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The Panic Years

'Every millennial woman should have this on her bookshelf' Pandora Sykes

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The Panic Years

By: Nell Frizzell
Narrated by: Nell Frizzell
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

'Every millennial woman should have it on her bookshelf.' Pandora Sykes, journalist and co-host of The High Low Podcast

The Panic Years: something between adolescence and menopause, a personal crisis, a transformation.

The panic years can hit at any time but they are most commonly triggered somewhere between the ages of twenty-five and forty. During this time, every decision a woman makes - from postcode to partner, friends to family, work to weekends - will be impacted by the urgency of the one decision with a deadline, the one decision that is impossible to take back: whether or not to have a baby.

But how to stay sane in such a maddening time?
How to understand who you are and what you might want from life?
How to know if you're making the right decisions?

Raw, hilarious and beguilingly honest, Nell Frizzell's account of her panic years is both an arm around the shoulder and a campaign to start a conversation. This affects us all - women, men, mothers, children, partners, friends, colleagues - so it's time we started talking about it with a little more candour.

'Vital reading. Nell Frizzell is a master.' Rob Delaney, co-writer and co-star of Catastrophe

© Nell Frizzell 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

 Gender Studies Love, Dating & Attraction Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Relationships Sexual & Reproductive Health Social Sciences Inspiring Witty Thought-Provoking Comedy

Critic reviews

Nell Frizzell's thoughts on womanhood and motherhood are as informative as they are poetic. Writing that challenges and enlightens you just as much as it entertains and stimulates you is rare, this book confidently does both on an important and complicated topic for modern women.
Searingly honest, witty and moving. For anyone who knows what it's like to simultaneously want to weep with joy and throw your child out of the window, Frizzell is a very welcome voice in the conversation on motherhood.
There is so much about womanhood that feels indefinable. And yet with her definitions of the flux, and the panic years, Nell manages to define the indefinable - as well as uniting childfree women and mothers, where the two are so often pitted against one another. Lyrical, moving and thorough, this is a memoir, a feminist text and a piece of social commentary. Every millennial woman should have it on her bookshelf.
Wonderful... touching, helpful and enlightening.
A compassionate, funny and beautifully written exploration of contemporary womanhood - the book may have 'panic' in the title, but Nell's words calmed and soothed me deeply.
Nell Frizzell is a master. In The Panic Years, she picks you up and drops you deep inside herself and makes you see what she sees and feel what she feels in a manner that is both jarring and beautiful. I particularly recommend this book to men as it will start to heal the rift between the sexes that capitalism has – if not created – nourished and exploited. This book is a visceral exploration of one young woman’s life that has immediately applicable lessons for us all. Vital reading. Lest my trumpeting make you worry it’s only “important,” The Panic Years is also fun, funny, and warm. I love it dearly!
Heartening, eye-opening, hilarious. I'm glad Nell has given this weird time a term we can all use. (Emma Gannon)
Smart and perceptive...Written with real humour and consideration for the point at which every woman is in their life, this is a must-read for 2021.
Frizzell's compassionate, compulsive prose fizzes with imaginative humour and metaphor. A memoir that's funny and heartfelt, personal and political.
One of the most gripping, beautiful and euphoric glimpses of motherhood that I have ever read. Frizzell is an engaging and endearing narrator of this poignant memoir.
All stars
Most relevant
A really interesting read. As a 32yr old woman (without children), I found some of the themes in this book fascinating. It gave me a lot of food for thought and I found myself reflecting a lot about my own decisions relating to the question of whether I want to be a parent?

I enjoyed Nell’s ability to tell her story in a way that made me feel like I was listening to a friends thoughts. She brought humour as well as realism to a very sensitive topic.

Every 30 Something Needs This Book

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This took me back 20 years to age 30, very well observed and pretty intimate! Loved hearing about her family and I particularly liked the catch up at the very end- a nice touch!

Really enjoyed this, especially as it was read by the author.

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I found this book exactly when I needed it - at the beginning of my own ‘panic years.’ I was so glad to know that what I was feeling was normal and that I wasn’t alone. My friends had just surprised me by starting to have babies and so as they were researching how to have babies I was researching what happens when your friends have babies. I felt such a feeling of panic and disillusionment but when I voiced it to other people they just shrugged and said ‘that’s life.’ I am so glad that I listened to this book although I’m still not sure if I want to have a baby…

The panic is real… and normal

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I got this to try to better understand what some of my female friends are going through. I'm childless un my late 30s and I found parts ofnthis book confronting, but thats kind of the point. This is a very honest book with so many laughs to cut through the stress. I imagine it's especially hard for any women older than the author at the time of writing (early 30s)who hasn't had kids and wants them as Frizzell articulates the existential panic very well. Though I think good writing can and often should be confronting.

Great read for men too

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If you're going through the Panic Years yourself, this is a really difficult listen. It induces further panic and I think it should be made much clearer that it's ONE WOMAN'S very normative experience, rather than a book which delves in detail into the science, media, accepted norms and expectations which elicit such panic. The book never purports to represent anything other than the writer's view, hence why I say it's a hard one to review, but in it's cover copy, presentation and the way it is written, it does give off the impression that it will look more widely at the panic years from an objective point of view. Instead half the book is taken up with covering the writer's relationship, pregnancy and experience with a child, which is fairly triggering for the target audience. Small point, but perhaps it could have done with bringing in more and differing opinions, rather than just recounting conversations with mates - all of whom seem to also be writers - which reinforced the writer's, and therefore the listener's, sense of panic and failure. Basically it left me feeling more like a failure, more panicked, more scared that I might lose the opportunity to have something I don't even know I want, and more sad that the world has made late 20's - mid 30 something women like me feel this way than before I started the book. So it's effective, but not comfortable. Or possibly what women seeking to understand their panic need.

A hard one to review

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