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My Year of Really Bad Dates by Rachel Lithgow Review: A Raw, Funny Midlife Memoir
Rachel Lithgow's debut memoir, published by She Writes Press on November 11, 2025, chronicles her year of spectacularly ill-fated online dates in the aftermath of a gutting breakup—while simultaneously navigating a 22-year divorce, single motherhood, career reinvention, and a PTSD diagnosis. Kirkus Reviews awarded it their "Get It" verdict, calling it "funny, honest, and heart-wrenching," and the book delivers exactly what its title promises: the dates are, indeed, really bad.
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for
Midlife readers — particularly women navigating divorce, re-entry into dating, grief, or identity reinvention after 40 — who want those experiences rendered with honesty and wit rather than reassuring gloss.
Worth it if
You can hold comedy and real emotional weight in the same hand — if a memoir that is simultaneously a dating chronicle, a divorce narrative, a grief story, and a PTSD recovery account sounds like ambition rather than overreach.
Skip if
You're coming for a breezy, laughs-only dating comedy and would prefer to skip the genuinely heavy emotional terrain — the darkness here is real and Lithgow does not soften it, and Joe's recurring drift in and out of the narrative resists the clean resolution some readers prefer.
What readers & critics say
Kirkus Reviews awarded the book their "Get It" endorsement and called it "funny, honest, and heart-wrenching," singling out Lithgow's humor and her unflinching portrayal of family trauma as particular strengths for a debut memoir. BookLife (via barnesandnoble.com) described it as "a raw, bitingly funny, and heart-bruised memoir," while the book blog Mandy's Book Nook called it "a gem — a breezy, hilarious, and surprisingly moving account."
“Funny, honest, and heart-wrenching; true to the title, the dates are really bad.”
— Kirkus Reviews4.1from 54 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score
Look inside the book
Preview the actual pages, via Google BooksIn This Review
- What Works & What Doesn't
- What the Book Is — and What Actually Happens
- The Deeper Stakes: Divorce, Grief, and a PTSD Diagnosis
- Where the Writing Shines
- Genuine Limitations
- Who This Book Is For
What Works & What Doesn't
What Works
- Kirkus Reviews awarded a 'Get It' verdict, praising it as 'funny, honest, and heart-wrenching' — a strong endorsement for a debut memoir
- The humor is grounded and specific, as in Lithgow's 'dating math' concept, which Kirkus cites as evidence of genuine comedic craft
- The memoir addresses an underserved subject — dating, PTSD, grief, and reinvention in midlife — with unusual tonal range
- The emotional stakes extend well beyond the dates themselves, weaving in divorce, single motherhood, family trauma, and RTT therapy into a cohesive arc
- Published by She Writes Press, a respected independent press with a strong track record in women's memoir
What Doesn't
- The title's comedic promise may lead some readers to underestimate how emotionally heavy the memoir becomes — the darkness is real, not decorative
- Joe's recurring presence throughout the year, drifting in and out of Lithgow's life, means that particular thread resists the clean resolution some readers prefer
A debut memoir that earns its title on every count, My Year of Really Bad Dates is as much a story of inner reckoning as it is a catalogue of romantic disasters.
What the Book Is — and What Actually Happens
My Year of Really Bad Dates: A Memoir by Rachel Lithgow front cover
Months before her 50th birthday, Rachel Lithgow is blindsided when Joe — whom she describes as "the first man [she] ever dated to make [her] feel completely safe at any moment" — abruptly ends their relationship to move to Phoenix and move in with a woman he met a week prior. What follows, as Lithgow chronicles in this debut memoir published by She Writes Press, is a year of re-entering the online dating pool with results that range from baffling to genuinely alarming. The parade of dates includes a man going on his first outing since middle school who still lived with his ex-wife and her boyfriend, several men preoccupied with their own anatomy, one who was cheap in the extreme, one who was wealthy in the extreme, and one so unsettling that Lithgow, as Kirkus Reviews recounts, "excused [her]self to go to the bathroom and exited through the little-known back way out of the oyster bar." Joe, meanwhile, continued to drift in and out of her life throughout the year, compounding the emotional turbulence.
“the darkest, saddest, angriest parts of [her]self that [she] could never deal with or had the time to explore.”
The Deeper Stakes: Divorce, Grief, and a PTSD Diagnosis
The bad dates are only one layer of what Lithgow is processing. Running concurrently are the final stages of dissolving a fraught 22-year marriage, raising two teenagers, and rebuilding a career after leaving a thirty-year professional life to write full time — a transition that followed both her father's death and her divorce. The emotional weight of all of this, per Kirkus Reviews, surfaces as "the darkest, saddest, angriest parts of [her]self that [she] could never deal with or had the time to explore." A turning point comes when her friend Leah connects her with Dr. Z, a practitioner of Rapid Transformational Therapy — described in the memoir as "a combination of hypnosis, talk therapy, and coaching" — who diagnoses Lithgow with PTSD rooted in a chaotic family upbringing. Her RTT work with Dr. Z becomes a significant thread in the memoir's arc toward self-understanding.
Where the Writing Shines
Kirkus Reviews singles out Lithgow's humor as one of the memoir's genuine strengths, pointing specifically to her invention of "dating math" — an algorithm she mentally applies to every profile to pre-correct for the gap between stated and actual age and height. The review quotes her directly: "Even after I applied the dating math algorithm in my head, which aged him five years and decreased his height by four inches, he was still someone I'd date." That kind of wry, self-aware comedy runs alongside passages of real emotional weight. Kirkus notes that the descriptions of verbal abuse from both her in-laws and her own family are "hair-raising," and that this darkness makes her eventual reckoning with her past feel hard-won rather than tidy. The publisher's synopsis describes the overall register as a "unique mix of humor, self-deprecation, and gritty vulnerability." An additional detail from the Kirkus review adds texture: according to the memoir's own acknowledgments, the book began life as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry" before Lithgow turned to prose — a genesis that may explain the emotional intensity of the writing.
