The Day I Turned Uncool
Confessions of a Reluctant Grown-up
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Available for the first time in eBook from the master of “Seinfeld-ian nothingness” (Time) a comic, not-so-coming-of-age tale of transitioning from his twenties to his thirties, recently optioned by Adam Sandler along with Dan Gets a Minivan.
Sooner or later, each of us must face the day we develop a disturbing new interest in lawn care; the day we order Sauvignon Blanc instead of Rolling Rock; the day we refuse to see any concert where we cannot sit down. Sooner or later, each of us must face the day we turn uncool.
Dan Zevin, who “was never exactly Fonz-like to begin with,” is having a hilariously hard time moving from his twenties to his thirties, and he confesses everything in these witty, self-deprecating tales. As he shamefully employs his first cleaning lady, becomes abnormally attached to his dog, and commits flagrant acts of home improvement, Dan’s headed for an early midlife crisis—and a better-late-than-never revelation: Growing up is really nothing to be reluctant about. In fact, it’s very cool.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
These likable, well-crafted Gen-X essays explore the surface disillusionment and middle-class compromises of growing older. With comic skill, Zevin (The Nearly-Wed Handbook; Entry-Level Life) takes a sentimental first-person approach to suburban adult dilemmas such as wine tastings, lawn care, the starter home and the contrast between the freewheeling college semester abroad and the fearful, sensible 30-something European vacation. Each chapter is a "confession," e.g., "I played golf"; "I joined a health club"; and "I have dabbled in the world of stress management." Zevin is simultaneously satisfied with his grown-up status and piqued about the changes it has brought: "The way I figure it, all my friends were pretty much in the same economic boat when we were first starting out, falling into the tax bracket officially known as 'piss-poor.' Then some of us stopped being piss-poor. Some of us even stopped being 'cautiously comfortable.' Some of us actually become 'fabulously well-to-do.' Those of us who wrote this book do not fall into that last tax bracket, much to our chagrin. This has made it somewhat challenging to socialize with those of them who do." His book sticks mainly to the surface inconveniences endured by everyone he knows, and largely skips the scarier, more abstract questions that are sending his generational cohorts for an existential loop loneliness, mortality and the meaning of things. As in many works that come to terms with losing youth forever, there's an otherworldly sad song humming beneath the levity of the prose.
