As I approach hitting a decade milestone, No One Tells You This struck very close to home. Glynnis is 40 years old and struggling with facing and breaking the expectations that society has for women her age. This book left me feeling empowered and realizing that not all of the boxes (career, house, husband, kids, etc.) need to be checked when you reach a certain age. I look forward to sharing this book with my friends as we all grow older.

The task of repopulating the senior library has been an exciting and daunting task aS in a boarding school our aim is to encourage all members of the community to read. Because of this, I have been searching down a wide and diverse range of books to read that will entice a wide cross-section of the school to come in, browse and find books that they love.
Books like this will ensure that the senior students in the school see the library as a diverse, modern and exciting place with books that speak to them and they want to recommend to their friends, classmates, teachers and tutors.
It is an engrossing and exciting read with fully-formed characters and a plot that ensures that it's hard to look away. It is as far from formulaic as it is possible to be and kept me up far too late in order to finish it. I immediately wanted to read all of this writer's other books as I loved their voice and found that it really drew me into the story and made me think about it even when I'd stepped away from this tale.
This is a thought-provoking read which I'm sure will be a popular and well-read addition to our new library; I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to read it and I know that the students are going to absolutely love it too!

This book takes us on a journey through the year in the life of Glynnis. It is well written, engaging and vulnerable. it is also funny, quotable and on every page the reader learns to like Glynnis more.

Although her story isn't one of a kind, she certainly is. She has made choices that are not commonplace and she tells her story in a unique way. I wanted my friends to be reading this at the same time so we could be talking about it together!


The publisher provided an ARC through Netgalley. I have voluntarily decided to read and review, giving my personal opinions and thoughts

I had arrived in a land without stories.

The idea that I could be a source of envy was still something of a revelation. On paper at least— single, childless, forty— I was still the definition of the thing most women believe they should avoid.

“Some people are made to be in relationships, and some just aren’t.”

She said it the way one might remark that some people were born with a good singing voice, and some were not. It was an offhand observation, but it was the first time it had been suggested to me that being alone might be a natural-born aptitude, and not a flaw.

At the age of nearly forty, Glynnis MacNicol hears alarm bells ringing: she’s unmarried and childless, not the definition of success in our society. This rollicking read is the story of that fortieth year, a year of reckoning and recalibrating. Having arrived in a “land without stories” MacNicol sets out to redefine what it means to be single. It’s a busy year – helping her separated sister in Canada with her new-born and two other children, trying to get her dementia-afflicted mother into a care home – while scurrying back and forth to her home in New York and her life as a freelance writer, and attempting to keep a toe in dating waters. MacNicol lets us in on her sorry love life to date – from being with a married man to another who segued in and out of her life whenever he felt like it. There is also a road trip to a dude ranch in Montana, a time of healing and reconsidering. Through the journey recounted in this memoir MacNicol provides a framework for both herself and single women over forty – and permission to be that way, even though society sometimes screams otherwise. Well written, wise, funny, true and highly recommended.

Life begins at 40. Is there any truth to that old chestnut? That’s what Glynnis MacNicol set out to find when she turned 40. From Toronto, she’d lived in New York City for years and loved her life of writing, entrepreneurship, friends, meals, bars, laughter and annual rituals. What she didn’t have was a partner or a child, so in the eyes of many she knew she was a failure. It was a momentous year what with her mother’s Parkinson’s rapidly going downhill, her sister a newly single parent giving birth to her third child, and MacNicol’s business and writing projects morphing and taking off. Amid heavy responsibilities, travel – even just quick trips – allowed her to feel free. She could jet off to Iceland for a long weekend or take a river cruise in France and write up her experiences for a freelance gig. When she accompanied a friend on a cross-country road trip, she became entranced with a Wyoming horse ranch and realized she could drop everything and go back there for a month to handle their social media outreach and write a book proposal on puberty.

There was a lot of appeal for me in how MacNicol sets out her 40th year as an adventure into the unknown – “There was no blueprint yet for this: I was going to have to create it for myself. … I was not married to my life as it was. It was not written in stone.” She is daring and candid in examining her preconceptions and asking what she really wants from her life. And she tells a darn good story: I read this much faster than I generally do with a memoir.

Thank you to Simon&Schuster Canada for a free copy of this book for an honest review. This is a very engaging memoir by the author as she comes to some revelations as to the direction her life is going. Glynnis is celebrating her 40th birthday, alone, as the book begins. She lives a very busy life in NYC but has never found ‘the one’ or had children. As she contemplates this she has to come to terms with whether her life, as it is, is enough or if she should be trying harder to find a partner or to become a single mother. She is also very busy as a part time caretaker for her mother who has an all consuming fatal illness. Glynnis flies back and forth to Toronto, her hometown, to assist with her mom and to help her recently separated sister as she has her third child. The author leads a very fulfilling life and she has to decide whether this is enough or if she will have regrets going forward by not following the traditional route of being a wife and mother. The writing is great and the book kept my interest throughout. It is compelling to see what decisions Glynnis makes about what her life will look like after age 40 and beyond.

