I so enjoyed this cast of characters with chance encounters at a community center. Secretive Daphne, pained Art, teen dad Ziggy, suspicious wife Lydia and more come together - each dealing with their own challenges.

Cue the misunderstandings, conspiracies... and this was just so fun! A great summer rainy day read to let you escape into their world.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Penguin Group/Pamela Dorman for the ARC.

I enjoyed every bit of this book. Honestly, I requested this book on NetGalley because I absolutely love the cover art. I’m big on eye catching cover art and if it doesn’t grasp my attention, sometimes I skip over that particular book. Anyways, this is my first time reading anything written by Clare Pooley and it was absolutely hilarious for the start. I enjoyed how the author incorporated multigenerational characters which is different than what I am used to reading. The book was absolutely hilarious.


Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

How to Age Disgracefully is a unique up-lit story featuring quirky and memorable characters of a certain age.

Members of a senior citizens’ center and the daycare next door combine their efforts and creative talents to save the building they meet in from an impending sale.

Sometimes we read for fun!

If you love quirky characters, you will find an assortment of memorable ones here! Lydia is well-meaning, caring, and artistic, and is the new director of the senior center. She’s certainly surprised to meet Art, a failed actor and kleptomaniac, Daphne who is hiding a dark past, and Ruby, a knitter who gets her revenge and makes her opinions known through her yarn creations. How these seniors and a geriatric dog begin to work together to save the building is where the fun begins. When they enlist the help of the daycare next door, chaos ensues.

A few thoughtful themes are presented, but the overall tone of the story is light, escapist, and entertaining. To best enjoy the story, you might need to exercise your ability to suspend disbelief.

The author provides plenty of hi-jinks to drive this character-driven and warmhearted story. Amidst the shenanigans, we have acts of friendship and support, caring interventions, wild schemes, and one shocking revelation.

I recommend this entertaining and lighthearted story for fans of quirky, well-seasoned characters and dog lovers. If you also enjoy sides of humor and unique stories, you might want to add this to your summer TBR.

Thanks #NetGalley @PenguinRandom @VikingBooks for a complimentary e ARC of #HowToAgeDisgracefully upon my request. All opinions are my own.

This is one of those books I selected when I was bored and trolling NetGalley. It is not at all what I usually read, but isn't that why we troll NetGalley sometimes? It is for me anyway. Soooo, since I am not into the current crop of Contemporary Romance, much too much angst, I thought I would try a book more suited to a seventysomething than a twentysomething. Turns out that "How to Age Disgracefully" with its biting British humor and very real life issues make this tale a departure from the norm.

Told from the points of view of several different characters: Daphne, a 70-year-old with secrets and no friends; Art, an actor, but at seventy-five, his agent has stopped taking his calls; Lydia whose job is the head of the Senior Citizen's Social Club at the Mandel Community Center; Ziggy, a teen father whose 8-month-old daughter attends day care at the center.

It was great getting to know each of these characters. They each have a story and each desperately needed help solving a problem. This is diverse group, and they all get to know each other and help each other. They all have to pull together in order to do that and to save the Mandel Community Center after an accident threatens to close it down. The lengths they will go to and the campaign they wage is worthy of the military, but so much more fun.

My thanks to the Publisher and Author for providing a complimentary digital Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel via NetGalley. This is my fair, honest and personal review. All opinions are mine alone and were not biased in any way.

I love Clare Pooley's style of writing, her characters are always quirky and fresh and How to Age Disgracefully was no exception. The book opens with a scene where a van is pulled over carrying a bunch of little kids and old people and they are looking for someone that is Wanted. We know the person escapes out of the van before the cop can capture them but don't know who and Pooley takes us through the backstory of the group in the van until it comes full circle. Really enjoyed reading Pooley's books and will keep reading all of them (love Iona Iverson too!)

The Mandel Community Center is about to be shut down for lack of funding for repairs & maintenance of the building. The Senior Citizen Social Club and a young father who uses the local nursery team up in an unlikely adventure to save the community center they rely on.

