THE COUGAR CLUB BY SUSAN MCBRIDE

Susan McBride's "The Cougar Club" is humorous and at times, so serious you want to cry for Carla, Elise and Kat. These three women grew up in Missouri. Then, each one followed their particular destiny. Now, after hitting their forties, the women come back together in St. Louis to share where they've been, what they've been doing and most importantly what has been done to them by "men" and society. Each woman's emotional pain was so deep I could not choose one as the most victimized. I did wonder about how much control we allow or must allow men to have over our lives. I do believe it is easier for a man to turn forty and older than it is for a woman.


What I liked about the book is the reality of the situations.The Cougar Club is about a woman's fear of aging, the strain to prove ourselves as still and always necessary parts of society and always making time for women who are facing the same obstacles. Becoming "catty" is not the wise way to gather strength to your heart and soul.  In "The Cougar Club" Susan Mcbride tells just what is needed to get through this narrow tunnel in our lives. These women needed one another,  friendship. Honest friendship allows for tears, anger and plain out runaway, wanna-quit fatigue. Thomas Wolfe wrote a book titled "You Can't Go Home Again." How beautiful when just the opposite is true, and you can go home again.

I like a book when all of my emotions are rubbed raw. Susan Mcbride took me out of my home and put me in the homes of other women. I felt like a woman listening to some parts of my past all over again. Boy, I asked myself hard questions. I laughed about not knowing how to dance with the boy I most wanted to impress at the party. Still, I won the masquerade party prize for the best costume. My mother made that costume. It was lovely. So, I would like to thank Susan McBride for a bit of nostalgia. "The Cougar Club" also reminded me of Erma Bombeck's famous words or a book title.  "If Life is a Bowl of Cherries-What Am I doing Down in the Pits?"

Is it possible Susan McBride can read minds or is she just so in tune with a woman's spirit? Because at the end of the book Susan writes "Susan's Five Fabulous Rules for Forty-Somethings." Since I'm well past forty, I tend to think her words of wisdom are useful to any woman at any time.

By the way, through the wonders of the virtual world, I had the chance to meet Susan. What a lady! Remember to cliche "he or she doesn't meet a stranger?" That is a good description of Susan McBride. She is not false. She is a woman made to befriend other women through her books or just sipping a glass of lemonade at a cafe and sharing a heavy conversation.