Late Bloomer: Finding My Authentic Self at Midlife Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by Books Forward in exchange for an honest review.

There’s always that one book that speaks to someone in such a way that it’s hard to put it into words. One simply feels that they are being seen and heard while reading it. Late Bloomer: Finding My Authentic Self at Midlife by Melissa Giberson did that for me. It’s a truly genuine memoir about a middle-aged Jewish wife and mother who realizes that she’s gay; it guarantees to make people root for her and her journey. 

Late Bloomer: Finding My Authentic Self at Midlife is the coming of age story of the author herself. Melissa is a middle-aged wife and mother who is planted in the life she wanted. However, she always thought that something was missing until one day at the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association, she was mesmerized by a painting of a naked woman. She asked herself, “Am I gay?”

This revelation sent her on a journey of self-discovery, which challenges everything she thinks she knows about herself. Over the course of 10 years, she discovered hope, love, and more courage to live as her authentic self.

It’s going to be hard for me to explain why I like this book so much, but I will try. This memoir is gut-wrenching and beautiful at the same time. I felt anxious for Melissa when she expressed her anxiety about coming out to her family and trying to keep them together afterwards. In addition, I was excited whenever things fell into place for her like meeting and falling in love with her current partner Vivian. I even felt grateful when she received help from various support groups.

This is all because the memoir is raw. In a way, I was shocked that Melissa could remember all of the things that happened while she was on her self-discovery journey. But then again, she later realized that she is a highly sensitive person, which she addresses later on. She could easily recall how she felt when she asked herself the important question of if she was gay, when her husband unexpectedly served her divorce papers, when she fell in love with Raia – the first woman she slept with, and when she went to the lesbian clubs for the first few times. Even with hindsight, Melissa makes readers feel like they are in the same room expressing the same emotions as she is.

She can also be funny. There was a part in which her ex-husband confirms that he met someone else, and she resists “the urge to roll her eyes.” (p. 118). 

A nice touch to the book are quotes that begin every chapter. Lines come from places like the Chaos Theory and the Talmud to people like Eleanor Roosevelt and Carrie Fisher. My favorite is the one from Shirley Chisholm that starts the Afterword and reads “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair” (p. 271).

 This shows how Melissa has changed in order to live as her authentic self and how she is willing to fight for herself and her family even if she and others still face prejudice as part of the LGBTQIA community.

Even though I’m not a lesbian, middle-aged, nor Jewish, I saw myself in Melissa. I have some signs of Autism, and I spent years pleasing others just so I could be liked. But after a while, I decided to live my life the way I wanted to. Granted, I didn’t have my life uprooted in the way Melissa’s was when she realized that she was a lesbian. At the same time, I get the emotions of trying to keep both worlds balanced like she does when she and her ex-husband separate, the fear of having a contentious divorce since my parents went through a tough one over 5 years ago, and the struggle to advocate not only for myself as well as for others since Melissa has an epiphany about the things she said and did when she considered herself straight. I have a feeling that many readers will react in a similar way as I did because of how honest and powerful the book is written.

All in all, Late Bloomer: Finding My Authentic Self at Midlife by Melissa Giberson is a true one-of-a-kind self discovery memoir. The author writes about her coming out story with rawness and beauty. She makes readers feel what she expressed when she went through her journey in becoming her real self. There are certainly other books that are about coming out of the closest, but how many are they written in the same way? I would recommend this to all readers, especially to those who have been or going through a transition into becoming their purest selves. This memoir made me feel seen and heard, and I know it will do the same for others. It will be officially published tomorrow, August 8, so go check it out!

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