We don't talk about the complexities of middle age in our society enough, and we should. This is a solid dive into what keeps GenX women up at night and why that matters. This book explores: More than the physical aches and pains, what's going on that's holding us down, disrupting our sleep. This holds a good mix of stories and research. I read and enjoyed the Oprah article Calhoun wrote as well. Well done. I recommend to fellow GenXers.

A group of friends and I have adopted the ‘five minutes for ailments’ rule, for when we get together. Otherwise, discussions about health (and the health of our partners, parents and kids) would sap hours. Seriously, hours. This is my oldest group of friends – we were teens together in the eighties, at uni in the early nineties and had kids in the 2000s. I’m providing the timeline to give context to Ada Calhoun’s book, Why We Can’t Sleep.

Why We Can’t Sleep is essentially about why Gen X women are facing very particular problems as they enter middle age.

Calhoun found herself lying awake at night worrying about life, and at the same time admonishing herself because she had a happy family, a career, and was in good health. After speaking to friends, she realised that she wasn’t alone, and did further investigation into a raft of socio-economic indicators from housing costs and HR trends to debt and divorce data, to explain her discontent.

Essentially, Gen X women were raised to ‘have it all’. We were sold a lie. Sandwiched between the Boomers and the Millennials, Calhoun describes Gen X as the ‘Jan Brady’ of generations.

Boomers deserve full credit for blazing trails while facing unchecked sexism and macro-aggressions and for trying to raise children without giving up on their own dreams. But Gen Xers entered life with ‘having it all’ not as a bright new option but as a mandatory social condition.

It is really important to emphasise that this book is about middle-class white women, who have had access to education and have had minimal trauma in their lives (Calhoun stipulates this at the beginning, but I noticed that much of the criticism over at Goodreads is focused on her narrow lens). Anyway, I am absolutely the target demographic, and unsurprisingly, the majority of what she had to say resonated with me.

I particularly enjoyed the pop culture references and Calhoun gave interesting historical examples (such as the trauma of the Challenger disaster and the AIDS crisis) to explain why Gen Xers are the way they are (characterised as self-sufficient, wary, conservative).

And Calhoun made me laugh. She comments on the male versus female mid-life crisis, noting that the female version tends to be ‘quieter’, as she ‘…sneaks her suffering in around the edges of caretaking and work…’

Women might drain a bottle of wine while watching TV alone…or cry every afternoon in the pickup lane at school. Or, in the middle of the night, they might lie wide awake, eyes fixed on the ceiling. There has yet to be a blockbuster movie centered on a woman staring out her car’s windshield and sighing.

I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know, with the exception of discovering that Gen X is the first generation in centuries to be downwardly mobile (in other words, in the past, each new generation is more prosperous than their parents i.e. upwardly mobile. Not so for Gen X, who have been in their prime working years during two recessions, delayed having a family because of economic pressures, then had the double burden of caring for children and parents). Gen X is the ‘…wrong place, wrong time’ generation: ‘thwarted by boomers who can’t afford to retire and threatened by the prospect of leap-frogging Millennials.’

Calhoun makes a number of statements that jumped out at me because they matched my own experience. For example,

“If you said you wanted to be a nurse, everyone would say, ‘Why not a doctor?'”

…feel guilty for complaining, because it’s wonderful to have had choices that our mothers didn’t have, but choices don’t make like easier. Possibilities create pressure.

The book finishes with a bunch of suggestions for avoiding the ‘abyss’, and although they’re not earth-shattering, it’s useful to be reminded that getting your physical health sorted is important, as is hanging out with people who enrich your life and letting go of unrealistic expectations. The key point is that we must stop telling middle-aged women to ‘…lean in, take “me-time,” or make a chore chart to get their lives and homes in order’, because actually, we’re a resourceful bunch and if that shit worked we would have done it years ago.

Exceeding expectations was so much easier when there basically were no expectations.

3/5 Fairly certain that readership for this book is narrow – if you’re not a Gen X woman, it will come across as whiney, ‘poor me’, or completely irrelevant. But if you are a Gen X woman, someone validating your experience might be helpful.

I received my copy of Why We Can’t Sleep from the publisher, Grove Atlantic, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I hate to write a bad review, but this book wasn’t for me. I just couldn’t get into it. What I read about the book beforehand and the description that went along with it, weren’t really what I read. It did a good job talking about women around the world and what they need both physically and economically but I just wasn’t a fan. It was very interesting but just not what I expected to read.

I would've liked to see more representation for trans and childless women, but being myself a cis white mother, I found myself feeling validated on just about every page.

This book was okay it was not what I expected
I don't know if I would recommend it
The title made it sound like it would be something I would be interested in but I was

This was an interesting and engrossing look at why women in the Gen X age group can't find happiness and sleep. We are facing problems that we don't know how to solve, and cant find the answers for outside of us either. We were raised that we could have it all, but at what cost?

This was a different book from what the title implies: so much deeper and more incisive! I thought I was picking up a book about midlife crisis, and I was there for that book!

Instead, this book takes a deep dive into generational distinctives and the way our particular place in the current generational realm influences our life as a woman. Fascinating, and such an important contribution to the whole discussion of work, childrearing, elder care, and how to "do it all" (ha ha).

