Love and Trouble A Midlife Reckoning [Paperback]

At mid-life, Claire Dederer developed a sudden yearning for jailbreak. In this exuberant memoir, she reflects on two periods in her life uncannily similar in their emotional intensity: her present experience as a middle-aged mom in the grip of unruly and mysterious new hungers, and her recollections of herself as a teenager. Blazingly intelligent, wickedly funny, and piercingly honest, in Love and TroubleDederer captures the perils and pleasures of girlhood, womanhood, and life itself.One of the Best Books of the Year:The StrangerandKirkus Reviews

“Not only one of my favorite feminist books, but one of my favorite books of the last few years, period. . . . Exquisite. . . . So sharp and real and revelatory. . . .  I loved it so, so much.” —Cheryl Strayed

“Sentence for sentence, a more pleasure-yielding midlife memoir is hard to think of.” —The Atlantic
 
“Dederer is not only a brilliant author, but an honest and brave one.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author ofEat, Pray, Love

“Dederer is an excellent writer who spins her prose with the casual grace and easy humor of a seasoned professional.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Ferociously honest.” —The Seattle Times
 
“This knowing and original memoir abounds with intelligence, wit, earned nostalgia, and an impressive degree of understanding about no less than being female and becoming a person.” —Meg Wolitzer, author ofThe Interestings
 
“Affecting and . . . darkly amusing.” —The Washington Post

“The most surprising and subversive memoir I’ve read in years.” —Stephanie Danler, author ofSweetbitter
 
“What emerges, in the course of this vivid, hilarious, daring self-portrait of a book, is a person who has achievl