"There might even be small sorrows in my heaven. . ." ( )

If you want to raise your consciousness, or start a consciousness-raising group, to talk about issues facing middle-aged women today, this book is a wonderful, expressive, provocative starting point. People reading for other purposes might say it's depressing. Well, the title and subtitle constitute fair warning about that. What the women in these stories and poems are airing are thoughts about working or finding work in a depressed economy, growing older, coping with bereavement, diseases and disabilities, addictions, even mental illness. None of their stories is particularly comforting but they'd be a great way to open discussions of how discussion groups might help one another. ( )

Poetry or not, poor grammar and misspellings made it difficult for me to read. The casual tone and perspective are nice, but the lack of copy-editing, or even proof reading, was a turn-off for me. I also found the pieces to be blamey of others and not very insightful. I really wanted to like this collection, but I could not identify with the author's lack of self-awareness and poor writing. ( )