis flew to Iceland, where her extraordinary trip and writing abilities were showcased. In Iceland, the atmosphere shifted and bubbled constantly, fueled by geo-thermal volcanic energy. Independent farmers built and operated their own mini power stations, bread was left in covered pots marked with small flags and baked on the beach.

The Australian women placed in the back of the boat, were drenched numerous times, cried and begged to return. At the front of the boat, their tour guide held Glynnis ever so tight knowing she was single hoping to get her email address to stay in touch. In NYC, where Glynnis had lived for years, she moved into a rare apartment vacancy upstairs from one of her best friends. The dating apps were fun to chat with a variety of guys. Glynnis never felt like the stereotypical woman her age: When Glynnis decided to drive cross country with a friend to San Francisco, a small Wyoming working ranch they visited opened up another world for her: Returning to the ranch a month later on a writing assignment, she quickly discovered fly fishing in a icy river nearby was not her thing.

It was during a cruise when Glynnis began to fully appreciate her single status. The single life was just too good; the freedom she had to come and go wherever she pleased was truly exhilarating! View all 5 comments. Life begins at Is there any truth to that old chestnut? Amid heavy responsibilities, travel — even just quick trips — allowed her to feel free. She could jet off to Iceland for a long weekend or take a river cruise in France and write up her experiences for a freelance gig. When she accompanied a friend on a cross-country road trip, she became entranced with a Wyoming horse ranch and realized she could drop everything and go back there for a month to handle their social media outreach and write a book proposal on puberty.

I was going to have to create it for myself. It was not written in stone. And she tells a darn good story: I read this much faster than I generally do with a memoir. May 19, Susan rated it it was amazing Shelves: As a single woman over 40 who has chosen not to marry or have children I can't tell you how excited I was to receive this book. It gets so tiresome when people are constantly making you feel less than complete because you lack a partner and a family. Like most of us Glynnis is still learning how to navigate through life, making mistakes and figuring it out along the way.

I very much related to how everyone around Glynnis relies so deeply on her, after all she has the time and freedom to take car As a single woman over 40 who has chosen not to marry or have children I can't tell you how excited I was to receive this book. I very much related to how everyone around Glynnis relies so deeply on her, after all she has the time and freedom to take care of everyone else right? Her mother's decline due to Parkinson's is heartbreaking. It's especially poignant that her mother wanted to get married and have a family to make sure that she wouldn't die alone then the disease took away her memories and she died isolated by her own mind.

Situations and people change constantly and the goal in life is not to reach as many of the traditional milestones as possible but rather to live the happiest life possible, whatever form that may take. I received this book for free through a Goodreads Firstreads giveaway but this has not influenced my review in any way.

Oct 06, Sarah rated it really liked it Shelves: At the start of this book Glynnis MacNicol is turning 40, and is single, childless and happy.

Not fitting the mould for the milestones women are expected to have reached by this age, as the blurb notes "there was no good blueprint for how to be a woman alone in the world" at this age and in this day and age. No One Tells You This follows her creating that blueprint in the year after her fortieth birthday - which involves a trip to Iceland, a road trip across America and a stay in a ranch in the back end of nowhere. All of this is examined within the context of being a single woman whose friends are reaching these milestones, and how MacNicol fits in to all this: What cultural markers were there for women other than weddings and babies?

How else do women make the progression of their lives? Would I forever be piggybacking on others? That was the depressing thought. It's important to note that MacNicol describes this in a matter of fact way; not complaining but just acknowledging the reality of being a single woman in a world where women are still expected to tick of these milestones even if they're not sure they are exactly what they want to do.

This rollercoaster of doubt and elation? Was this the price and the reward for not committing to some larger, more established idea of life? I can't wait to read more from her! Mar 30, Corinna Fabre rated it it was amazing. This book is breathtaking and poignant to the point of surreal. Glynnis leads by example: Her writing is expert and never crossing the line into glib or saccharine, wh I'm not even sure where to begin reviewing No One Tells You This.

