"There’s a cliched misconception that men are single because they choose to be, but women are single because they have to be." LOC 187

"Single, at any age, is not and never will be synonymous with broken." LOC 979

With these two quotes author Acamea Deadwiler bookends what can only be described as a love letter to women everywhere.

This is a mere snippet of a book at 121 pages, and is sold in the self help section of the book store, but it much more than just platitudes written to fill pages and employ guilt in the reader for not having her life perfectly together. It is a battle cry for women everywhere to celebrate and rejoice in their singledom rather than allowing society to instill in us the idea that we are broken, a misfit to be pitied or just plain wrong for our existence.

Deadwiler makes the argument that this book focuses on the female side of the population because there are so many double standards within society that make it acceptable for a man to be single but a woman is defective if she remains single. One cannot help but see this as running true in modern societites, both east and west, and such an example is made with the likes of Taylor Swift’s song “The Man” also suggesting that to be older and single like actor Leodardo DiCaprio is acceptable and even applauded and that women are questioned as to their basic worth for daring to be unmarried. “Men are put of a pedestal. Girls grow into women believing that to have a man is a priviledge.” LOC 218

Deadwiler writes about ten myths that surround the life of the “single woman of a certain age.” They are entitled That Does Not Mean followed by the ideas so often lobbed at women who are not married such as being desperate, lonely, jealous, sexually frustrated, unrealistic, high maintenance, bitter, crazy hard to love or broken. Each topic is written about calmly, with no fist waving in feminist rage. Rather, she writes lucid, well thought out rebuttals too each ugly term that furthers the feminist cause of both sexes being equal.

The reality that women all too often play by the rules that have been made by a male focused society in an effort to keep a man by her side is challenging reading. Women are taught from the start that ‘men will be men’ and that we have to forgive them for their bad behaviour in breaking the promise to remain faithful to an agreed partner by fact of their gender if the woman wants to avoid the apparently fatal lot in life of being single. And men are never diminished for their bad behaviour. Men are still highly valued and a woman is diminished when the bonds of a relationship are betrayed and by not challenging this narrative we are implying consent to the rules made in their favour.

Deadwiler also challenges the cultural ideal of mens view of women, which is all too often only purely as sexual mates for them and to never truly value any other abilities, skills or traits in a woman. That if a woman is single and not willing to sleep with them, they are defective and worthless, to be discredited and disposed of. She is willing to acknowledge that as women we appreciate compliments from members of the sex we are attracted to, but that we shouldn’t be reduced to only them. “To be admired only for my appearance is not admiration at all. Its objectification.” LOC 447 Deadwiler writes that women should hold themselves to a higher standard and accept only the very best, not to accept sloppy seconds that so many men offer in an offhanded manner which they then expect us to be grateful for.

This book is sold to a target audience or market of women over a certain age, and yet Deadwiler has written a manifesto for all women, that should be read by women of all ages. It is challenging, confronting, encouraging and empowering. It is for women who are in the trenches of life, cheering them on to be the very best they can be,to not accept societal and cultural norms, but to strive to be better, to have more, be more and accept themselves for the multifaceted jewels that they are.
“Anyone who has never enjoyed being single is doing it wrong.” LOC 320

Mention of Warsan Shires poem "For Women Who Are Difficult to Love" which is read by Shire herself here:
https://youtu.be/53JYLXVVd7g

Easily a top ten book for 2020.

I agreed very nearly 100% with everything this author said, and where I disagreed, it was merely a matter of nuance. This is a short, but forceful book by a strong female author, and I commend it fully. The only real issue I had with it was that Amazon's crappy Kindle-creation process will, guaranteed, mangle anything that's not plain vanilla text. This is one reason I flatly refuse to do business with Amazon. I encountered similar issues in several Net Galley advance review copies I downloaded yesterday. More on this anon.

Subtitled, "Dispelling The Top 10 Myths Of The Single Woman" I would heartily recommend this to every young-adult novel author, and every romance author, and many adult novel authors along with a good many movie and TV show writers because they simply don't seem to get it and in the vanguard when it comes to promoting the myth extolled in the seriously-misguided Neil Diamond song where he sings, "Girl, you'll be a woman soon; soon, you'll need a man." Um, no! Doesn't work that way and there's nothing wrong with that!

Don't get me (or the author!) wrong! This book isn't about eschewing men or hating them, or deliberately living life without them. It's about choice: a conscious and informed choice not to need one. It's about being fine with one or without one, and that there's nothing at all wrong with women who get along fine without men as readily as they get along with them. It's not about celibacy or asexuality. It's not about past trauma or being shy or domineering. It's not about taking a vow.

Someone who has been fine without a permanent man by her side for years may well find one she's perfectly happy to settle down with, and marry. or she may not ever feel a need to do that. But the fact is that it's her choice and none of anyone else's business. We're all human, but we're not clones. This is simply about choice and individuality. It's about being the designer, architect, engineer, maintenance staff, and captain of your own life. Anyone who thinks there's something wrong with those who desires such agency is a moron. Period.

The author covers these topics:

Single
That does not mean Desperate
That does not mean Lonely
That does not mean Jealous
That does not mean Sexually Frustrated
That does not mean Unrealistic
That does not mean High Maintenance
That does not mean Bitter
That does not mean Crazy
That does not mean Hard to Love
That does not mean Broken

The author does a great job of explicating these thorny issues. When she wrote, “To be admired only for my appearance is not admiration at all. It’s objectification.” I almost cheered out loud. I can't for the life of me think why she didn't actually mention books, comic books, movies, TV shows, and advertising that routinely treat women this way, but this was her book, not mine.

