The Panic Years cover art

The Panic Years

dates, doubts and the mother of all decisions

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The Panic Years

By: Nell Frizzell
Narrated by: Nell Frizzell
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

The Panic Years: something between adolescence and menopause, a personal crisis, a transformation.

The panic years can hit at any time but they are most commonly triggered somewhere between the ages of 25 and 40. During this time, every decision a woman makes - from postcode to partner, friends to family, work to weekends - will be impacted by the urgency of the one decision with a deadline, the one decision that is impossible to take back: whether or not to have a baby.

But how to stay sane in such a maddening time?

How to understand who you are and what you might want from life?

How to know if you're making the right decisions?

Raw, hilarious and beguilingly honest, Nell Frizzell's account of her panic years is both an arm around the shoulder and a campaign to start a conversation. This affects us all - women, men, mothers, children, partners, friends, colleagues - so it's time we started talking about it with a little more candour.

©2019 Nell Frizzell (P)2019 Penguin Audio Gender Studies Social Sciences Women Inspiring Witty Thought-Provoking Comedy

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Critic reviews

"Every millennial woman should have it on her bookshelf." (Pandora Sykes, journalist and cohost of The High Low Podcast)

"Vital reading. Nell Frizzell is a master." (Rob Delaney, cowriter and costar of Catastrophe)
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This took me back 20 years to age 30, very well observed and pretty intimate! Loved hearing about her family and I particularly liked the catch up at the very end- a nice touch!

Really enjoyed this, especially as it was read by the author.

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A really interesting read. As a 32yr old woman (without children), I found some of the themes in this book fascinating. It gave me a lot of food for thought and I found myself reflecting a lot about my own decisions relating to the question of whether I want to be a parent?

I enjoyed Nell’s ability to tell her story in a way that made me feel like I was listening to a friends thoughts. She brought humour as well as realism to a very sensitive topic.

Every 30 Something Needs This Book

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I found this book exactly when I needed it - at the beginning of my own ‘panic years.’ I was so glad to know that what I was feeling was normal and that I wasn’t alone. My friends had just surprised me by starting to have babies and so as they were researching how to have babies I was researching what happens when your friends have babies. I felt such a feeling of panic and disillusionment but when I voiced it to other people they just shrugged and said ‘that’s life.’ I am so glad that I listened to this book although I’m still not sure if I want to have a baby…

The panic is real… and normal

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I got this to try to better understand what some of my female friends are going through. I'm childless un my late 30s and I found parts ofnthis book confronting, but thats kind of the point. This is a very honest book with so many laughs to cut through the stress. I imagine it's especially hard for any women older than the author at the time of writing (early 30s)who hasn't had kids and wants them as Frizzell articulates the existential panic very well. Though I think good writing can and often should be confronting.

Great read for men too

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If you're going through the Panic Years yourself, this is a really difficult listen. It induces further panic and I think it should be made much clearer that it's ONE WOMAN'S very normative experience, rather than a book which delves in detail into the science, media, accepted norms and expectations which elicit such panic. The book never purports to represent anything other than the writer's view, hence why I say it's a hard one to review, but in it's cover copy, presentation and the way it is written, it does give off the impression that it will look more widely at the panic years from an objective point of view. Instead half the book is taken up with covering the writer's relationship, pregnancy and experience with a child, which is fairly triggering for the target audience. Small point, but perhaps it could have done with bringing in more and differing opinions, rather than just recounting conversations with mates - all of whom seem to also be writers - which reinforced the writer's, and therefore the listener's, sense of panic and failure. Basically it left me feeling more like a failure, more panicked, more scared that I might lose the opportunity to have something I don't even know I want, and more sad that the world has made late 20's - mid 30 something women like me feel this way than before I started the book. So it's effective, but not comfortable. Or possibly what women seeking to understand their panic need.

A hard one to review

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