Her writing is expert and never crossing the line into glib or saccharine, which is so easy to do in this genre. I feel like I'm writing about this as if it's some sacred tome but, to me, this is a near-perfect example of what writing in this arena can be. No one told her about the joy, freedom, or stability.

I knew instantly I needed to read her book. I don't explicitly plan on being single in my 40s, but I will probably be childless, and if my present-day choices are any indication of my romantic future, I will shirk the institution of marriage for some "No one told me about the joy! I don't explicitly plan on being single in my 40s, but I will probably be childless, and if my present-day choices are any indication of my romantic future, I will shirk the institution of marriage for something more open and less defined.

MacNicol bemoaned that there were not many stories like hers made available for public consumption, and she's right. There are so few women like her I can think to look to for an indication of what my future might hold.

Book Review: No One Tells You This: A Memoir

I constantly thought about my women's studies graduate program advisors while reading; two unmarried women in a sea of wedding rings and hyphenated last names. Plenty of my friends have been in significant long-term relationships many punctuated by extravagant parties and legal definitions , or are on their way down the aisle already. Even without marriage, not many of my friends are ever single for a period lasting longer than a month.

Lesbians may not bring a u-haul to the second date, but they do bring it to the two-month anniversary. For many of my friends, they seem happy. The first of my circle of local lesbian friends just had their first baby, and plenty of others have made it clear that sperm donors and IVF procedures are not too far down the road. What I'm saying is, even though MacNicol is a straight woman in her early 40s, and I am a lesbian in my mid-twenties, I could relate to a lot of what she wrote.

I wondered how much of what she described would be my life in the next 20 or so years. Would friends come over to my hip apartment and seethe with envy? Would they complain to me about their spouses and children one moment and try to explain how marriage and parenthood were indescribable blessings the next? Would a world of travel and financial freedom unfold before me, so much that I would feel overwhelmed by the possibility of it all? Would my hitched friends describe my lifestyle as "single lady fun time" in grouptexts about weekend brunch plans despite my potentially overwhelming responsibilities to my chosen family?

Would my "chosen family" see their connection to me as expendable while I was looking upon it as one of the most meaningful connections in my life speaking as an unmarried, childless woman and also as a woman who has had to cut ties with her abusive parents? I realize it may be silly to be already worrying about how my life might look in years, but I'm not worrying exactly, just speculating. Marveling about the possibilities stretched out before me.

I'm so glad MacNicol didn't make men a significant part of her story. She didn't even make her dating life a central part of the text. I felt this made her story much easier to relate to for me, personally. She's the cool, independent, self-actualized aunt I hope to be someday. Jul 27, Jeanette added it Shelves: This book was not for me. A mother of 6 asked me to read this with a snicker. Wait until I see her next week! It wasn't tested half as much, not even after 4 decades of doing a "repeat" fix, as the beginning of this book.

General anesthesia would have been welcome. It's probably worthwhile and gets better with context, Glynnis's No rating. It's probably worthwhile and gets better with context, Glynnis's tale? From the ratings, I'm sure it does. Honestly, please forgive me- but I'm Sicilian in culture and nuance. Most probably incompatible with making your own Mother's death after a terrible and long, long illness in which you were not present a focus for your own self-centered beginning to a memoir. Because it's all about you and your grief, and your "importance". I did get two pages past that, and then hit something even worse.

Mar 07, Shereen Lee rated it liked it. An cool and eccentric story about nostalgia and aging. Would recommend a read if this is a genre you're already interested in, but since I'm not that emotionally invested in memoirs I just found this okay. Jul 09, Booksandchinooks Laurie rated it it was amazing. This is a very engaging memoir by the author as she comes to some revelations as to the direction her life is going. Glynnis is celebrating her 40th birthday, alone, as the book begins.

As she contemplates this she has to come to terms with whether her life, as it is, is enough or if she should be trying harder to find a partner or to become a single mother. She is also very busy as a part time caretaker for her mother who has an all consuming fatal illness. Glynnis flies back and forth to Toronto, her hometown, to assist with her mom and to help her recently separated sister as she has her third child. The author leads a very fulfilling life and she has to decide whether this is enough or if she will have regrets going forward by not following the traditional route of being a wife and mother.