Genuine Limitations
Readers looking for a straightforward, breezy dating comedy may find the memoir's emotional range more demanding than the title alone suggests. The book is simultaneously a chronicle of bad dates, a divorce narrative, a grief memoir, a single-motherhood account, and a PTSD recovery story. That breadth is also part of the book's ambition, but readers who come for laughs should know that the darkness is real and that Lithgow does not soften it. Additionally, because Joe remains a recurring presence — re-entering and exiting Lithgow's life throughout the year — readers who prefer clean narrative trajectories may find that strand unresolved in the way life itself tends to be unresolved.
Who This Book Is For
My Year of Really Bad Dates is designed for readers who have navigated midlife upheaval — divorce, re-entry into dating, grief, or the particular disorientation of reinventing oneself after 40 — and who want to see those experiences rendered with honesty and wit rather than reassuring gloss. The publisher positions it squarely as a story of "starting over in midlife," with the bad dates anchoring each chapter as both comic relief and emotional marker. Kirkus Reviews gave the book their "Get It" endorsement and called it "funny, honest, and heart-wrenching" — a three-part description that reflects the memoir's actual tonal range rather than a single note. For readers who have ever sat across from a bad date thinking there has to be more to life than this, Lithgow's answer — messy, funny, and ultimately hopeful — is likely to resonate.
Frequently Asked Questions
is My Year of Really Bad Dates: A Memoir by Rachel Lithgow worth reading or just a funny dating book
It's worth reading if you want more than just laughs — Kirkus Reviews gave it their "Get It" endorsement and called it "funny, honest, and heart-wrenching," which reflects the book's actual tonal range. The bad dates are real and genuinely amusing (including one where Lithgow slips out a back exit of an oyster bar to escape an unsettling man), but the memoir is simultaneously a divorce narrative, a grief story, a single-motherhood account, and a PTSD recovery arc. Readers who come only for breezy dating comedy should know the darkness is real and Lithgow does not soften it.
What is this book actually about beyond the dates
Beyond the parade of ill-fated online dates, Rachel Lithgow is processing the final stages of dissolving a fraught 22-year marriage, raising two teenagers, and rebuilding a career after leaving a thirty-year professional life to write full time — a transition that followed both her father's death and her divorce. A major thread in the memoir's arc is her work with Dr. Z, a practitioner of Rapid Transformational Therapy described as "a combination of hypnosis, talk therapy, and coaching," who diagnoses her with PTSD rooted in a chaotic family upbringing. The bad dates anchor each chapter as both comic relief and emotional marker while all of this unfolds concurrently.
Who is Joe in this book
Joe is the man whose abrupt departure sets the entire memoir in motion — Lithgow describes him as "the first man [she] ever dated to make [her] feel completely safe at any moment," which makes it all the more gutting when he ends the relationship to move to Phoenix and move in with a woman he met a week prior. Complicating the emotional landscape, Joe continues to drift in and out of Lithgow's life throughout the year she is dating. Readers who prefer clean narrative trajectories may find that strand unresolved in the way life itself tends to be unresolved.
Is this book good for someone going through a divorce or midlife reinvention
It's squarely aimed at exactly that reader — the publisher positions it as a story of "starting over in midlife," and the review notes it's designed for people who have navigated divorce, re-entry into dating, grief, or the particular disorientation of reinventing oneself after 40. Lithgow renders those experiences with honesty and wit rather than reassuring gloss, so it's likely to resonate if you've ever sat across from a bad date thinking there has to be more to life than this. The memoir is adult in content and context throughout, addressing PTSD, family trauma, and the specific emotional landscape of midlife reinvention.
What is the dating math thing in this book
"Dating math" is Lithgow's invented algorithm for pre-correcting the gap between what men claim on their profiles and reality — specifically aging them up by five years and decreasing their stated height by four inches before she agrees to meet. Kirkus Reviews singles it out as one of the memoir's genuine strengths of humor, quoting Lithgow directly: "Even after I applied the dating math algorithm in my head, which aged him five years and decreased his height by four inches, he was still someone I'd date." It's the kind of wry, self-aware comedy the review says runs alongside passages of real emotional weight throughout the book.
Does this book have a happy ending or is it depressing
The memoir is described as "messy, funny, and ultimately hopeful" — so it leans toward hope, but without a tidy resolution. Kirkus Reviews notes that Lithgow's eventual reckoning with her past feels hard-won rather than polished, partly because the descriptions of verbal abuse from her in-laws and her own family are "hair-raising" and she doesn't soften them. The arc through her RTT work with Dr. Z moves toward genuine self-understanding, but the Joe strand in particular remains as unresolved as life itself tends to be.
Is this book too heavy or emotionally intense to enjoy
It can be demanding — the review explicitly cautions that readers looking for a straightforward, breezy dating comedy may find the memoir's emotional range more than the title alone suggests. Kirkus notes the descriptions of verbal abuse from both Lithgow's in-laws and her own family are "hair-raising," and that darkness is woven throughout rather than confined to a few chapters. That said, the humor is consistent enough — the "dating math" algorithm, the oyster bar escape — that the book earns its publisher's description of a "unique mix of humor, self-deprecation, and gritty vulnerability" rather than tipping into pure heaviness.
Sources & Further Reading
The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.
- Cited in this review
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- Further reading
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kirkusreviews.com
- 3
- 4
racheljlithgow.com
- 5
- 6
- 7
app.thestorygraph.com
- 8
- 9
- 10
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