Optics: A Novel About Women and Work and Midlife Muddles

Kris is tired of working for Roger. He’s just the worst. He can’t seem to see her contributions to the eyewear business he recently bought, or envision the suggestions many of the smartest employees offer for updating their web offerings. Roger is seemingly dead set on sinking the company, clearly lacking the vision needed to run an eyewear company. He’s also mean-spirited, as evidenced by his snide remarks to Diana, one of Kris’s closest friends, about her weight, size, and meals.

However, Kris loves her job at Klassik Eyewear, so she wants to stick to her retirement plan and keep the company rolling. While representing Klassik at an eyewear convention, she receives a call from Sandy in HR about the reorganization of the company…a reorganization that means she no longer has a job. Faced with unemployment in her mid-fifties, Kris is desperate to find another job. When an unexpected windfall comes her way, the timing couldn’t be more perfect, as Roger is looking for a buyer. With the help of her husband, daughter, and friends, she just might pull off the coup of a lifetime.

This debut novel features a strong-willed woman who pushes through hardships created by others’ views of both age and gender. There is a tendency for society to overlook women who have passed middle age, but this tale illustrates how they should not be taken lightly. Setting this contemporary story in the eyewear industry is a stroke of genius, as the characters must all take a closer look at their strengths and goals to determine what they want from life.

Readers can envision Kris and her group of similarly aged girlfriends as their favorite actresses, such as Diane Keaton or Meryl Streep, enjoying a bottle of wine as they catch up on each other’s families and jobs while doing their best to keep their work lives intact. Their monthly get-togethers serve as a great platform for Kris to work through her woes with the support of those who understand her best. While the book is told mostly from Kris’s perspective, Diana’s point of view, though infrequent, adds more background to the story, especially as readers find out what Roger has been up to.

This book is a solid effort and a perfect beach read. I hope it will not be the last title I read from this author.