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4.5 stars

One of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in a while! I took great pleasure in reading this memoir about a woman satisfying herself during her trip in Paris. Glynnis MacNicol writes with precision and feeling about being a childfree, non-married single woman in her mid-40’s defying society’s expectations that all women’s lives and stories end with marriage and/or kids. As someone who’s more femme and childfree by choice and romantically single, I found myself nodding along and sighing in “yes, she gets it�� throughout this memoir. I loved her writing about her friendships, her considerations of her finances, and her decision to chart her own course.

I believe this book is also relevant given Vice President JD Vance’s comments about romantically single, childfree women being “childless cat ladies�� and his statements that parents should get more votes than nonparents. I turn 30 in two months and definitely feel the amatonormative and heteronormative pressure to get married and have kids. MacNicol’s memoir in which she literally centers her pursuit of pleasure defies patriarchal notions that women’s purpose is solely to serve or care for other people. She’s also generally self-aware about her privilege and positionality. Sure, there were a few passages that could have been more concise or removed and an instance of an interaction with a younger woman that could have been probed more thoroughly, but, as a whole I found her writing mindful and astute.

I’m not a travel memoir fan but liked this book nonetheless for its thesis on pursuing pleasure and defying society’s expectations. I may be interested in reading a memoir every decade by MacNicol as I also enjoyed her memoir No One Tells You This which I read back in 2018.