She dryly articulates the way single women in their late 30s come to think of their lives as 'a shifting math problem,' an experiment in how little time can be allowed to elapse between meeting a man and having a baby ... Drawing this contrast between her mother’s life and her own feels like a throwback to an older generation of feminist stories, of 1970s daughters rebelling against 1950s values, but it’s a reminder of how those domestic pressures linger ... MacNicol adopts a tone of affectionate awe when writing about the important women in her life, the friends whose lives have intertwined with hers from her early days in the city as a 20-something waitress. This chosen family offers her support and companionship, but also a glimpse of the way that stories can twist and rupture ... There is undeniable luck and privilege in being able to shape one’s own story as a single woman, as MacNicol is careful to acknowledge. Still, it can be hard to feel grateful for our luck in the abstract, so MacNicol focuses instead on what it offers her: the opportunity, indeed the obligation, to choose the life she wants. And not just once, but over and over again.
By sharing her story in No One Tells You This, MacNicol gives implicit permission for other women to embrace the lives they’ve chosen ... [MacNicol's memoir] will help women of all ages and life circumstances understand the experience of today’s single-and-joyful woman.
Amid the raft of motherhood memoirs out this summer, it’s refreshing to read a book unapologetically dedicated to the fulfillment of single life. Like a more zoomed-in chapter from Rebecca Traister’s All the Single Ladies, MacNicol’s offering is a personable, entertaining reflection ... this memoir allows MacNicol a [broad] and [loose] canvas.
Some of her views on matrimony and parenting might strike certain readers as reductive or overly black and white ... But the similarly single will recognize MacNicol’s fears, beliefs and observations as undeniably true ... Despite the occasional flatness of MacNicol’s prose, and some irksome references to her glitzy life, I found myself underlining sentences, and then entire passages, that resonated with me ... For some, this book will read like an anthem to choosing the single, family-free life.
The author is acutely perceptive on the mythology of motherhood and the chasms that can open between those with kids and those without. As she weighs up parenthood, she finds herself wanting to know why her mother had decided against a career. Yet as her mother’s health declines, she wrestles with the fact that her questions will go unanswered. MacNicol writes movingly about the frustrations.
A book like this begins at a slight disadvantage, since milestones and decisions of this sort are not always as interesting to other people as they are to the person experiencing them ... familiar and freshly formulated, thus taking the first step in overcoming the problems of solipsism and been-there-done-that-ism a memoirist of ordinary life confronts ... At the same time that she's convincing you of her insight, she's beginning to win your heart, particularly in her descriptions of her mother's decline.
Sharp, intimate ... Unapologetic in her embrace of the ups and downs of the improvised solo life, MacNicol offers a refreshing view of the possibilities–and pitfalls–personal freedom can offer modern women ... A funny, frank, and fearless memoir.
