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There are flashes of insight and beauty in this spare, skillfully written memoir. The love between the author and her husband is palpable; it shines through every page, in the quiet moments especially. I can feel her desire to protect him clash with her objective to critically examine the age gap and balance of power in their relationship. But she doesn’t seem to be interested in answering any of her own questions, though she poses some good ones. I almost hesitate to say that as criticism, because the long and short answer to all of those questions is “it’s complicated,�� and while the answers are important for us as a culture to grapple with, in the context of this relationship they feel very much beside the point.

I think that neither the title nor the description of this book accurately reflect its most compelling revelations. This is the story of a long and successful marriage, distinct in its challenges and the sheer unlikelihood of it all, but not unfamiliar in its dynamics. This is not the typical experience of teenage girls who marry men 30 years their senior, obviously. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t spent half the book expecting a more critical examination of memory in memoir or of age and consent, rather than a singular story of the very rare May-December relationship that actually works out in the end.