Growing Old by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was not what I expected. I always finish an ARC when I am lucky enough to received one. I feel that before I comment on a new book, I owe it to the author to keep an open mind and to finish the book. After all they spent lots of time and effort and the least I can do is read it and comment honestly.
This book was such a drag. Growing Old is much more fun than this book imparts. The entire book was a downer. I was looking for some pearls of wisdom, some humor perhaps, some nuggets of information to take with me. Nothing, nada, zip.
I realize that the author has written several books but this is not one I would recommend. Thanks to the publisher, author and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Interesting read of aging. My basic views are different and I am a more optimistic person. Maybe it is my Hope in the Lord that is different.
The author writes about her life and aging.
I received an advanced copy from net galley. This is my opinion

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas keeps it real! An Octogenarian who is honest, witty, and real about growing old. Yes, everyone gets a turn at dying, but remember we live too. This is a well written memoir. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. 4 Stars

An intimate memoir that gives a glimpse of what growing old is like to a certain degree. She explains her knowledge with the knowledge of someone who is old. She discusses some of the effects of her aging body and how doctors may treat you. She tells you what to do about it. Another explanation is discusses about senior living communities, assisted living, and nursing homes. She goes on to burial situations such as graveyards, on whether to be cremated or buried, letting your loved ones or someone else you trust how you want your funeral to be done or not done.

I liked the sharing of the author’s different experiences in growing old but never felt as the material was anything new for me. Am I just smart? I would had liked more information on to deal with one’s health, etc. as they age. It is a good book. I think that my parents taught me a lot about the things discussed in her memoir. However there were a lot of things not taught to me by my deceased parents. I wish they were still here so I could ask questions that I can’t find comfortable asking others my age.

I did enjoy this book.... it offers a very real, honest discussion of the positives & negatives regarding the aging process. The 87 y/o author approaches this with frank honesty, & wit...too! She touches on incontinence, death, deterioration...of the physical & mental... And she talks about a lot of positive aspects of aging...fun, free time, wealth of information & knowledge, acceptance... I really liked her viewpoints on all of it.....as a 60 y/o nurse that works with a lot of elderly people, I can relate to many aspects mentioned... She is spot on! This is a book for all ages tho, & it's really readable too....a rather fun read, considering the topic! (My actual rating might be 3.5 stars!)
I received this e-ARC from the publisher Harper Collins/HarperOne via NetGalley, in return for reading it & offering to post my own fair/honest review.

What an amazing book. I have elderly parents, so I relate a lot with this book. I found this book funny, thoughtful and helpful. I found the advice part about choosing how you want to die and be buried is something I’ve been thinking about often and has help me decide how I want to go. I love how she talks about how her mind is still willing but her body is not.

I hope that this become a bestsellers because this book will help others deal with not only getting older but also help them deal with the fact that their parents are getting older too.

"Growing Old", by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, is a tough book to rate. If it were written by someone under 75, I'd give it three stars. Considering Ms. Thomas is 87, I'm thinking she deserves an extra star. But, on the other hand, she wouldn't want me to show favoritism because of her age. Such a quandary!
Ms. Thomas seems like a fascinating woman. She's led a long and diverse life. She shares many of her experiences and life reflections. The book does, at times, wander and ramble. But I'm fairly certain the author would say something like, "Of course it wanders and rambles. I'm 87 and can't focus for too long. Give me a break."

Wow. I really wanted to like this book. It was not at all what I expected. I was looking for something a bit more uplifting and encouraging. I have watched both of my now departed in-laws pass through old age. My mother is now well into this stage at 92. This book had a bit of a hard and clinical edge to it, some may call it matter of fact. It was a bit hopeless and depressing. As the author is a self described atheist that would be understandable. As a Christian, the book has an Ecclesiastes feel about it, minus the turning to God for the meaning of our existence. We all grow old. Life is meaningless. We die and are buried and that is it. There are a lot of chapters that deal with death and dying. It takes 19 chapters for the book to take a look at the “ advantages” of aging. Which are mostly self focused, such as you can do whatever you want because there’s no one to answer to. The author has led a much more interesting life than your average Jane Doe traveling the world and has had quite a successful career as an author ( hence her receiving a book contract for this book at “ her age”). I guess the theme of the book is growing old ain’t for sissies. The author definitely does not fall into that cat. There’s a lot of evolutionary verbiage interwoven in the text. Also a fair amount of anthropomorphizing as humans and animals are compared. The author is gifted with words, is clearly well educated, well traveled, and has led a far more interesting life than your average person. There are many interesting vignettes sprinkled through the book describing her experiences.

Thomas writes with wit and warmth about living as an 87-year-old woman. A meditative memoir in the form of short essays, full of musings about the author's life. Some stories are sad, some are gently humorous. I have rarely read anything so honest about being old.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion. This book is written in a way that is authentic, funny and tackles the topic of growing old head on. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this book but the authors story quickly came to life the minute you begin to read. I suggest everyone take lessons from her as every day is a gift. We are all lucky to be alive and should feel fortunate to be alive and able to make memories.

