Publishers Weekly
04/13/2020
In this collection of let-it-all-hang-out essays, radio personality and writer Loh (The Madwoman in the Volvo) skewers the ironies of midlife. She’s a 50-something born at “the drooping tale of the boom” who possesses “Baby boom tastes on a Gen X budget”—a trait she shares with her partner, Charlie, a freelance theater producer—and the mother to two teen/tween girls living in Pasadena, Calif. Panicked by a cracked tooth and the fact she hasn’t seen a dentist in years, Loh notes, “We’re just show trash, aging bohemians... the ‘artsy’ college thing isn’t going to hack it.” The realization compels her to document “a simple year in midlife” in order to find the silver linings in “feeling old and young at the same time.” She samples Yankee Candles; takes advantage of Groupon deals on massages; has tax issues with the IRS just as her S&M-practicing accountant vanishes; runs amok when she allows a Hindu road crew for a touring guru stay at her home; and, despairing over her C+ Tiger Mom status, stoops to doing her daughter’s homework, resulting in her writing eight riotous poems. Loh’s voice is laugh-out-loud hilarious, and her fun house perspective on the foibles of middle age are intelligent and effervescent. Fans of her previous memoir and her NPR program The Loh Down on Science will delight in this outing. (June)
Booklist
"Hilarious.… [Loh’s] warm, chatty, stream-of-consciousness style will attract book clubs as well as those looking for reassurance that they, too, are doing OK despite unsuccessful stabs at homemaking and dealing with hot flashes."
Henry Alford
"This wildly funny book proves that the more of life’s indignities that are heaped on Sandra Tsing Loh, the more we will thrill to her brilliant wit and rock-solid resilience. I laughed about seventy times, welled up twice, and cried at the end. Spectacular."
LA Weekly - Shana Nys Dambrot
"[Loh’s] frank, self-deprecating wit is built on a foundation of acute observation of the ridiculous hypocrisies and foibles that give everyday life its texture."
Cathi Hanauer
"If humor will save us from these times—and if not, nothing will—Sandra Tsing Loh should be president. Or, better, queen. I devoured this perceptive, of-the-moment book, about midlife love, work, motherhood, peer pressure, and more, with tears of hilarity running down my face. Sandra Tsing Loh could write an oven manual, and I’d laugh. I think she might be the funniest writer writing today."
BookPage - Sarah McCraw Crow
"[Sandra Tsing] Loh’s tone is chatty and self-deprecating—like having a glass of wine or a long phone call with your favorite witty, goofy friend."
New York Times Book Review
"Loh’s comic appraisal of life at middle age also offers an acerbic reckoning of how the burdens of parenting and housekeeping continue to fall most heavily on women."
Caitlin Flanagan
"The Madwoman and the Roomba is so funny it woke up my husband. He couldn’t fall back to sleep with all the cackling, so he told me to read it aloud, and then we were both laughing. It’s a year in the life of a very particular family: Mom wants to write The Angry Divorced Mother’s Cookbook; her live-in boyfriend is more interested in the New York Times’ barbecue recipes than in finding a full-time job; her brother strips to his underwear to give their father’s eulogy.… In other words, they’re just like the rest of us: trying to get by without killing each other. Do you like laughing? Do you like reading? Buy this book!"
Julia Sweeney
"How lucky we are. Sandra Tsing Loh’s hilarious, snarky, insightful, and compassionate inner monologue could have stayed inside her head. But she wrote it all down, and that makes us the fortunate ones. I laughed from the beginning to the end. You will too. If you don’t there’s something seriously wrong with you."
SEPTEMBER 2020 - AudioFile
Narrated by author Sandra Tsing Loh, this hilarious memoir sets a frenetic pace. Right out of the gate, listeners will hear the chaotic thoughts of a 55-year-old woman who is raising two teenage daughters with a partner who seems ambivalent. Loh recounts her medical woes over the year with the appropriate panic and awe as she encounters each new and unwelcome surprise. Finances are always a stressor; with kids headed to college soon she struggles to “keep up with the Joneses" in an affluent community. As the audiobook progresses and she encounters more challenges, the frenzied pace and tone begin to wear on the listener, though the comedy never flags. S.K.G. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2020-03-15
A sequel of sorts to The Madwoman and the Volvo.
Now in her mid-50s, Atlantic contributing editor Loh returns with another lighthearted look at her life. Following her take on menopause, the author turns her attention to a period in life that is as complex—and anxiety-producing—as ever. “I’m the sort of neurotic who secretly believes my actions control the universe,” she writes. “On airplanes, I hold the plane up by clutching the armrests.” Loh jumps around quite a bit, moving in her offbeat way through a wide variety of topics: her ex-husband, a broken tooth and necessary dental care, mice in the house, the necessity of a colonoscopy, helping her daughters with their schoolwork (“Thus far, I’ve resisted being a Tiger Mom. I can’t face the pressure of parenting really gifted children”)—not to mention “Physical Update Number 301: The Flyaway Retina.” For her birthday, the author dabbled in goddess energy, purchasing tarot cards and “Pema Bollywood goddess pants” and throwing herself a party with her girlfriends, who were asked “to bring any one of ‘the three C’s’—champagne, chocolate, or cheese.” She was not pleased with her ayurvedic massage and laments that women are expected to stay fit, trim, and moisturized at age 55 and beyond. Discussing her fights with her husband over money and work, how many older women prefer to live alone, and an invitation to an Ariana Huffington party, the author injects enough wit to make the subjects entertaining. However, it often seems like Loh is unsure of how to get from point A to point B, and many of the topics receive too little exploration. Although the reading is fast-paced and sometimes funny, most of these anecdotes of the mundane are unremarkable.
A mildly amusing collection for the author’s fans.