The writing is great and the book kept my interest throughout. It is compelling to see what decisions Glynnis makes about what her life will look like after age 40 and beyond. Aug 21, Jana rated it it was amazing Shelves: Five stars not enough. I loved every word of this book and I am evangelizing about it to anyone who will listen. It's not long, but I savored it over several days because I just didn't want it to end. The story of the author's 40th year weaves together her struggles to be a long-distance caregiver to her dying mother and maintain her relationships with her father and sister while her sister has a baby in the midst of this , all while coming to terms with her happiness and independence as a sing Five stars not enough.

The story of the author's 40th year weaves together her struggles to be a long-distance caregiver to her dying mother and maintain her relationships with her father and sister while her sister has a baby in the midst of this , all while coming to terms with her happiness and independence as a single, childless woman in a big city during a milestone year.

I loved how she described her friends - clearly chosen family - including the importance of those close relationships, and how hard she had to work at maintaining her friendships. Adult friendships are work and when I was single, I had to do even more work so as not to be resentful at doing a disproportionate amount of maintenance. Now that I'm getting ready to be a parent, I'll think about this book often and make sure I keep putting in the work to keep my chosen family close.

I could go on and on, but will end by saying that the anecdote about lying on the couch on Thanksgiving in particular spoke to me deeply, and I will think of it during every holiday for at least the next year. View all 4 comments. What is it about July where I am reading books from authors I feel like having a long, extended conversation with? It's not the typical 'I am dying of cancer and I suddenly find life so beautiful,' memoir that seems to be all the rage these days. We consider ourselves bereft if we are not married - not leading this ideal Instagrammed version of adoring spouse and adoring kids, where either you are slaving away at the corporate ladder to bring the big bucks home or you are the caring spouse who slaves away at home.

Either people pity me or people envy me. The pity because they think I will die tragically alone As if we all die in pairs. They really have no idea about my life, do they? Or they think I am so free that I can travel the world, take off whenever I want to. Like being married is the only way to have responsibilities and love? I have seen people pursue marriage with relentless fervor, convinced that this is the magic salvation that will grant them a lifetime of bliss. I have also seen those who scoff at such as those who pursue marriage.

Neither of those extremes balance life out. There is a lovely gentleness that addresses everything that life has to offer, irrespective of whether you have a significant other or not in your life. There is a lot of fun and humor in her approach to life, and a lot of wisdom as well that is not preachy, but just sinks in and catches you abruptly in a sentence that would otherwise remain hidden.

View all 3 comments. Aug 05, Caroline rated it it was amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Do you ever think about things that way--like, what if I hadn't heard about this book when I did, and never did end up learning about it becaus 5 stars Finally, the kind of smart, feminist, nostalgic, narrative-driven memoir I was looking for! Do you ever think about things that way--like, what if I hadn't heard about this book when I did, and never did end up learning about it because the buzz died away?

I'm sure I've missed out on so many great books because of that unavoidable phenomenon. There are simply too many books and too little time, alas. But back to this wonderful nonfiction treat! Leave any expectations about what a memoir about being single and childless at 40 should contain at the door; Canadian-born writer Glynnis MacNicol treats the subject with a refreshing amount of nuance and open-mindedness that I haven't seen in other examples of the genre.

She avoids the kind of reflexive self-defense you would expect and instead proffers examples of both the good and the bad aspects and the gray area in-between of being "alone" at Rather than rating different life choices on a scale, she demonstrates that what really matters is that you make the right choice for you , not what you feel you must do based on societal expectations or family pressures.

MacNicol comes to these conclusions after embarking on a year-long journey of self-discovery the day she turns She braces herself for a year of loneliness but soon finds herself more busy and in-demand than ever--just not necessarily in a romantic sense. She hurdles several life challenges, including the failing health and eventual death of her mother, the birth of her second nephew while her sister and brother-in-law are separated, and the marriages and first births of her closest friends.