Glynnis MacNicol's "No One Tells You This" is a memoir that covers quite a bit of ground. MacNicol is unmarried and childless and into her 40s. There are many places in the world where women are looked down upon for both so this is a rather refreshing memoir. There's more to life than conventional standards and it's definitely something worth embracing. I'll definitely be looking reading more of MacNicol's works in the future.

No One Tells You This is a memoir in which Glynnis MacNicol explores what it means to be a woman at age 40 who is unmarried and without children.

In U.S. society, it is often "understood" that women will marry and have children, and those who don't tend to receive assurances that it can still happen, as if being happy alone is not an option.

MacNicol's exploration of her own experiences as a single woman approaching then turning 40 years old is a narrative we don't get to see enough of. Her perspective is refreshing as she realizes that she never questioned her path previously, but then begins to do so. After so many people in her life, including strangers, offer "you'll be okay" sentiments, she realizes it never occurred to her that she wouldn't be.

At the same time that she is strengthening her identity, her mother is battling her own identity as dementia takes hold. In this way, MacNicol covers quite a lot of ground.

I enjoyed reading this memoir and appreciated MacNicol's refreshing perspective. As a divorced woman of the same age, I am often assured that I can get married again -- a statement that makes me bristle. I don't want another marriage. Although my circumstances are somewhat different than the author's (I have been married and I am a mother), she and I share some basic beliefs. It was nice to see how someone else navigated the world as a single woman in her 40s.

No One Tells You This is a brilliant memoir by Glynnis MacNicol and I couldn't be happier to have found it. In many ways it felt like the book I needed to be reading at this exact moment. I identified so heavily with MacNicol's story - the discoveries she made as well as the struggles she endured - that is feels rather difficult to be objective.

Having never read anything by MacNicol before, I had no idea what to expect. Her story and writing was engaging right from her choice to fly solo on her 40th birthday and continued throughout what the next year of her life. MacNicol does an excellent job of writing for anyone going through a significant life milestone, not just single, childless women approaching 40. The book is so well written that even readers who don't care for non-fiction will enjoy it.

Glynnis offers a sobering glimpse of how much there is more to life than the conventional expectations our society places on us. I look at myself, I turn 32 in September, and I’m a single mother of three and attempting to make life happen. Is my life over? Maybe my life is just finally beginning. I highly recommend this book because it dives deeply into topics and makes you really think how you are living your life. I hold the title itself as truth, No one tells you this, there is more to life out there than the conventional. Bravo & a vast amount of applause @noonetellsyouthis , because of people like you, I can be okay & manage my present and embrace my future. Thanks to people such as yourself and the many other influencers in my life, I can be super stoked about my blog that I’ll be launching, I can laugh & play with my children, and function daily to hold it all together. Thank you Simon & Schuster for the e-copy ARC of this book.

What happens when you overthrow cultural norms and decide to live life the way you want to live it? In her memoir No One Tells you this., Glynnis Macnicol challenges the cultural assumptions that women are more "whole" as part of a married couple and as a mother.

The year Glynnis turns forty, her mother is dying of Parkinson's disease, most of her friends are married and becoming parents and Glynnis is at the end of a string of unsuccessful and unfulfilling relationships. While I am married, and do have children, I was still very much able to relate to the realization that I no longer have "all the time in the world" to do all the things I may have imagined I would do. At 45, my life is in a state of fundamental transition and I found Glynnis' thoughts relatable to anyone who is considering their choices and options in light of their mortality.

While Glynnis's musings occasionally become a bit long winded, I appreciate her courage to challenge her response to complicated cultural assumptions and her invitation for her audience to do the same.

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

This book was really depressing, which seemed a bit counter to the author’s intent. She has an off and on obsessive affair with a married man,, with no real empathy for the wife and kids (they do not get a mention), and feels sad when her friends marry and have children, seeing it as a loss for herself as opposed to a time to celebrate others’ joy. While this may be honest, it doesn’t do much to change stereotypes about single childfree women. She does write well, however.

"No One Tells You This" describes an intimate journey of a woman, that had to face her mother’s illness and death and her own loneliness. Glynnis MacNicol viewed her 40th birthday as a disaster. She was single, childless and clueless about what would the future bring. She realised that maybe she would never have children, maybe she would always be alone, without a partner, a man on whose arm she could lean. Where was her happy ending?

The author bitterly reflected that there were no happy endings as far as she could see. She actively participated and helped her family members and friends – and she realised that their lives were far from perfect. There was no certain happiness in our uncertain world. Even if you were married and had loving children, you could die completely alone. There were no happy endings!

The author had an exciting life she had always wanted, she made a successful career in New York, but after the glittering success, she felt burned out, lonely in a big city, pathetic, wasting her time dating unavailable men. So, she embarked on a journey and during her journey she tried to determine her own fate.

I liked this book very much. Glynnis MacNicol is extremely likable and her story is extremely readable! She is a girlfriend you would like to meet to talk over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. This book read like an intimate journal. I had a similar experience when I read diaries of Sylvia Plath. It was hard to enjoy "No One Tells You This" sometimes, because it recorded illness of a loved one, death, loneliness, fears of everyday life. Sometimes it felt like staying a long time underwater. It was interesting to see things from the author’s unique perspective, but after a while my lungs started to kill me and I just wanted to break the surface and take a breath of fresh air.

