Fifty is not a four-letter word

As Hope Lyndhurst-Steele approaches her 50th birthday, although she "has it all"--top magazine job, wonderful husband, loving son, many friends--fifty still feels like a four-letter word. But she doesn't know just how low she can go. When she returns to the office after her holiday break, she's informed by senior management that the "having it all" woman is OUT--and Hope's out along with her. As she starts spending her days at home, her relationship with her usually patient husband Jack starts to become strained, and her teenage son is more interested in chasing after the local trashy single mom than spending his last year at home with his own mother. And Hope's own mother, who she never got along with, has cheerily announced that she's got six months left to live. Hope is relieved when a solo trip to Paris wakes up her long-dormant libido, but when she returns, she finds that her husband is giving her more space than she'd like--he's moved out.As Hope wonders if she'll be able to make it to fifty-one with her sanity and her family intact, she discovers some interesting truths about herself and her age--and even if 50 is not the new 30, it could be that the best is yet to come.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.