As she prioritizes being there for her family and friends, romance takes a bit of a back seat besides a fun and flirty encounter with an Icelandic tour guide and a Tinder date with a deceptively young-looking year-old. MacNicol ruminates on the importance and value of lifelong friendships and argues that in some ways they can "fill" the role of a life partner.

I say "fill" because, as the author believes, there isn't really a hole to fill--some people are content with being single. On that note, at one point the author decides to move into the upstairs apartment of her friend's house. Not the way I'd ever thought it would be, but is anything? MacNicol's relationship with her mother plays a big role in the book. Her mother has Parkinson's and quickly develops Dementia as well, and MacNicol feels like she is losing her mother before her actual death--what she describes as the "long goodbye.

I appreciated how MacNicol makes clear that she didn't want to be like her mom, but still loved and respected her and learned a lot from her. The parts about her mother were some of the most moving. The question of motherhood inevitably comes up, and MacNicol handles it with aplomb. She thinks about it even more while she is in her Canadian hometown, helping her sister with her children after the birth of her new nephew.

She also has many conversations about it with friends back in New York so that the reader gets every perspective possible. Many of her friends who have children tell her that she's lucky to still be independent and that they didn't feel like they had been properly warned about how hard motherhood would be. Other friends who are childless like MacNicol but who want to have children push back against that kind of negativity, noting how hard it is to hear such things when they are trying to become pregnant and keep a positive attitude.

So basically, there's no one correct attitude to have concerning kids and motherhood.

'No One Tells You This': The Triumph Of Choosing A Single, Childfree Life At 40

There are also some great subtly feminist moments and thoughts in the book. I love when MacNicol pointed out that Hemingway was able to be so adventurous because he always had a wife to make his life easier and clear the way for his trips and writing. She observes that thanks to the generosity and attention of her friends, she is similarly blessed. At the same time as MacNicol is pretty overtly feminist in her life and ideals, she doesn't shame other people who have more traditional views insofar as they only apply them to themselves, of course.

MacNicol's descriptions of her travels were entertaining and thought-provoking. The final trip section where she drives cross-country with her friend who is moving, and they take an extended pit stop at a dude ranch in Wyoming was especially great. It inspires her into a leap of self-confidence that really pays off. On a minor note, I was fascinated by MacNicol's perspective on healthcare, since she is someone born in Canada but living underinsured in New York I say underinsured because at one point she pays an exorbitant cost for medicated eyedrops because her insurance doesn't cover prescriptions.

Speaking as a liberal here, I felt kind of validated because while she acknowledges her frustration at having to be on a waiting list to get her mother into a senior care home, she always reminds herself that it would be so much worse if her family was uninsured in the US. So that frequent argument we hear from the right that "Canadians don't like their socialized healthcare" is sometimes true But this is not a politics review, so I'll move on.

Just something I found interesting, in addition to all the other little moments of Canadiana. I feel somehow like I'm leaving things out in this review, but only because MacNicol covers so much ground so effortlessly. I loved how smoothly and cohesively the narrative played out--one thing that has stopped me from fully enjoying memoirs in the past is the "essay-style" some memoirists employ. I much prefer this kind of chronological story form.

I felt a strong connection to the author by the end of the book. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys memoirs about family, gender, and friendship, and who appreciates narration with a frank but humorous voice. I actually was brought to tears a couple times most notably during the epilogue , so if emotion is your jam, look forward to that too: This is a book I plan to revisit again in the future, especially in a little over a decade as I approach 40 myself.

I will also look forward to reading more from MacNicol in the future! May 15, Sarah rated it it was amazing. MacNicol describes with candor what it was like losing her mother slowly to degenerative disease, helping her sister with 3 kids including a newborn after the husband walked out and thoroughly exemplifying how kids can be incredibly annoying and yet loved as well as several terrible relationships full of red flags with bad men. This isn't a person who has decided against marriage and kids and is completely satisfied without, it's one who is constantly wishing she had it even though she likes her independence.

