Pepper Mills didn’t choose to stop driving or to movie into Vista View Retirement Community. Those were the choices of her adult children. But, opting to make the best of it, she begins to make friends and even starts up a romantic connection with her handsome neighbour. Then, just as she is settling into her new life, Pepper finds out that she’s pregnant. At the age of 77.
When the news becomes public, everyone has an opinion. Some say it’s a miracle, some say it’s gross that a septuagenarian would be sexually active. And it turns out that this is another thing that Pepper doesn’t get a say about when it turns out that the state of Texas has determined that she must carry this pregnancy to term. This is a story about body autonomy and women’s rights, but it’s also a story about family. It’s a story about thinking your life will go one way, or that the major moments of your life are behind you, and then learning to pivot entirely.
Pepper is charming as our heroine and narrator. She’s sassy and funny and curious about the world around her. We get to see her with her adult children – two daughters and a son – and with her grandchildren, particularly her eldest granddaughter, Lola. Frankel does an excellent job at creating unique relationships between Pepper and each of these characters so that they really feel like genuine people.
Frankel also doesn’t lean into easy answers. Women’s health and fertility is complex. Pregnancy is miraculous and terrifying. Some women long to have children and some women die due to pregnancy and birth complications. As a woman with my own history of complicated pregnancies, I’m also someone who now, at 40, would be dismayed to find myself pregnant. Frankel uses an absurd situation to explore some real life situations and complex questions that many women are finding themselves in even now.
The title of the book comes from the short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. A former English teacher, Pepper thinks of this story where a miracle appears in a manner that many find grotesque. It’s a great image and reference for this story of unexpected, unwanted pregnancy and what can be made from a miracle like this.
Karissa Reads Books 
Good gravy 😵💫 I do find it wild when I hear that a person is pregnant in their forties, especially by choice. I’m tired now just being myself. I can’t imagine making another human and then having to care for it for at least 18 years because the law says I have to.