The Year We Turned Forty

Genre: Fiction

I gave this book **

This is the story of three best friends, Gabriela, Jessie and Claire, celebrating their 50th birthdays together in Las Vegas and treating themselves to a magic show. At the end of the show, the magician gives them the gift of turning back time ten years, to when they all turned 40. The rules: they all must agree to go, they must stay in the past for one full year, and at the end of the year, they all must agree to either return to the present or stay in the past. These ladies think they have good reasons to want to go back. For Gabriela, 40 was when she chose career over family and became successful in the publishing world. For Jessie, 40 was when she had an affair and when her son (the fruit of that affair), Lucas, was born, she didn’t tell her husband the child was not his. For Claire, 40 was when her mother’s traumatic death of cancer played a big role in her failed relationship with her daughter and a failed relationship with a man who may have been the one. All three agree to go back in time and try to fix their mistakes. This is the story of what happens when you forget that life isn’t linear. One thing doesn’t lead to another, but rather one thing leads to three other things, none that you considered possible. This is a throw-caution to the wind, Thelma and Louise-like, silly story.

My favorite thing about this book is how fun it is to see the ladies go back ten years and realize just how big of a role technology plays in their lives at 50, and that at 40, technology looks very different. How did we ever find our way without Google Maps?! That said, I didn’t particularly love the story line of this book. At its heart, this story is about what happens when we make mistakes, as we are bound to do in life. It is with age and maturity that we learn to either fix them or accept them so this didn't resonate with me. Also, I found some of the events (a magician who can turn back time? Really?) outlandish. All that said, books are supposed to remove us from our every-day world and this did just that. So, if you’re a throw-caution-to-the-wind kind of a reader this might be just up your alley. Don’t forget your sunglasses and sun hat!