Year We Turned Forty

by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke

This heartwarming and hilarious novel from the authors of The Status of All Things and Your Perfect Life features three best friends who get the chance to return to the year they turned forty—the year that altered all of their lives, in ways big and small—and also get the opportunity to change their future.

Jessie loves her son Lucas more than anything, but it tears her up inside that he was conceived in an affair that ended her marriage to a man she still loves, a man who just told her he's getting remarried. This time around, she’s determined to bury the secret of Lucas’ paternity, and to repair the fissures that sent her wandering the first time.

Gabriela regrets that she wasted her most fertile years in hot pursuit of a publishing career. Yes, she’s one of the biggest authors in the world, but maybe what she really wanted to create was a family. With a chance to do it again, she’s focused on convincing her husband, Colin, to give her the baby she desires.

Claire is the only one who has made peace with her past: her twenty-two year old daughter, Emily, is finally on track after the turmoil of adolescence, and she's recently gotten engaged, with the two carat diamond on her finger to prove it. But if she’s being honest, Claire still fantasizes about her own missed opportunities: a chance to bond with her mother before it was too late, and the possibility of preventing her daughter from years of anguish. Plus, there’s the man who got away—the man who may have been her one true love.

But it doesn’t take long for all three women to learn that re-living a life and making different decisions only leads to new problems and consequences—and that the mistakes they made may, in fact, have been the best choices of all…

• ISBN10: 1476763453
• ISBN13: 9781476763453
• Publish Date: 26 April 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

This was a lot sadder than I anticipated, when I downloaded it, but in the end, many hard lessons are learned, which lead to good things for all.

The Year We Turned Forty is the story of Jessie, Gabriela and Claire. Each made a decision that year, which left them with a hole in their hearts. Jump ahead to their 50th birthday, and they are presented with an opportunity to go back to that year. They returned to their 40th year with new hope and lots of insight. They knew what they lost due to the choices they had made, and they were determined to make better choices this time. I really appreciated how these women changed. When their were first 40, they had different goals and priorities. They came back with a different appreciation for the things they did have, and I think that is a very strong message for a lot of people. Sometimes when it's right in front of you, you don't see it. You don't see all the good until it's gone. That was the strongest message for me.

Overall: a thoughtful look at love and life filled with lots of feels.

[whisperingchapters]

This 4.5 latte review was originally posted on Latte Nights Reviews.


The Year We Turned Forty is an alluring tale of three best friends that have to deal with making choices, their friendship and their families. It's a very heart-warming story that highlights how the choices we make, whether bad ones or good ones, can help us grow and ultimately accept ourselves.

JESSIE:
We have three best friends that haven't had it easy with their lives. Jessie has her husband and two daughters. In her marriage, she started to feel neglected and she sought attention elsewhere which resulted in her getting pregnant. She tells her husband and this ends in a divorce. Ten years later, Jessie is still suffering and even more so when her ex tells her he's getting married. When she gets the opportunity to go back in time and relive her forties, she decides not to tell her husband about the affair.

I was so scared for Jessie when she want back in time. I felt like at any moment her life was going to crumble again and she wouldn't be able to get back up from it for a second time. I have to give it to her, though. She tried so hard to give her husband all the love she had for him. She was very sorry for what she did and I'm not saying it was okay but the reader can tell she was beyond sorry and she would prove to herself and to her husband how much she wanted things to work and how much she really loved him. I felt bad for her husband because I felt like it wasn't fair to him but I liked the outcome to the story for them.

CLAIRE:
Claire had it so tough. The first time being forty, she didn't have much time with her mother once they realized she was sick, and her relationship with her daughter was very rocky. Given the opportunity to go back in time, she sets out to save her mom and fix her relationship with her daughter early on, along with saving a relationship with a guy she truly liked. I admire Claire because she's a single mother raising a daughter who's very disrespectful but slowly seeing how much Claire was maturing as well as her daughter Emily.