This book was well written, but I do not think I am the target audience. As a 37 year old mother of two, I have so much to think about that I couldn’t bring myself to get invested in aging gracefully. This is a book I will read again as I’m approaching the empty nest phase of life.

I absolutely love Elizabeth Marshall Thomas' voice in this book. She is authentic, quirky, funny, and yet the topic is not one to take lightly - growing old. But; why not grow old with grace and establish ones own unique take on the world in the aging process?

I wasn't sure what to expect when I first started reading, but the author's purpose quickly came to light. I was enchanted as she described the travels embarked upon during her earlier years - exotic places where she spent years researching and writing about local flora and fauna, living strong among local people in often less-than-desirable conditions. Here she is now, in her late 80s, and it seems that despite her years of wisdom and experience she is often overlooked and discounted, as is so common in American society. Every person of a certain age has a story to tell; life experiences to share, and yet they are often treated as children, or even worse - they are invisible. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is not invisible, nor is she childlike, in my opinion. Reading her words made me acutely aware of this. Her humor and honesty are charming and enlightening; I am so grateful to have read this book. We should all take a page from her book and live our lives to the fullest; we never know how much time we have left.

I wish to thank Net Galley and the publisher Harper Collins for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I have to say that I did not enjoy this book and perhaps it is not one to be enjoyed . I should have suspected by the title. In fact I did not finish the book. I am certain that it contains a lot of insightful reflections but it just could not get my attention or interest. I am getting old entirely too soon all by myself! Too much of the book was depressing and I just could not continue. I hope a younger audience will want to read this and learn from it.

Growing Old is not a book I would pick up and read, but read it I did. I don't agree with some of the author's philosophies, but I read the book with an open mind, reinforcing ideas about some of the things we encounter and need to deal with.

This book gives a very frank look at what it's like to age. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, an anthropologist, talks about her own life with all the humor and tragedy included. She shows how you can still enjoy life into your 80's, you just have to make some accommodations to the physical changes that are going to happen no matter how hard you try to avoid them! Sprinkled in with the humor is some excellent tips on preparing for the elder care that may be needed some day.

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas at age 87 reports on aging in a factual and sometimes humorous way. Wonderful insight into aging and death.

I’m getting older — we all are. I’ve always tried to face life prepared, whether it’s going to college, having a baby, or, well — growing old. I was intrigued by the title and decided to review “Growing Old: Notes on Aging with Something Like Grace,” by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (thanks, NetGalley, for a review ecopy).

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas knows what it is like to grow old: “”I’m a widowed great-grandmother, 87 years old, who knows what aging feels like and how we elderly are viewed.”

She writes that, “except for senior discounts we see nothing good about (aging). When it comes, we try to hide it while our minds and bodies crumble, and death is our only escape. But this view is needlessly negative. Death is the price we pay for life.”

I enjoyed Thomas’ take on various aspects of aging. It was gratifying to read about how wonderful it was for her to get a hearing aid: “Suddenly you’re part of your environment — right inside it, not just looking at it. My hearing loss had come so gradually I hadn’t realized what I was missing. And then, like a miracle, my environment was no longer like a photo — it was living and breathing all around me. I felt like I felt when I was forty, the only difference being that when I was forty, I never imagined my hearing would fail.”

Thomas has some chapters talking about retirement living options, and another about the funeral industry. These were fine, but they were not too detailed and honestly seemed a bit out-of-place in this book that shined more with the author’s personal insights. She is an animal lover and I enjoyed that aspect of her thoughts. She mentions that her cats became indoor cats when they began hunting birds outside — sounds like something I would do. And she mentions freeing bugs inside the house to move them outside — something Daughter #2 does. She writes movingly about the death of a favorite dog, Pearl: “It may seem wrong or at best unusual to feel this way about a dog but not always to feel this way about a person. We can change how we act, but we can’t change how we feel, and I know that I’ll miss her forever. The people I loved and lost were other people, but Pearl was like my hand.” I know what she means.

It was interesting to hear her delve into the phenomena of the elderly thinking things are getting worse and worse in the world. “When I was young, I felt the same. When we start life, what we see is the norm and we accept what we’re handed. Disapproval of conditions is mainly reserved for the old when they see that things have changed.” True.

This is not related to this book, but it’s something aging-related that I found interesting. I love the Netflix series “The Crown” (based on British royalty), and in a recent episode an elderly Princess Alice (Prince Philip’s mother) said, “There came a moment around the time I turned 70, when it dawned on me that I was no longer a participant (in life), rather a spectator.” This sounds familiar to a similar quote I’d read in a book, attributed to George Bush as an elder. How sad to hear that this is how the elderly are treated and perceived — especially since I (and all of us) are headed to the land of being spectators.