I think she would jump right into it if she came across a decent guy who was in a similar place in life. Chapter 19 onwards gets inspiring, starting with onslaught of married friends with children starting to open up to her about how much they wish they had her life, and how they are equally torn between loving their families and hating the lives they have.

It just shows how no one is sure of their decisions and everyone thinks someone else has made the better decision. She also goes on a roadtrip trailing Laura Ingall's series loved that callback to my childhood: I'm not sure I understood whether she plans to go back to there in the end, or if she will stay in Toronto which she returns to as her mother gets worse. The following of her mothers progression is heart-breaking and reminds me of what happened with my grandmother.

And it makes me pray I never have to go through it with my own mother. Overall, this book is very sobering in its portrayal of life. But it's comforting in how it tells you whatever you are doing, you are probably not completely screwing up, and others out there are as envious of you for something as you are of them. And that any life you choose will be filled with good as well as bad.

Anyways, this book deserves 5 stars for how well it communicates life as it is and makes you feel so many emotions all at once. Recommend whether you are in anything close to her situation or not. Certainly single women of a certain age should read this, but so should anybody who's ever felt the twinge of an outsider or wondered why their path isn't neatly lining up with everybody else's around them.

MacNicol writes elegantly and cleverly of a life lived outside the lines, with no map to guide you forward, and both how terrifying and satisfying it can be, sometimes in the very same instance. Sep 05, Julie rated it it was amazing Shelves: I have a big fat friend crush on Glynnis MacNicol and i hope that she keeps writing more books like this. University of Winnipeg Bookstore.

No One Tells You This 1. The Forecast Eight hours before my fortieth birthday, I sat alone at my desk on the seventeenth floor of an office building in downtown Manhattan, unable to shake the conviction that midnight was hanging over me like a guillotine. I was certain that come the stroke of twelve my life would be cleaved in two, a before and an after: Deep down, I knew it was ridiculous.

However, knowing this did not keep me from anxiously glancing at the clock out in the hallway as if the hands on it were actual blades. I thought of my mother, of course. Whether or not we actually resemble the image we see, our mothers are our first, and most lasting, reflection of ourselves: I was eight when my mother turned forty, and while I could no longer recall the exact details of that day, I did have a vague memory of it being surrounded by the sort of manic hysteria I associated with the Cathy cartoons that were sometimes clipped and taped to our fridge.

My mother loved the comics; she found joy in their simple, two-dimensional humor. For most of her life she would try to hand the comic strip section of the newspaper to me over the breakfast table or read them aloud, so I could enjoy them too. I was baffled that anyone found them interesting; they were so bloodless. At age eight, the appeal of the Cathy cartoon, about a single woman with heavy thighs, who dimly battled with her weight, her dating life, and her job, all with pathetic aplomb, was especially confusing.

My interest in those days was almost exclusively directed at Princess Leia and Laura Ingalls. This sad Cathy creature, so often pictured feverishly trying to shove herself into bathing suits in department store changing rooms, struck me as the exact version of life I would happily expend all my future energy avoiding. Which is largely what I did. I sensed an abandon all hope, ye who enter here message woven into the colorful birthday cards that arrived in the mail for her.

As if simply by turning forty, my mother had somehow failed at something. And now here I was so many years later, about to turn forty myself, gripped by those identical fears despite all my determination to be otherwise. Eight-year-old me would have been revolted. My desk faced north. Through the wall of windows that made up half of the corner office I was in, I had a panoramic view of the island.

Below me Manhattan stretched out like a toy city, all sharp angles, silver rectangles, and the unbroken lines of the avenues running north. Even from this height the city exuded purpose, like an engine exhaust. Right then it was shimmering in the late afternoon, early September sun. The light cast a golden hue on everything. It was the sort of light that caused even the most hell-bent New Yorker to look up with renewed awe. I pulled out my phone, automatically angled my head in a well-practiced tilt, and took a selfie.

See a Problem?

