Reiki practitioner and licensed therapist Berlingo pens an intimate letter to the power of self-love in this winning debut. In the midst of her devoted, 14-year marriage to husband Craig, and with a pre-teen daughter, Berlingo describes her own “midlife emergence”—an awakening, of sorts, to the realization that she had “mistak[en] safety for happiness” for the majority of her life. Berlingo delves into her years-long journey of honoring her sexuality as a gay woman, a journey that required her to “create a new paradigm in which to live out the second half of life.”Beyond an intricate portrait of self-discovery, this is a beautiful tribute to living a whole-hearted life. Berlingo—who acknowledges giving away her power for years to conventional expectations of love, marriage, and self-actualization—speaks with a deep wisdom that will resonate with any reader struggling to understand their unmet needs. She honors the fluidity of gender, sexuality, and human relationships in general, while using her personal experiences as a blueprint to “to write my own rule book for my life as an adult.” Her marriage, and eventual divorce, will serve as an inspiration, as she and Craig model different forms of love and unconditional support outside of society’s traditional beliefs. So, too, will her relationship with her daughter, who identifies as genderfluid, and her pledge to be a “lover to myself, every single day.”
Berlingo includes exercises for readers to utilize in their “own personal quest of midlife emergence,” unique invitations that include writing prompts, creative activities, and expressive rituals, all related to the different stages of her own transformation. Her words are almost poetic in their urgency to help readers navigate their own transitions: “I had been throwing the most precious and tender pieces of my heart into the air, not knowing where they would land,” she writes, and her principal aim is clearly to be “absolutely free.”
Takeaway: A breathtaking tribute to living an untethered, passionate life.
Great for fans of: James Hollis’s Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, Jan Grue’s I Live a Life Like Yours.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
