As an expert on boomer women, I needed to understand why all the books about how meaningful and wonderful life can be after 50 drift around in less-than-stellar sales land, while this unhappy tome shot straight into the stratospheres. This is of special interest to me as my original research reveals that at least the majority of educated, financially stable, leading edge boomer women are surprisingly optimistic and upbeat about aging, and this the demographic one assumes has been purchasing this book.

I undertook an informal survey of women who did more than just flip through it in the bookstore, and here’s what I found.

1. It’s Nora Ephron, stupid. We have loved Nora since the days of post-Watergate. She’s angry, insightful, smart. Whatever honest emotions she expresses—and there’s a lot, albeit mostly negative—opens up the space for us to express our own darker range of emotions, as well.

2. Women may buy the book. They may read the book. That doesn’t mean they don’t feel bad about the book. Several of my interviewees stated that before reading it, they hadn’t thought much about their necks, and indeed, did have a much more positive experience about aging than as described by Nora. In fact, the word that came up most frequently from the nay-sayers in regards to Nora’s take on aging: depressing. Reading the book was something from which they needed “to recover.”

3. They feel bad about their necks, too.

This latter category is the one that fascinates me most. While I didn’t buy the book, I did watch Nora do a television interview—can’t recall now if it was Jon Stewart or Larry King, but that is irrelevant. What matters most is how she was dressed. Her allegedly offending neck was suitably hidden beneath bulky black knit turtleneck sweater, which in turn, was safeguarded beneath hip, black leather jacket. Presuming slim fit blue jeans below. She looked incredibly cool. Despite the fact that I cannot recollect her smiling ever—so no way to check for laughlines—her hair and face reeked of youthful celebrity hoodness. As I watched her share her disgust about her neck, it suddenly struck me. She was physically together enough from head to toe to pick on the one thing she disliked about herself.

Just one thing? Fact is, in regards to my own physicality, I wouldn’t know where to begin. So I don’t. I look in the mirror and my eyes go into soft focus. I don’t see my neck, in fact, I don’t see any sagging or bagging, thinning or wrinkling anywhere. If something physical needs attention, plucking a stray hair from my eyebrow, for instance, I laser in and deal with it. As a result—call it somewhere on the scale between denial and acceptance—I am not unhappy about my neck, or anything else, for that matter. For me and for many of the women who aren’t unhappy about their necks, it’s all or nothing—but rarely if ever just one.

Carol Orsborn