YOU LOOK FINE, REALLY

PEOPLE MAGAZINE

BOOKS: SELF-HELP PICK-ME-UPS

"Style, beauty and just-let-it-go tips for the 40-plus set, hilariously delivered by the author of The Three-Martini Playdate."




 

LOS ANGELES TIMES Sunday book section


"In her funny, compassionate voice, in her Crocs and flip-flops, Christie Mellor provides an antidote to the assault on female self-esteem. Mellor lives in Southern California (ground zero), and she is not advocating frumpiness -- just a little relaxation and rationality; a little balance, somewhere between 'sitting on the sofa all day and spending five hours a day at the gym.'

She offers the Backyard Workout Wonderland (a 15-minute workout), her very own research on red lipstick, the virtues of the pashmina shawl and other bits of hard-earned wisdom. It's not all easy (see "Magnifying Mirrors: A Necessary Horror"), but it's not boot camp, either.

You don't have to rearrange your face or hide in your house after turning 40. You do have to take 'a cold, hard look at what the heck you have been doing for the last forty or fifty years. Have you been learning new stuff? Have you become friends with some good people? Do your friends love you and do you love them? Do you laugh on a regular basis? Are you excited about what's coming next? Then you're a very, very successful person.'"
(read more at LA Times website)


BOOK CASE a blog to curl up with
The Beautiful Age

"One of the most fascinating aspects of You Look Fine, Really is Mellor’s gift for connecting advise about health and beauty to everyday situations. It’s not a book about cultivating a narcissistic lifestyle. Mellor has reflected deeply on the subject of authentic beauty and happiness, and applied her understanding to real-life experiences. She brings characters to life in an interesting variety of vignettes, allowing us to learn from them and grow, just as she has." 

(read more...)







 

SHELF AWARENESS – daily enlightenment for the book trade

While light to the point of occasional frothiness, Christie Mellor's all-purpose guide for women over 40 provides such a wide and free-ranging variety of tips and advice that just about every woman in her target audience will find something to take away. Mellor herself is a likable and assured narrator--optimistic and cheerful without veering into mania, and just self-deprecating enough to be relatable without descending into bitterness or, worse, excessive cutesiness. The personal anecdotes with which she peppers her book are lively and often funny. In other words, she is one of the girls, someone who can be trusted.
(read full review here at shelf-awareness.com)





 

NOTES FROM THE ASYLUM - watercooler observations on pop culture, news and politics

"She combines the confectionary buoyancy of Holly Golightly – killer cocktails, amazing lipstick, irreverance and a unique fashion sense -- with dashes of Emily Post’s old fashioned etiquette, optimistic cheerleading to help you get over yourself and a sprinkling of the kind of plain spoken self-help talk you might see doled out on an episode of Oprah.

In her new self-help/you-go-girl book aimed at middle-aged women – You Look Fine, REALLY -- Mellor (author of the delightfully snarky Three-Martini Playdate series of books) invokes Golightly, the quirky character from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, whom Mellor says we can and should emulate occasionally to keep life interesting."
(read full review at Notes from the Asylum blog)