4.5⭐️

Laugh-out-loud funny and heartwarming, featuring a diverse cast of characters (including a charming dog named Maggie Thatcher) How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley is a delightful read that will touch a chord in your heart.

As she approaches her seventieth birthday, reclusive Daphne decides to make some changes to the way she leads her life. For starters, she decides to be more sociable, which motivates her to join the Senior Citizens Social Club at the local Community Centre. Daphne isn’t the easiest person to be around – secretive and opinionated – she’s off to a bumpy start but gradually makes friends with the other members Art (and his friend William who often joins the group activities), Ruby, Anna– a diverse group of people each of whom is dealing with their own difficulties in life, including fifty-three-year-old Lydia who runs the group and who wasn’t prepared for a spirited group of seniors whose idea of fun doesn’t quite translate int quiet group activities. When the city council decides to sell the crumbling building that houses the community center the Club members join forces with the daycare center (also housed in the center) and Ziggy, the teenage father of one of the toddlers to raise funds to save the building – not an easy task, with Daphne struggling to keep her dark past hidden and each of the members dealing with their own life problems.

The narrative is presented from multiple perspectives that allow us to get to know the characters and their backstories. I loved the characters, enjoyed their banter and loved how they grew to care for one another, banding together not only to save their Community Center but help one another. Daphne is a hoot and I enjoyed following her character arc, not to mention her dynamic with Art. Ziggy is an endearing character. I was rooting for him to get his life sorted. Ruby and Anna were wonderful characters and my heart went out for Lydia. I really liked how she was able to emerge out of her shell with the help of her new friends! The author approaches several serious themes such as aging, loneliness, infidelity, emotional abuse, teenage parenthood and complicated family dynamics and much more with heart and insight. You might have to suspend disbelief on occasion but that does not detract from the overall reading experience.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this uplifting story about unlikely friendships, living life on your own terms and new beginnings. I didn’t want the story to end and would love to meet these characters again!

Many thanks to PENGUIN GROUP Viking for the digital review copy via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This story is sweet and laugh out loud funny. The cast of characters was so easy to picture, I want this to be a movie. I loved this arc so much I went to the store to buy it the day the hardcover came out!

This book was fun and a really good beach/ holiday read. This is a laugh-out-loud book, and the characters made the story flow organically; no part of this book felt forced or especially slow. Daphne is not always a likable character, but she grows on you, and I think this somewhat grey aspect of her made the book even more interesting. I also enjoyed the group dynamic, and it really created a great environment. Other than the group dynamic, the actual storyline fell a little flat for me and made it a little bit predictable. This is the kind of book where you can just turn your brain off and enjoy.

This was such a fun book! I really loved the found family element and I loved how the relationships between the characters developed. I also enjoyed how it focused on the importance of community. This is a great choice if you're looking for a fun romp of a read for summer.

** I received an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Adorable book about a community coming together to fight bureaucracy and save their community. Very heartwarming and inspiring - exactly what I needed to read during a time of anxiety and loneliness in my life.

I feel like every once in a while the perfect book finds you at the exactly right time in your life and that is what happened to me with this book. I am facing an empty nest and I am realizing that I have to redefine my life. The backstories and the current predicaments of the characters were all so unique and touching. I found myself laughing while I rooted for the characters and I did not want this book to ever end. If you are looking for a fun and entertaining read with multidimensional characters then look no further because this is the perfect read for you.

I loved this book! The senior citizens, who come together in a Social Club arranged by a younger woman looking for some purpose, are smart, funny, and devious. The club meets weekly in the same old building where the community day care center is housed, and the two groups band together to fight back when their local community center is threatened. By hook and by crook, the cagey seniors fight against bureaucrats and banks to save the space that has become their place, the spot where they first met and started building friendships with each other.
The brilliant mix of personalities, relationships, and plot twists made this one of the books I couldn't put down. I'd give it more than 5 stars if I could.

I adored this book - I loved the older characters who were unabashedly themselves. Pooley does such an amazing job of bringing a random group of people (of all ages) together to build such a wonderful community and “found family.” Loved the nod to Iona in the novel and truly cannot wait to see what she writes next!