I was aware that to the outside world I could not have appeared less like a woman who should be worried about her age, less like someone who was now spending the last hours be fore her birthday seized by the belief she was being marched to her demise. In all likelihood, even my friends would have been surprised to hear it. I was not known as a person who tended to cower; I was a person who kept going, who took care of things, who always had the answer, who rarely asked for help. I had been on my own since I was eighteen years old.

I had taken myself from waitress to well-paid writer to business owner and now back to writer without stopping to consider whether any of these things were plausible to anyone but me. Currently my mind felt split, as though there were two voices in my head debating the importance of my birthday, and like the pendulum on a grandfather clock I was swinging from one to the other.

The rational voice kept pointing out that it was not only shameful, but also a waste of time, to cower before age. Lucky was too weak a word. Did I really need reminding that by nearly every metric available, there had never been a better time in history to be a woman? Sometimes this voice merely noted how universally horrific it had been to be a woman up until very recently.

Who cares, said the other voice. Sure, fine, technically it might be true I was lucky. Could it even be called a story? I very much wanted to muster a good fuck you to these voices. I reminded myself what the manager of the Greenwich Village tavern where I worked in my twenties as a waitress had once said to me after listening to me lament my upcoming twenty-fifth birthday, no less: Bring on the blade, I thought.

I was so tired of my own mind it would be a relief. My phone vibrated beside me and my heart leapt from long habit, like a dog that believes every noise of a package being opened holds the promise of food.

But it was just my friend and now business partner, Rachel. Her fortieth birthday party, two years prior, had taken place in a vast loft with a liquor sponsor. No Party, I wrote back. People had asked and offered. There were a half dozen friends I could text right now, who would meet me at any place I chose. Whatever else it was, my birthday was not the story of a lonely woman. But I did not want a party. A party felt like a delay tactic. This little spark of defiance had brought me comfort in recent days, but now I could barely strike it before it faded away.

Not even the view could save me this time, it seemed. Right now, all it revealed was who I had been. I needed only to glance out the window to see my own history laid out before me. Live in the same place long enough and it eventually becomes a map to all your past lives: And there had been plenty of versions of New York City me. Sitting here now thinking of those years, it occurred to me this birthday panic might not actually be such a recent development. Instead of words the first bubble would have contained an equation representing the sad reality that nearly everything in my life had become a shifting math problem with an immutable result: The calculation went something like this: I had x amount of activities in a week.

Babies are never mathematical certainties, obviously, but that is one of those truths that is never true for you until it is true for you. As thirty-seven became thirty-eight became thirty-nine the calculations became even more pressing and less feasible. Married next week, and pregnant the next morning? Eventually there was no way to make the numbers add up. The second bubble would simply have been a picture of me getting on a plane on short notice and leaving. By the time I turned thirty-seven, I was almost as consumed with the idea of getting away as I was with the conviction I was running out of time.

Not traveling per se, just leaving. I was a media reporter in New York then, and I started my long work days from home. To the outside observer my job was glamorous: The reality was that it required me to chase website traffic like a shady lawyer going after an ambulance—clicks, no matter how ill-gotten, were the coin of the realm.

All I could think as I gazed at it was: There is no internet on that garbage truck. Hunched over my desk, my BlackBerry buzzing like a trapped fly against a window, chat windows exploding on my screen with the urgency of dispatches being sent from a war zone, I spent months nearly paralyzed by my desire to be anywhere else. That these two visions of my life were in direct contradiction with each other never once occurred to me.

Not even a little bit. If anything, I was doing the opposite. I had simply taken it as a given, like financial security and regular exercise, obvious outcomes sane people generally aimed their lives toward. On paper at least, I was, by the time I turned thirty-seven, precisely where I had always wanted to be.

No One Tells Everything

I was a New Yorker; I was a full-time writer. It was a position I had achieved less than five years after waiting my last table. I had worked for it, relentlessly. Which worked out admirably well, until I also went up in smoke. Or so it felt like to me. There are no speed bumps in the digital world.

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