The Dangerous Age: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Big build-up, mostly disappointing.
Review: Jaffee's supposedly "sensitive" portrayal didn't seem all that special to me. Her characters didn't gain any insight or grow; they were the same selfish, and vaguely unhappy people at the end that they were at the beginning. The sex scenes seemed like a parody. The only positive aspect of this book is that it is a mercifully short and quick read.

Rating:
Summary: Intense Love Found Late in Life
Review: Since this is a story of "intense love found late in life," as an earlier reviewer states (above), it would be nice if Suzanne, the main character, had gleaned some perspective about balancing her sexuality with the rest of her life, but she has not. Also disappointing, for all its erotica, Suzanne rarely asks for what she wants but is constantly "guided" by her lover, Robert, whom she describes as a "strong gentle guide to her own wicked pleasure" (111) and, earlier, as teaching her "everything"--"how to look, to watch his face, and see the pleasure a woman gives a man" (105). While THE DANGEROUS AGE has a strong plot line and is engaging on one level and might be a good beach read, the erotic elements are too male-centered and cliche to make for seriously good reading.

Rating:
Summary: Intense Love Found Late in Life
Review: Since this is a story of "intense love found late in life," as an earlier reviewer states (above), it would be nice if Suzanne, the main character, had gleaned some perspective about balancing her sexuality with the rest of her life, but she has not. Also disappointing, for all its erotica, Suzanne rarely asks for what she wants but is constantly "guided" by her lover, Robert, whom she describes as a "strong gentle guide to her own wicked pleasure" (111) and, earlier, as teaching her "everything"--"how to look, to watch his face, and see the pleasure a woman gives a man" (105). While THE DANGEROUS AGE has a strong plot line and is engaging on one level and might be a good beach read, the erotic elements are too male-centered and cliche to make for seriously good reading.

Rating:
Summary: One of those rare, one-night, all-night reads!!!
Review: The Dangerous Age is one of those rare, one-night, all-night reads. I could not put it down. Suzanne, like her literary predecessors, Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, is a woman whom others assume has it all...all except the one thing that makes life worth living: an intimate partner, a true love. What I most respected about this book was the author's honesty, her willingness to plumb the depths of a mature woman's sexuality down to the details of what is whispered (and revealed) in bed. We surely see a surfeit of twenty and thirty-somethings in bed, but the beauty of The Dangerous Age is that in a society obsessed with youth, it dares label a mother of grown children fully, sexually alive. Read on one level, that of its sensual descriptions of travel and food, the book reminded me of Under the Tuscan Sun; on another, because of its compact size and its focus on one passionate couple, it made me think of Eric Segal's Love Story. But my hunch is that this book will be around for many years, that women, and, yes, men (because the male lead is extremely real) will find it to be a worthwhile and stirring portrait of an intense love found late in life.

Rating:
Summary: Still a child-woman at 53
Review: Thin and graceful from early ballet lessons, the heroine has a) never loved her husband b) gets cancer c) finds a lover who will cradle and baby her up to a point. Details apparently added to build character simply make the book longer. Sex scenes are embarrassing and many of the details--the slotted spoon, the hair artlessly coming undone--are banal. Yuchchch.

Rating:
Summary: Started Out Nice . . .
Review: This is the first book that I have read by this author. It started out very nice, building the characters and I was looking forward to Susanne and Robert getting together. . . Robert seemed wonderful at first, but then he really disapointed me. The ending disapointed me... The book disapointed me. . . I guess I had better stick with authors that I know.