I loved how much focus Claire got being the daughter as well as being the mother. We get to see two sides of her and how that plays into her character growth this second time around. I really admired Claire and her will of wanting to fix her relationship with her daughter. My eyes would tear up at times because I could definitely see myself as Emily at times and I could see my mom as Claire. These two ladies matured so much and were able to bond and I was so happy for them! Of course, things turned rocky but you have to read the book to find out just how rocky and why it happened ;)

GABRIELA:
Gabriela didn't want to have children until her friend Jessie gave birth and she rushed home to tell her husband Collin about finally wanting a baby. Her husband declines, telling her he has already accepted his fate of no kids and he doesn't want to go through it anymore. This leaves Gabriela heartbroken but she moves on. Knowing she can fix this and convince her husband, she goes back in time to do just that. But things don't always work for the best and Gabriela took it really hard when life messes her plans.

Reading about Gabriela's story was hard for me. I would tear up all the time because she was going through so much pain throughout the entire story! I wanted her to get a break and breathe so she could be happy again. Her story brought so many emotions and I think she got the toughest luck out of all of the friends. In the end, her conclusion was bitter-sweet to me but I think the authors did a great job!

OVERALL:
Despite having some magic involved, I could feel the realism to the story. These are stories that can happen in real life and they felt so real to me, as if they were a family member or a very close friend of mine. I got attached to all three women and my heart reserves a space for each single one of them. They all had their struggles with themselves and they also kept secrets from one another, which ended up exploding unraveling towards the climax of the story. Their stories were so different and they all handled things very different but they were still very close friends. There was a lot of character growth in the ladies. I really enjoyed reading about their journey and slowly see them grow into more mature and experienced women. I ended up seeing myself in each women. Near the end of the story, it's explained what each one overcame and I realized I have either gone through the general aspect of what they overcame or I'm going through it and it made the story all the more meaningful to me.

I wish I could share with you the ending to each story. I just loved how everything came to be in the end and I just want to push this book on you so you can read it and experience how amazing each story-line is, especially their ending.

I received an eARC for free from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.This 4.5 latte review was originally posted on Latte Nights Reviews.

[Linda]

This review was originally posted on (un)Conventional Bookviews
The Year We Turned Forty is a captivating story of friendship, love, choices and living with the consequences of those choices.



From the very start, The Year We Turned Forty appealed to me - I'm in my forties, too - because the three main characters, Jessie, Gabriela and Claire were my kind of women. Their close friendship was well done, and I loved that they were all flawed and kept some secrets, even from each other. Apart from the element of them going back in time from their 50th birthday to the day after their 40th birthday, the story is very realistic, and I think the struggles they each had in their lives made a lot of sense. One had trouble in her marriage, the other with her daughter whom she raised on her own, while the third had gotten divorced after she admitted to her husband that she had cheated on him. And these three aspects of their lives was the biggest reason why they agreed to go back ten years to try to fix their biggest mistakes.

While there were some heavy moments in The Year We Turned Forty, there was a lot of humour and lightness as well. Especially when they first woke up back in 2005, and had chunky phones instead of iPhones, and there were no tablets for them to do research on. Going back in time made all three of them react differently to situations that were similar, but this did not make their problems go away - only evolve in a slightly different manner. And as they were re-living some hard times, they were able to be more introspective, and understand that no matter their choices, they would have to live with the consequences.

Going back also created some different problems between the three friends, because of things they had kept from each other that came to the surface in unexpected ways. Also, Claire had to deal with a completely different aspect of her cheating than she did the first time, and while she was almost paralyzed with fear at times, she found an inner strength she hadn't had in a very long time. The Year We Turned Forty is character driven, and I loved to see that even going back in time didn't magically fix everything the three women thought was wrong in their lives. However, they were able to see some things with a very different perspective, and acting differently meant that the people close to them reacted differently as well.

Written in three different points of view, Gabriela,Claire and Jessie each share their part of the story in their own chapters, and in past tense, the story moved forward at a very good pace, and I got to know the three protagonists very well. I found the story to be very moving, both because of the strong friendships and because of the way the women handled their problems differently - and with very different outcomes - than the first time around.



As her baby boy was placed on her chest and she inhaled his smell, she was bewildered by how holding her son for the first time could be both the best and the worst moment of her life.

But just four words had changed everything. Four words had instantly trumped all the fights, the months without sex, the names they'd called each other. Just for words ruined their thirteen-year marriage.

He made Jessie feel like she was interesting and sexy, that she could take on the world.