My Formerly Hot Life

June 28, 2010
A longtime New York journalist (Glamour, Self, Parenting) underscores in colloquial, self-congratulatory fashion the injustice—and salvation—of being considered over-the-hill. At what point does a woman formerly regarded as hot (i.e., "young, attractive, relevant, in-the-mix") stop getting the once-over by interested observers—and should she care? By her late 30s, early 40s, Dolgoff, a late-married mother of twins, recognized the signs telling her that she was in need of a new self-definition: her body's ability to stay fit had diminished; she was in danger of becoming one of "those women" who choose comfort over style in clothing; and she had lost patience with wasting time on "froth" and trying to please. Ambivalent about donning "shapewear" and undergoing plastic surgery, Dolgoff still professes a desire to look sleek and attractive, happy to have gained distance from her self-loathing as a teen and also nervous because she had to work among hip 20-somethings. In the end, Dolgoff fashions her tight, tongue-in-cheek memoir into a kind of humorous self-help manual to getting by in life.