A Slot Machine Ate My Midlife Crisis by Irene Woodbury

Irene Woodbury is on tour with CLP Blog Tours and A Slot Machine Ate My Midlife Crisis. This book is described as a “darkly funny novel” and I could definitely see that. The humor is there, right from the get go. The main character is Wendy Sinclair, a forty-five year old newly-wed who starts to suffer from a mid-life crisis. She moves from LA to Houston for her husband’s job, loses her own job, and starts to feel the strains way too quickly in her new house. She heads off to Vegas for an extended weekend with her self-absorbed gal pal Paula––and doesn’t come back. The draw of Sin City makes Wendy wonder if she made a mistake with marrying Roger. Can she handle the stuck up wives of his colleagues? Does she want to go back to no job and sleeping in a separate bedroom from her new husband? How will Wendy’s Las Vegas adventure end?

I enjoyed the humor, the descriptions of Las Vegas (almost like reading a tourist guide!) and the positive attitude Wendy brings to making the life she wants to live. Her friendship with Paula reminds me of a typical LA friendship/frenemy type, but made me laugh many times. I did think the book was a bit too long though. My editor nose was sniffing out scenes that could have been deleted to help keep the book at a quicker pace. And I sometimes wondered why it was taking so long for Wendy or Roger to stick a fork in their marriage. Over a two year time span, you could almost count the number of times they saw each other on one hand. That part had me a little perplexed. Overall though, A Slot Machine Ate My Midlife Crisis gave me plenty of laughs, and really spoke to my travel-loving self, and let me see Vegas through different eyes.