And so you’ve reached that time in life when you’re starting to pick investments over adventure, / And clean over scenic, and comfortable over intense ; when, even though in your heart of hearts you’re much younger, the rest of you is (how did it happen?) forty. Judith Viorst, the wise and witty lady of It’s Hard to Be Hip Over 30 and Other Tragedies of Married Life, is here to guide you through these forty-ish years with poems that reflect the highs, the lows, and the everything-in-betweens of midlife. Viorst playfully considers the prospects of sagging kneecaps, awkward college reunions, and fantasies of love in the afternoon; being baffled by one’s Buddhist bisexual vegetarian Maoist offspring; cholesterol counts, adult-education courses and other atrocities of midlife–which somehow aren’t as painful when you can laugh at them.

Filled with warmth, humor, and insight, How Did I Get to Be 40 & Other Atrocities is Judith Viorst at her best.