Sometimes her wording was a bit obscure to me, but I was rarely left in doubt about what she meant. Sometimes there were sentences that to me were nonsense not because I disagreed with what was being said, but because the sentence literally made no sense such as:

“There are no probably won’t like what’s absolutes.” I think something got mangled there! This also raised a frequent formatting issues. The word 'absolutes' in that sentence was on the next line. This is one of many examples I found where the formatting of the book was lacking. For that sentence, I have to blame the author - or editor! For the formatting, I have to blame Amazon. And maybe the author/editor! But it's no huge deal. As writers, we've all been there! Presumably the final print edition will have these wrinkles ironed out.

There were several cases of missing hyphens, such as “all-handson-deck” and “onenight-stand." There were some oddball cases, such as the use of “Cadillac’s” where no apostrophe needed since it was merely a plural and not a possessive. Apostrophes like that are way over used! One sentence read, “This is far from a state reserved for scorn women.” Scorn was wrong. I wasn't sure if she meant scorned or scornful, or something else. Another sentence read, “But it’s easier to designate this a female trait and slap it on to any woman....” I think 'onto' was called for there.

There were times when I felt the author was too kind to her critics! At one point I read, “Since I don’t really know this guy I can’t say if he’s good or bad.” On that I had to disagree! Any guy who would post to a chat group: “Camey . . . you need some good DICK . . . which will inspire you to write a different kinda book.” Is a bad person period - and potentially dangerous too. I'm not a huge fan of pet names. Maybe the author likes to go by Camey, but personally I'd prefer the full glory of Acamea. It's a strong name, reminiscent of Academia!

This book is obviously aimed at a US audience, and I confess I don't have her take on Thanksgiving: “Thanksgiving dinner can be tough.” I didn't grow up in the USA, so the annual holiday is meaningless to me, although the four-day weekend is great! But I don't even experience that at Christmas, not even when I was single. Maybe I'm selfish with my time, but I always have things I want to do that don't require company. It does mean I fully understood her because when I was single, I had times when friends would all-but beg me to join them for Thanksgiving dinner evidently out of fear I would die of loneliness if I were by myself, and so I allowed myself to be brow-beaten into it, and then spent the whole occasion trying to gauge how soon I could leave and get back to what I really wanted to do (writing, or maybe a movie, most likely!) without seeming to be rude.

On the topic of formatting, there were many instances where the text would jump to the next line, mid-sentence, or where the next paragraph wouldn't be indented like all the others were. There were too many of these to track, but like I said, these are relatively minor formatting issues, and do not detract from the force of the author's important and powerful message. Overall, I loved this book, felt it deeply, and I commend it highly.

Single does not mean broken and it does not mean lonely. I've been single for numerous years and finally found a book that understands me. A well-written book about the misconceptions of single life. It doesn't tell you to stay single or to hook up. Just be you and be happy with where you are in life, stop trying to fix yourself.

Some quotes from the book:
“We make our choices and walk our paths."
and
“A woman should do what she does and like what she likes for herself, not to appease someone else. We have to get more comfortable with doing whatever makes us happy without feeling guilty or being concerned that it is wrong somehow."

This book won’t work as a self-help book nor you would gain tips and tricks on how to “escape’’ singlehood. The book is more of an overview of how single women are viewed in society. The book covers 10 quite well-known myths about single women, viewed from the author's point, life experiences and conclusions.
Most of these cases you have probably already heard somewhere, some things repeated and it is not entirely "new science", but more of a quick read and a reminder - being single is totally okay, there is nothing wrong with you if you are single!
Grateful to Netgalley for the chance to read this book!

Well Done! I can tell she has walked the walk. I was skeptical when I saw how young the Author was however, she is an 'old soul' in practical wisdom. As a single 'older' woman, I have struggled with the label and all the baggage and history of single womanhood. The Author does an excellent job breaking down the myths and challenging ourselves as well as others, to work towards empowerment. I look forward to reading other books by this Author.

Thank you NetGalley & Amazon for the opportunity to read and review this book.

janne boswell
https://seniorbooklounge.blogspot.com/

A quick and interesting well-written essay style book. Relatable and smart if a little indulgent (who can blame her? Any one of us would appear the same if writing about our own love lives)

In my opinion, this book completely obliterates the typical relationship/self-help book where it is the female that must change in order to make the relationship work. After all, it is the woman that is the problem and must compromise if she wants to win the man that's allegedly courting her.

Acamea Deadwiler took the time to offer unbiased points of view and place "blame" on all parties involved in a relationship. She discussed the advantage both people can benefit from exploring individual issues independent of another person. Most relationship books are written by men advising women on how to be a good woman for a man which always seemed odd to me. Single That explores the 10 misconceptions about single women but I believe single PEOPLE regardless of gender, sex, sexual orientation, etc will benefit from this collection of essays.

It was like sitting with a group of good friends and discussing a variety of topics including love, intimacy and jealousy. The essays are easy to understand and make this a quick, enjoyable read. The message is clear: it's totally possible to be a happy and fulfilled single woman and still desire a relationship with the right person for you.