Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman: A Novel (The Two Mrs. Lloyds)

This is a wonderfully reassuring book for any us who think life is over when our husband decides we are old and tired. It's the story of what happens to many of us when a marriage, especially a long time one, suddenly ends. Unless you've lived through this type of heartbreak you may not understand why Rose did the things she did. Many think because she didn't rant, rave and throw things, or worse, she's a wimp. Not so, she handled these extraordinarily painful events as a mature intelligent woman rather than as screaming fool. After she fell apart, she found her strength from within, from her children and with the help of loving friends. It would have been so much easier to go back to the old job and unfaithful husband, or would it. Could she ever really go back physically or emotionally? She moved on from the frequently steriotypical middle-aged husband who thought the grass was greener in a newer, younger place. Living well is the best revenge!

I'm not into women's books. They annoy me much in the same way that a veruca will annoy you. However the case of "Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman" I will make an exception to my rule, well who said rules were made to be bent whenever is necessary!This is a deliciously entertaining book about Rose, her adulterous husband Nathan, the other woman, the diabolical Minty (a rather fragile she devil) and Rose's oddball grown up children Poppy and Sam.The plot centres around Nathan's affair with the brittle but beautiful Minty and the affect it has on Rose, his wife of many years. When the affair finally becomes public Rose has lost not only her husband but her job too. However Rose is more resilient than she thinks and bit by bit she finds herself shedding her previous life, and heading down a path she might have taken if she had not chosen to marry Nathan. Add to this a cast of quirky characters like Rose's eccentric mother Ianthe, an ancient cat called Parsley, Richard, the man Poppy marries suddenly in Thailand, a suicidal ex-girlfriend of Sam's and Hal the man Rose might have taken up with if she hadn't chosen Nathan and you have a novel to make you laugh and cry in the same breath.Page by page we are treated to Rose's rebirth as a new woman, no longer in Nathan's shadow, no longer the wronged wife. With each trial and tribulation Rose rises to the fore and survives even the most bitter of blows. Like when she is forced to sell the marital home she finds herself able to exhale and move on to the next task at hand. And in the background Nathan is finding that life with the "other" woman isn't all it is cracked up to be and that Rose the wife that he had complained confined him, is now the one that is free. Funny, heart rending and totally absorbing, "Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman" is a book for those people who can honestly go with the old Spanish proverb, "Living well is the best revenge..."

I loved this book! In Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman author Elizabeth Buchan has given us a new heroine to love; confident, comfortable, charming and successful forty-eight year old Rose. Although we meet her on the eve of her undoing (at the hands of her convincingly conniving husband- and job-stealing assistant), Rose is no hand-wringing cliche of the wife-done-wrong. Instead our Rose navigates her new, and painful world with the grace, dignity and class we all wish we could muster when things come undone in our lives. Rose is not destroyed by her suffering, she is transformed in a deeply satisying and understandable way. I especially recommend this book for the quality of the writing which was consistently exquisite from page one through the final chapter.

Elizabeth Buchan's book REVENGE OF THE MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN is about the destruction and ultimate resurrection of a single life. At the start of the book, Rose Lloyd's life appears idyllic. Married to Nathan for twenty-five years, she has concurrently raised a son and a daughter, forged a career as a book critic and editor, and kept a beautiful home. Life is comfortable, easy and lovingly predictable. She feels blessed by the ease with which her days pass. Whether she is tending her garden or dining out with colleagues, Rose is grounded and at peace.But then one day, forty-pushing-fifty Nathan comes home and announces out of the blue that he wants out of their comfortable, easy, predictable existence. He uses the oldest cliché in the book: he has found love, or at least lust, with a younger woman. And, ouch, the younger woman is a good friend of Rose's. As if this devastation is not enough, a waterfall of catastrophic events happens in quick succession, sending Rose over the edge. She loses her job, a beloved pet dies, a child marries while in another country and her mother becomes ill. Buchan hits every potential nerve, leaving readers raw from the emotional barrage.Rose sinks to the greatest depths of depression, drinking too much, eating too little and sleeping too much. Buchan spends many pages expertly plumbing the recesses of a devastated psyche and, for anyone who has ever experienced such grand and vast loss, Rose's self-questioning, self-hatred and self-abuse will be all too familiar.As low as Rose sinks, ultimately, REVENGE OF THE MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN is about resurrecting one's life from the unrecognizable heap of self that is left after loss --- and resurrect she does. Buchan never fails to write without great wit and Rose never loses sight of the irony of life. She rises a newer, sleeker model, armed with the knowledge that 1) she can carry on and 2) "it took so little to destroy someone." Poised by book's end to rekindle an old passion, Rose truly embodies the Spanish proverb "living well is the best revenge."Thoroughly British, smart and witty, REVENGE OF THE MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN will have you crying and laughing as Rose roller-coasters through the dissolution of her marriage and an inspirational renewal. --- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara

Beautifully written, this book takes you through the gut wrenching emotional rollercoaster a woman experiences when her husband unexpectedly leaves her for a much younger woman - a younger woman not only her friend and business associate but who also steals her job (this happens at the beginning, I am not spoiling the story). Yet, this is not a bitter diatribe, just a lovely, unfolding story of a woman who realizes eventually she will be all right and perhaps even better because of it. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend the book.