I enjoyed this book for the quirky cast of characters who each had a secret that was unraveled during the book. This book has sweet themes of unconditional love, reconciliation, and fresh starts. This was very similar in theme & tone to Clare Pooley’s other books, so if you've enjoyed her previous books then definitely give this one a read!

This is my first Clare Pooley and I found it to be very interesting! I flew through this one, likely because of the format. I also was really interested in Daphne as a character. The character growth for all of the characters in this one was really good. I love ziggy!!! Definitely worth a read

What a delightfully kooky cast of misfit characters! How to Age disgracefully was such a refreshing and hilarious break from the contemporary fiction norm.

I truly appreciate books centered around middle-aged main characters. Books with elderly characters are also my favorite. Mixing those two together gave me a perfect 5 star read!

This is such a fun story with a quirky cast of characters! A group of senior citizens and a teenage father - all strangers at the start of the book - join together to try and save their beloved community center from closing. Each character has an interesting background story, and along the way, they help each other out. There are multiple points of view, which took a bit to get the cast of characters straight, but it was the perfect way to tell the story. This book was heartwarming, funny, and overall enjoyable. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my review copy.

A mismatched group of people join forces to save a community center. The story starts with a glimpse at the ending which left me confused and not very invested. A lot of characters were introduced in the first few chapters and it wasn't until the second half of the book that they all made sense. I liked the ending but overall this wasn't as enjoyable as I was expecting after reading some of Pooley's other books.

A cute/cozy story of a group of quirky, senior citizens located in the UK must team up to save the town’s local community center. Each of the seniors have secret pasts that come out during this somewhat slow burn.

For me the surplus of characters had the plot lacking interest for the first third of this story. Luckily, this does change at about 40% when the characters become much more active in their own personal plotlines. This is where the story truly begins. I do wish it would've happened a bit sooner. Once I was able to get into it, I loved it so much. It’s very relatable and inspiring about life and aging.

You can't help but want to keep reading after the first few pages! The book opens with a van full of senior citizens and small children getting pulled over by a very flustered and confused police officer and everyone has a guilty conscience that they want to confess! (None of which are why they were pulled over.)

How To Age Disgracefully has a great cast of diverse characters that I quickly found myself attached to and rooting for. I was originally hoping this could turn into a series, but by the end Ms. Pooley satisfactorily concluded the book and I'm now ready to read another!

Thank you to the publisher for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Claire Pooley has a knack for drawing together a group of idiosyncratic strangers and transforming their lives over the course of the book, as they form friendships and found family. In How to Age Disgracefully, a group of strangers meet through the local community center. When the city plans to tear down the center, they band together to save it. Lydia runs the senior club, where Daphne, Art, and Ruby meet. The seniors are written without stereotypes, and each has an interesting story. Add teenage father Ziggy, his infant daughter Kylie, and lovable dog Margaret Thatcher (Maggie) to the mix and you have a group of indelible characters that help each other, care for each other, and work together as they try to win a talent show with Maggie. The prize money will save the community center, which each one of them has come to rely on in their lives. This book is stuffed with Claire Pooley's usual humor, which had me often laughing out loud. I especially loved Yarnsy! But it also confronts ageism, loneliness, and Ziggy's struggle as a single teen father living in the wrong part of town.

I am a big fan of the author's books The Authenticity Project and Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting. This book was probably my least favorite of these three titles, but that does not mean I didn't love it. I just didn't connect with the characters in the same way. I highly recommend reading this book, as well as the author's other titles. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an arc of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Clare Pooley takes a group of disparate elderly citizens, adds a menopausal woman, an 18 year old single father and a dog of unknown origin and produces a charming novel in How to Age Disgracefully. Set in London, this feel good story is told from the viewpoint of four characters. I enjoy this style of storytelling because the reader sees how the same event is interpreted differently.

