No, I’m not having one.  Just a novella I read the other day—(yes, more reading!)–

Midlife Crisis by Brian Doyle

Brian is primarily a playwright and blogger—but he wrote a little novel, or long short story, or novella, whatever you want to call it.  I agreed to read and review it on my blog, so here we are.

In his words: “It’s a comedic story about an crotchety old guy, who never knows how to admit he’s wrong or take responsibility for his mistakes.”

The crotchety old guy is named George, and he is a 67 year old man married to an unfortunate woman named Martha (unfortunate in my opinion for being married to George among other things—he describes her as looking somewhat like a “pear with features and a white afro.”)

The whole story takes place over a short period of time, and we are not definitely meant to sympathize with George.  He realizes some shortcomings of his life and tries to change them but keeps doing so in the worst possible way.  For instance, he sells his car and buys a Prius, thinking it is a manly car.  When somebody makes fun of him for this he sells the Prius and decides to buy a bike, thinking he’ll get in shape.  But then the bike he ends up buying is a girl’s bike and he ends up getting into an accident. Things get worse from there.

Ultimately it all seems to turn out okay, but in the meantime the reader is both amused and depressed by the turn of events.  I particularly found the way George and Martha interacted to be most depressing—I certainly don’t want to be like them in 30 years!

Anyway, if you are interested in reading it (it’s worth a read!), you can get a copy of the book for your Kindle for FREE today only (and honestly it’s short enough that reading it on your computer is no big deal either—).

Did I like it?  Yes and no.  I usually read light stuff because I don’t LIKE to think when I read, I like to be entertained.  It’s not that I wasn’t entertained but like I said, it was a little bit of a downer, but it was also pretty thought provoking.  I do like the idea of a Midlife Crisis hitting at 67 rather than say, 40 for sure!