Glynnis MacNicol’s I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is an intimate, decadent and fun memoir about one woman’s quest for unlimited sensory pleasure in mid-life.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Genre: Memoir, Non-fiction, Travel
Publisher: Bonnier
Review in one word: Horny
MacNicol documents her phoenix-like experience of evading those horrible ghosts that women in middle age often face: loneliness, ageing and boredum with life. This is an irresistible memoir about a 46 year old woman throwing off these shackles and throwing caution to the wind and having a hell of a time in Paris during the summer when the world finally escaped COVID.
This is undoubtedly a feminist memoir because author Gynnis MacNicol’s life choices are unconventional and she actively eskews the norms and so-called rights of passage about being a woman, (the annoying tryptch: maiden/mother/crone AKA young and hot/responsible mother/old and irrelevant).
MacNicol rightfully challenges these limiting narratives by taking herself out of lock-down NYC and going to Paris to frolick on the Seine and in chic cafes with expat friends, drink tonnes of good quality wine, scoff excellent French cheese and have a lot of amazing sex with men she meets on anonymous apps.
What I love about this effervescent, fun and exhilarating book is that it challenges all of the limiting no-no-no’s that women hear all their lives.
Instead here’s a woman of a certain age who has liberated herself and is having a great time doing whatever the hell she wants. By doing this she gives all of us permission to do the same. It’s truly glorious in every way to read.
MacNicol lays herself bare and becomes vulnerable in her self-analysis about her choices, but she layers this beautifully with vivid prose that is universally understandable to any woman who is treading the less travelled path in life. Her decadent and sumptuous descriptions of Paris I found particularly enjoyable because it is the city of plenty and the city of dreams and this brought to mind my own memories of the place in all of its dayglo personal nostalgia.
About the Author
Glynnis MacNicol is an author and journalist. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Elle. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed memoir No One Tells You This.
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