Each character goes through a transformation process that would not have been possible without the interaction of the group. Initially centered around a senior citizens group ostensibly run by Lydia (the 50 something year old), the novel expands to include, Ziggy, the single father hoping to go to university and make a better life for his daughter. And then there’s Daphne, the outspoken 70 year old, who joined the group in order to break out of her self imposed isolation and is the heart of the story. Her mysterious past is hinted at throughout the novel. This novel is a good reminder that each person, whether you see them or not, whether you stereotype them or not, has their own unique history and should be treated with dignity.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and Viking/Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

This book cracked me up!

Think about the television series ‘Blockbuster’ or ‘Superstore’ where an eclectic group of characters come together to save their beloved establishment, and that’s where ‘How to Age Disgracefully’ begins. The book follows a rather quirky group of retired seniors (who would rather go skydiving and drink cocktails than sip on tea while doing a puzzle) who are dead set on saving the local community center where they meet each week.

This group is not going down easily either. These wise senior citizens are willing to use their ages to their advantage and even enlist the help of all the adorable kids in the daycare center next door — a notion that speaks to the stereotypes that society has placed on both the young and old.

While many moments made me chuckle, at the core of every comedy is heart, and all of these characters left an imprint on me. From a retired paparazzo to an old woman who will run you down with her walker, they have stuck in my mind long after I finished reading. Someone please put them all in a sitcom!

This was such a fun book. You have so many characters that are at different stages in life coming together. They’re all imperfect but beautiful. Some of them are nearing the end of their life and coming to terms with the mistakes they’ve made along the way. Some are dealing with current mistakes and how to figure out the best way forward. Then there’s a little dog who gets to be a part of all of their lives and bring each of them companionship that they needed.
There was literally every age group in this book, from babies to 70+ years young, and every single one of them had more life to live. They all had obstacles put in their way and they all beat them. I loved it. Super inspiring. I want to be Daphne when I’m her age 🫶🏻

I love an ensemble cast. It might be my greatest weakness. (I'm still thinking about 'Parenthood' 9 years later...) And Pooley put together a cast full of loveable characters. The balance between stories and the balance between 'good' and 'bad' was so well done. A story about folks in their 70s and 80s still full of life? Yes yes yes. This story was fluffy and fun and silly while still having serious moments of growth and real-life challenges.

I'd recommend this to anyone who needs a smile and/or a reminder that you can always change your path.

As Daphne says: "I prefer my friends to have experience, wisdom, and a few guilty secrets."

4.5 stars / and a big thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for the ARC!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC, but unfortunately, I’m DNFing at 30%. This might be a case of “right book, wrong time” but I just am not interested in continuing this right now. The premise sounded so good, and the prologue immediately pulled me in and even made me laugh, but the POV jumps have me struggling to connect with any of the characters. I also don’t understand many of the British terms/jokes/references, and the formatting (or lack thereof) is really throwing me for a loop. I usually love books about our elderly friends, so who knows, maybe I’ll pick this up again in the future

This novel focuses on a somewhat zany cast of characters in a senior group led by Lydia, a middle aged woman trying to find herself after her kids go off to college and her husband starts to “work late”. The seniors are not what Lydia was expecting when she took the job, they are not card playing tea drinkers - there is a Banksy style knitter, a failed actor turned kleptomaniac, as well as a woman hiding a very dark past. When the community center where the senior center meets is being threatened by a developer they are join forces with the AA group and the day care for some zany methods to save it.

I have very mixed feelings about this book and I can’t decide whether it is the book or my mood. I thought the premise and characters were absolutely adorable however the novel took a really long time (for me) to read and therefore felt like it moved at a slower pace than I expected it to. I think I read three or four other books while I had this one open. I think I would have enjoyed it more in the end if the story had a faster pace but because the characters were so enjoyable to read (and I really did love the characters) I ended up with a good feeling once I finished.

3.75 rounded to 4 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Pamela Dorman Books for the ARC to review

Cute and heartwarming this book will lift your spirits ❤️ a breath of fresh air to read a book about folks later in life and all the joy and mischief they still have.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!