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|"They are in their 30s"

oh yeah i definitely get it

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basically dead

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today a student was shocked that they had AP classes "back in [my] day"

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Oh yeah! I was thinking of Strong Poison re: books that end with the woman choosing not-marriage, though it's sort of undone by Gaudy Night (by no means to my chagrin).

Feel like there are a couple Barbara Pym books that also fit this mould, though perhaps that goes without saying [speaking to "femcel canon" phrase coiner... my friend independently came up with "spinster lit"].

Have you read (... why do I ask; she hates answering this) A Suitable Boy? I remember being shocked & scandalized by the ending, i.e. Lata's choice of a husband, as a teen (it seemed like the death of hope), but when I re-read it in my mid-20s I thought the protagonist had just been wiser about life than I had been at 17.

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I think The Sweet Dove Died kind of fits.… and no, I haven’t, though I actually think I have a copy sitting around here, hm.…

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