I enjoyed the conversational tone of this book; it was like sitting down with Thomas over a cup of tea. Unfortunately (but somewhat predictably, these days), she gets into politics, dissing Presidents Trump and Reagan (even, inexplicably, bringing up in a derogatory way that Reagan’s funeral “cost $400 million” — can she blame him for the cost of his own funeral? Apparently, yes). Then we get an anecdote about her visiting Africa and marveling at the natives’ love of Obama, telling her (while “slightly embarrassed”) that Obama meant “Blessed.” Ah, now wasn’t that a meaningful addition to a book about aging? Editors out there: please advise your authors not to delve into politics. It does nothing positive for them and immediately turns off half their potential audience.

Another thing that troubled me about the book was Thomas’ insistence on denying the existence of God. She remembers her grandmother spending “her life with us trying to persuade us to accept Christ as our Savior, and we couldn’t, so I hope she accepted our failure as something God wanted, and that God’s will was done.” So sad. 2 Peter 3:9 tells us that it’s not God’s will that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance. I’m hopeful that even someone whose heart is as hard as Thomas’ may eventually realize that.

Thomas has had a many-years-long habit of heavy smoking, and she holds back nothing in this book, even sharing that “I know I’ll make a mental map of our town’s streets and sidewalks. Often, cigarette butts can be found there, with tobacco in most of them. I’m not sure I’d risk the indignity of picking them up because someone might see me, but the scattered butts, those potential smoking experiences, will stay in my mind.” I found that kind of sad, and was again grateful I’d never started smoking.

Thomas shares many memories indelibly fixed into her brain; terrible scenes of her loved ones and pets who have died. This was kind of disturbing, and honestly, while this book was interesting in many ways, I found it pretty depressing in many others

This is the type of book if you are my age you can relate with the author. If you are young you can learn what will be coming your way.
In any case everyone can get something from this book.
Well written.

Ms. Thomas is a seasoned 88-year old author as she writes Growing Old, so she knows what she's writing about and how to write about it. I really enjoyed her musings about the realities of aging: hearing loss, forgetfulness, becoming "invisible," thinking about who will feed the dog if you die in your bed.

Somehow, she is funny without being bitter or irreverent. She ponders death with the detachment of a scientific observer, which is exactly what she is. I laughed as she described a near-death experience with a female lion: "one thing I gathered from the experience is that being killed by a lion would be interesting."

She finds life interesting, and even the notion of death is more interesting than fearful to her. She has been through many difficult losses, as anyone her age has. She describes those with tenderness and some anger - she has unfortunately experienced terrible medical care, at times. She is not a religious person, but she respects religion because of the influence of her beloved grandmother.

Her dispassionate descriptions of burial traditions may not sit well with people who have recently lost a loved one. But the section is brief.

I even read all of the acknowledgements at the end of the book because I enjoy her writing style.

I was provided an ARC if this book through #NetGalley

I always know I'm going to give a good review on a book when I have to read multiple sections of it to whatever friends or family are around while I'm reading it. :) I read a digital ARC of this book while I was spending the week with my best friend in Nebraska, and I read so many passages to her that she ended up reading it herself.

Thomas writes honestly about what it's like to be approaching 90, on topics such as losing loved ones, failing bodies, making arrangements ahead of time for your own passing, memory loss, spirituality and an afterlife, and how aging changes us, among others. While I am only in middle age myself, I related to much of what she wrote. Too many of my friends and family members have died recently at too fast a pace, and I can only imagine what it must be like to be her age and to have had to deal with the deaths of your spouse, siblings, parents and friends. I had lost both of my parents by 31 and she lost her mother in her 70's (her mother lived to be 105 and published her last book -- with Harvard Press, no less -- at 104!), so in some ways I relate more on that level. Her stories of her parents' and grandparents' old ages were also quite interesting, and it saddened me to note how different old age is now than it was just a generation ago when our elders lived with us in their final years.

What made the book especially interesting to me wasn't the basic content, though, it was Thomas's unique experiences and insights. She lived among the San people of Africa for a time in her childhood and has an extensive insight into that culture and ancient cultures in general. I found her stories at interesting, sweet, funny and heartbreaking. I also appreciated her introspection about her own feelings about other creatures (her description of four animals she'd witnessed reacting to their upcoming deaths was moving and fascinating).

I loved Thomas's frank way of talking and her conversational manner. Thomas is straight talking, quirky and I laughed out loud more than a few times. Others may object to her religious views (she's basically atheist) but she shares them merely as a friend who would share her thoughts and her memories, not as doctrine the reader needs to believe. Another reviewer said she was bothered by the rambling, but I enjoyed it. I don't want to read a textbook or how-to manual on aging and dying. I much appreciated reading this for what it was -- a thoughtful book by a fascinating woman sharing her thoughts on a topic rarely discussed.

The best books leave you feeling as if you've made a friend, and that's the feeling I got with this book. Recommended.

I read a digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.