THANKS FOR WAITING

A former journalist and current podcaster narrates a life lived slightly behind the curve.

Reading through the first part of Shafrir’s memoir, it seems like she may have buried the lede. However, after motoring pleasantly along through the early chapters, it becomes apparent that it just wasn't very attention-getting. As the subtitle notes, the author considers herself a late bloomer. “I got married at thirty-eight, had my first kid at forty-one, and undoubtedly will be renting in the very overpriced city of Los Angeles until the end of time,” she writes. To many readers, this supposed milestone-missing will not seem to be such a big deal, especially considering Shafrir’s many career successes before getting married. After college and graduate school, she worked as a journalist at Gawker, the New York Observer, BuzzFeed, and Rolling Stone. Before she turned 40, she was a published novelist and a successful podcaster (Forever 35). In her 20s and 30s, she had a series of long- and short-term relationships, which she narrates with feeling and candor. Later, Shafrir chronicles how she met a nice stand-up comic, got married, and confronted infertility. She and her husband now co-host a podcast called Matt and Doree's Eggcellent Adventure, which they launched in 2016 “a few weeks before my first embryo transfer.” Shafrir's debut novel, Startup (2017), was a fun read, and this book includes a description of her writing process for the novel. A friend recommended she make a "beat sheet" to help her find "where the pacing felt flabby and where I needed to put in more plot elements." This worked well for Startup, less well here—though Shafrir may be lucky that she avoided a tragedy or excess of trauma that might jazz up her story.

The author's engaging writing style and persona can't quite make up for the ho-hum material.