I think the author expects too much from herself. Sadly, women in general seems to be masters of torturing themselves, overanalysing every action, wondering if they are ever going to be good enough. Nowadays, at least some women are free to choose their own fates, to lead lives they want. But, paradoxically, having so many choices makes it difficult to make a choice. And even when women decide then they are hunted by regrets. Personally, I don’t think that something like bad decisions really exist, there are just decisions that make us who we are. My impression after reading this book is that acceptance is important. We all have doubts and regrets, but there is no point in suffering and giving yourself a hard time. Sometimes life is hard and full of pain, but it is no one’s fault and it is not some kind of sign that our life is wasted.

What is the author’s conclusion at the end of the book? The readers need to read "No One Tells You This" to understand it. I recommend Glynnis MacNicol's book to every women that ever had any doubts or regrets about her choices.

I received "No One Tells You This" from the publisher via NetGalley. I would like to thank the author and the publisher for providing me with the advance reader copy of the book.

Not every woman is meant for couplehood, marriage, babies and PTA. And not every woman grows up wanting a life that includes all of those things. On the cusp of turning 40, the author has been thinking about her options and wondering why she isn’t more panicked about being in a relationship or her biological clock ticking down. With her mother going through serious health problems and her sister’s marriage experiencing a breakup as she’s about to have her 3rd child, it seems like things are falling apart around her in the family. When she’s called on to step in and help out, it gives her even more to think about. She begins to wonder if there even are any happy endings.

This book grew on me as I read it, kind of a mix of a midlife angst, and being single at age 40. Then there’s also the major angle of her mom’s illness, some very serious issues that she deals with, talking about her wonderful friends and her enjoyment in her job writing, and ability to travel and have adventures. Lots of food for thought in several areas and an enjoyable memoir of a Canadian writer living in NYC who travels. An advance copy was provided by NetGalley and author Glynnis MacNicol for my fair review.

Simon & Schuster
Published: July 10, 2018

The universe, perhaps, brought this book to me at exactly the moment I needed it. Although my situation is a bit different than the author's, I am in somewhat the same headspace. I'm nearing 40 and coming to terms with that fact that I'll most likely never meet someone that I grow old with. Glynnis' words resonated; I felt her words deep inside my soul. Thank you, Glynnis, for sharing your story. I helped me a lot.

I enjoyed the memoir quite a bit. I understand it was her real life but the parts with her mother's illness were quite lengthy and I felt detracted a bit from the story. She didn't connect it enough to her situation of becoming comfortable with being 40, unmarried and childless. The end seemed rushed and I didn't quite understand how she was able to just work on a dude ranch for a month when she spent so much time in the book talking about how she had no time to travel and having shoehorn it in tiny breaks.

I had an interest in the premise of this book, but was not hooked by the initial pages and (for now) have given it up.

A raw and honest journey into midlife and the challenges we all face with the addition of being single and 40 and how to know if we are making the right choices. Found it hard to put down.

I liked the writing, the author is very good with words. It's a very readable book. But the subject matter - what happens when you are 40+ and haven't lived as per society's rules of successful benchmarks of family, motherhood and a husband? - is left unanswered: the author has a family (parents and a sister, though her father is rarely mentioned and that left me wondering why he was considered unimportant to the story especially since his wife, author's mother, is dying of Parkinson's) and an extended family (she has friends who are there for her as she is for them) and she has a fulfilling job and is mostly content with life except for the number FOUR-ZERO.

Most of her spells of trying to find herself or meaning in her life, or her future (trips to Rockaway-Coney Island, Iceland, Wyoming!) feel more like vacations to re-energize than any lasting change in her perception or resolution as to the essentials: she likes flings and non-committal relationships - in the end, she keeps having both, she likes her job - she sticks to it, she has reliable friends and sister - she's proud of them, she has an enviable series of apartments to live in - and that's that! So what did she learn or regret in her forty years? Nothing, because she's fine just the way she is!

So why was the book written?

All of the consequential and inconsequential flings make it in the book, and I did not see the point of mentioning any of them. Maybe the author just isn't the type to want a traditional, reliable man and finds non-committal, fly-by-night romances convenient so that she can maintain a distance from the conventional and the mundane and a relationship that demands a bit of more of her time than 3 hours per hotel stay or a text message.

At the end of her one-year of introspection, I did not see any change in any part of her life - because she's content with the way her life is and that's fine - but then I did not see the point of writing a 200-page book that doesn't go anywhere. What is the author saying? What is her message? What did she learn?

No One Tells You This is a compelling memoir about a Canadian author who lives in NYC, but grapples with a mother who has Parkinson's and living in a society who still feels that women can't be fulfilled without marriage and family. Parts of the book resonated with me. I am am single and have no children and am content with my life.
And the author loves Laura Ingalls Wilder as I do. There is one mistake, the author mentions the Homestead Act and states it was passed in the year after it actually was.