Someone Your Own Age

LoveReading Says

Esme has endured her husband’s affairs on four separate occasions but on the eve of her forty-second birthday, he announces he’s leaving her… for a twenty-three year old. The sacrifices she made for the perfect life were for nothing as it lays in tatters. Clutching on to a sense of normality, Esme is determined to ensure her career stays on track.

Though with an endearing, if kleptomaniac new intern to mentor, and a jaw-dropping office temp with the hots for her, it seems that element of Esme’s life is on the brink of change as well.

Exploring age gap romances and the differing ways in which society treats the elder party, Someone Your Own Age is a subtly nuanced tale. The writing is concise but still manages to excel at bringing each of the characters to life: Trevor Collins with “a red brand of midlife crisis temporarily imprinted across his forehead” was a particularly striking image.

Esme is a matter-of-fact, assured main character. This isn’t her first flush of love and so the storyline has a more mature, frank voice, it demonstrates her character's pragmatism about perception and hesitancy to show weakness. I found the connection to Esme comes from reading between the lines.

The strong criticism of a mother who left and had affairs with younger men belying Esme’s own worries of turning out the same, and being judged equally as harshly. The self-blame for her husband’s affairs once they were unsuccessful in conceiving, fuelling her concern that Callum could one day end up wanting more than she could give.

All this held like a mirror to the male counterparts in the story, Esme’s husband happily jet setting without a care in the world, dates expressing a lack of consideration for the power imbalance. No thoughts given to potential shame, indeed no shame to be found. But all minefields Esme has to manage.

I struggled to connect to the story initially until I realised that was the point, I was reading an almost indoctrinated patriarchal perspective. It was when Esme started to give in to her feelings, trusting Callum and focusing on her specific relationship that I found the more emotional threads of the story.

Once they were found the story blossomed into an intricate tale of love, trust and vulnerability.

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