Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis

“I don't know how much perfume that [Enjoli] commercial sold, but I guarantee you it moved a lot of antidepressants and antianxiety meds.”

This book is chock full of quotable bits like this. I can still sing that damn commercial, and yes, it's a good emblem of the problem Calhoun seems to be centering: we're the first generation that was told we could truly “have it all,” with unlimited choices and all the potential one could imagine, and it turns out that's not actually a recipe for happiness. Maybe having all the choices improves happiness, but being told constantly that you can have it all makes you feel unsure, inadequate, and unfulfilled.While that aspect is significant for GenX women entering middle age, I think this would have been more interesting book if it focused on the unacknowledged struggle for women overall during middle age, given that we go through a lot, yet don't have a handy, societally-recognized syndrome like men do. The “GenX has these unique challenges” could have been a chapter in that book.Instead, this spends a lot of time on a litany of headlines and statistics meant to demonstrate the GenX has had it especially hard. I'm not at all sure I buy that, and these chapters started to feel like wallowing if not whining. Also, if I didn't personally relate to a factor (e.g., my parents didn't get divorced), I didn't feel much interest in that section. It's like this relies too much on “poor me” nostalgia rather than research and exploring interesting questions and their possible solutions.There's still a lot of good stuff in here, though. And a proposed solution of sorts: acceptance brings peace, so try not to look at “You can have it all” as a list of failed aspirations to flagellate yourself with (career, money, romance, family, fitness, philanthropy, parenting, and - heaven help us - “wellness”).Though it's a mixed bag at best; the Paradox of Choice is real.