The city and the 50 somethings

It didn't used to be this way. At one time, fifty-something meant the beginning of retirement – working less, slowing down, spending more time on hobbies and with your friends, who like you, were sliding into more leisurely lifestyle…

Today, 50s is the new age for mid-life crisis, says Candace Bushnell in her yet another candid observations-filled dating book, this time about 50-something women and men as they navigate relationships in the Tinder age. She is in her 50s and from being married and settled in her apartment with her dog and husband, she finds herself single and divorced and with the apartment for which she needs to struggle to pay off the mortgage. For once Manhattan does not appeal to her and she decides to shift to the 'village' on the edge of Hamptons, and incidentally her long-lost friends Kitty, Queenie, Sassy, Marlyn, Tilda too touch base and life brings them together again just a couple of miles away from each other. From a fast track, life settles into a leisurely phase but not with out drama and chaos associated with dating and relationships. Yes, men and women do try and date in their fifties, but many such instances as Candace visits and analyses them do not end pretty.

Through various instances and incidents as they happen in the lives of friends and acquaintances she explores the trending MILFs, cougars, love, sex, divorce, the cubs and the flipside of dating a cub, the age defying face creams, the whole madness of middle age, the experience of having boyfriend at this age. For a book with the title, 'Is There Still Sex in The City', there is surely no sex in it. And evidently so, because it is not in any way a sequel to the famous 'Sex and the City' that she has written and was adapted into this extremely popular television series. And what else does it miss? Well, it could do with some positivity and optimism. Candace manages to picturize 50s in all its aspects but also along the way paints this extremely boring phase, where the stories of life usually do not have happy endings, at least in most of the cases she refers to. Yet she says she is looking forward to the sixties, which she believes are going to be fabulous. A quick read, engaging and interestingly narrated, 'Is There Still Sex in the City' in a way completes the cycle of life, and will make it into the bookshelves of Candace's fan club.