If you read authenticity project and loved it, this is for you. Lydia, after decades of break from work finally gets a job running senior center. Due to political budget priorities, the town is closing the community center. Along with clever and unorthodox members of senior center, Art who is the failed actor, Daphne who is hiding from her dark past and Rudy the knitter and adjacent childcare members especially a teenage dad try to save the community center with unorthodox means…..as long as police doesn’t catch up to them.

Another Clare Pooley gem! If you enjoyed Authenticity Project or Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting, you will LOVE How to age Disgracefully! Clare has once again introduced us to quirky but lovable characters aged 1-70+ (and a pooch named Margaret Thatcher🐶). Their story of coming together to save a community center is both heartwarming and hilarious. The feel good story of the Summer.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Viking for an early copy. All opinions are my own.

I'm a huge fan of Clare Pooley and I was so excited to be able to read this book early! I really liked this book. I love that Pooley writes about older people, who so often get overlooked in popular fiction. It was such an interesting plot, and I wanted to keep reading so that I could find out what happened. Her characters are always so interesting and so complex. Overall, this was another great book, a quick read, and I can't wait for her next one!

I absolutely adored this wonderful book!

Clare Poole writes characters that we can all relate to. As a very reluctant member of the senior citizen community now I laughed out loud at so many things that my husband and I are experiencing now!!!

We need more Daphne and Art and Lydia and Ziggy and Kylie!!!

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read and review this book!!!

This book was interesting. At first I wasn’t sure how all of the characters were going to work, but after a bit I started to fall in love with them and I couldn’t wait to keep reading about them. This was a beautiful story about how people can connect and how good people do bad things. I really recommend and I would love to read more from this author.

4.5/"She appeared to have jumped out of the frying pan of sexism and into the fire of ageism. The final frontier of isms."

What a brilliant, fun ensemble comedy this is. A group of elderly people who are brought together by a middle aged woman who has lost her sense of identity combine with a day care and high school aged single father. There are heists, gangs, crafts, stakeouts, and a Christmas play all while they try to save their beloved community center. The characters are just delightful. A triumph, Clare Pooley. 

"...but one sent me what I think you young people would call a prick picture, so I had to cancel him."

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin (Viking) for the eARC.

I found this book to be entertaining and funny and utterly ridiculous, a great lighthearted read for a summer afternoon. The characters it brought together were so wide-ranging and it seemed like there was no way they'd go together, and yet somehow it worked. It reminded me just a little bit of "What You Are Looking For Is In the Library," since the common denominator between the characters was the community center, where the senior citizens and the daycare and the AA group and the pregnant women's group and on and on and on all came together for a common purpose. Discovering each character's backstory and how their past experiences were able to help one another in the present was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the back-and-forth of the different POVs.

📚 #BOOKREVIEW 📚
How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Pages: 350 / Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Daphne has found herself alone and friendless on her 70th birthday. So she makes a plan to reengage with the world and make some friends. The next thing she knows, she’s joined a senior citizens social club, where she truly thrives—helping to not only save the community center where the club meets but the members she now calls her friends as well.

Apparently seniors who have lived long enough to honestly not give a f$&@ is my new jam. This book is so funny and entertaining with charming characters and satisfying endings to each story arc.

Thank you, @NetGalley, @VikingBooks, and @Clare_Pooley for my gifted copy. I loved it!

How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley was utterly engrossing!
This was just such an entertaining, addictive and heartwarming story with real characters tackling issues all of us deal encounter. The book as a whole was like a warm hug for my heart. ⁣It was charming and endearing and I absolutely loved it!

Thank You NetGalley and Pamela Dorman Books for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

A lovely story about all that comes out of characters from every walk of life uniting to save a community center that first brought them together. Just like in Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting, the way Clare Pooley weaves together this cast of unlikely friends was perfection. The stories of these complex characters was beautifully developed throughout the book, and I couldn't get enough of their antics.

I had fun reading this book, thanks to its charming and eccentric characters. While it took me some time to get into the different storylines, I ultimately loved seeing how everything connected and appreciated the inter-generational relationships but just felt like I didn't connect with the book fully enough to truly enjoy it hence the three stars.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is my second book by Clare Pooley, and I'm a huge fan! As a 52-year-old woman, I identify so much with her characters. She perfectly captures the feelings of becoming less relevant and visible as we age and how we can hold on to ourselves and find our place in the world. I adored Daphne and the rest of the gang. I loved that the teenaged single parent was a dad rather than the usual teenaged girl. Satisfying ending!