Thank you for this ARC.
This was an informative book and it provided good knowledge for me on how important sleep is and how it can be achieved through numerous examples and tips.
Given sleep is the number one way we can show ourselves self care I highly recommend this book.

This book has an academic sort of feel. The language was too academic and the topics are not that interesting. The book was well researched and well written. But this book is not everyone's cup of tea.

Why We Can't Sleep // by Ada Calhoun

Despite being younger than the target audience or the topic of her research, I still am glad to have read this book. Ada Calhoun, herself in the middle of a mid-life crisis when she first started writing this book, wrote about the many reasons that keep a lot of Gen X women up at night: finances, relationships, employment, children, parents, health, etc. While I don't have to worry about some of those things myself yet, the writing style still made me feel like she was talking to me anyways, helping me understand members of my family, my friends, coworkers, and acquaintances. While I don't generally fact check sources in books like this (there are just too many books for me to read to spend time on that) and therefore can't speak on the validity of her claims, many things do seem to make more sense to me now and I feel a little less apprehensive about reaching that age than I did before (hah). Her research once again shows though how much more focus there is on men's health and well-being, not that I am surprised by that in any way. I really liked that she tried to refrain from giving advice as much as possible but rather presented ways that helped her or a friend as examples on how to find your own way through those struggles.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

At first, I found much of the content in this book very relatable and I felt “seen” reading it (even though I am technically an old millenial rather than a gen x). However it seemed to repeat the same themes over and over again without a real sense of purpose after awhile and then seemed to be throwing a lot of blame around. I also think it needed to do more to address the problems that minority women face (it’s mentioned but not focused on).

Even though I fall into the age of Gen x who this book is geared toward, I had a really hard time connecting with the writing style and much of the info felt rehashed from other outlets. The author touched on many reasons why women today can't sleep but overall I didn't feel she let us in on anything all that new. Most of the information I had read before and often the writing style felt too research focused rather than conversational.

Being a midlife woman, I am always on the hunt for books that tackle this complicated topic. After reading the excerpt, I knew I needed to read this. Ada in the middle of her own midlife crisis set out to see if other women felt the same way she did (there are way more than you know). She talked to several women about everything from jobs, unemployment, finances, personal relationships, and divorce rates. Ada started to see a trend for those of us in middle age. I could relate to pretty much all the topics that were covered. If you are looking for a book that will give you a definite solution to your problems this isn’t it. The author uses the pages to bring these problems to light and outlines the differences between us and the Gen Xers. I enjoyed reading the stories of other women and it made me realize that both my fears and hopes aren’t dumbfounded.

I am a middle-aged Gen X woman raised in the 70s and 80s in the heartland of America. This book described my life so closely, it was a walk down memory lane. In addition, it helped me understand some of the changes in my life I am currently going through. Ada Calhoun is conversational, one of us, and smart enough to do her research and cite her sources. She reminds us that we are not alone, even though that seems to be our current reality at any given time. I would recommend this as a must-read for any Gen X woman.

Why We Can't Sleep
The book goes into detail describing what women in midlife go thru. It doesn't disappoint or short-change any topic.

I'm pushing 40 so I really thought this book would resonate with me well. I typically don't *love* non-fiction, and this was certainly true of this book as well. I didn't love it, but I found it incredibly fascinating.I could see a lot of my friends really enjoying this though and I have recommended it to quite a few people.

Why We Can’t Sleep
Ada Calhoun

Ada Calhoun deserves a fleet of planes with aerial banners declaring that she truly gets it! And advertising her book, of course! Covering the legitimate and often disregarded concerns of women of every age – millennial, Gen X, GenY, Mid-Life, Senior – all of us! Relationships, family, careers, lack of work, health, the challenges of having a female body, (which has been and too often still is misunderstood by medical practitioners,) money, anxiety, insomnia, expectations of our own and expectations placed on us, and the ensuing shame of our perceived failures.
And don’t send yourself or someone else to the self-help shelf or a drink.
Excerpt: “Short-term perks like spa days or facials are like putting a Band-Aid on a bone break. Our problems are beyond the reach of ‘me-time.’ The last thing we need at this stage of life is self-help. Everyone keeps telling us what to do, as if there is a quick fix for the human condition. What we need at this stage isn’t more advice, but solace.”
This is only a tiny bit of the understanding, revelations, comfort, clarity and strength to be found in Why We Can’t Sleep and will likely help most of us get some sleep! Thank you, Ada Calhoun!

Even though not everything was yet applicable to my life, it was a revelation to learn some of the things that Calhoun had researched.

This book really resonated with me. I am so glad it is not a fluffy self help book. The statistics and real life stories made me pay attention. Science vs opinion. I have recommended this to a few friends and everyone has loved it. Do yourself a favour, and read this book. This one will be around for a long time.

This was an interesting book, and as a woman, felt like it gave me a lot of "aha" moments. I think we're programmed in this day and age to frequently berate ourselves for our failings, and parts of this book felt like someone was telling us it's okay to stop blaming ourselves.