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Salon writer Mary Elizabeth Williams puts her finger on why Charla Krupp's How Not to Look Old is so successful, and why she finds the subject matter so irksome.

FROM SALON:

Krupp's success is fueled largely by the sheer numbers of her potential readers: The baby boomers have now all fully passed into middle age and beyond, and we Gen-Xers are right there behind them. Forty still isn't and never will be the new 30, but it isn't a Sunset Boulevard death knell anymore, either. The women who once camped out for Whitesnake tickets are not going to go gentle into that Eileen Fisher.

The book also resonates because, to its credit, much of Krupp's fast fix advice makes common sense. The author's main mantra is a call to simple, unfussy elegance: loose hair, lighter makeup, restraint of embellishment. She also cautions as strongly against trying to look too young as she does against emulating grandma. You get to a certain stage in life, and Forever 21 and Urban Decay no longer speak to you. Your underpants no longer have funny sayings on them--or at least they shouldn't. It's a not-so-fine line between being youthful and relevant and being Dina Lohan.

But she goes on to criticize the scare tactic messages that this book, television shows and magazine covers fling in women's faces:

One could argue that we'd be better served by nurturing our self-esteem than spending money on hair dye, that books like Krupp's and shows like TLC's Ten Years Younger prey on our deepest insecurities. But most of the women I know can read books and don shapewear at the same time. We can run our lives and still want to diminish our crow's feet. If there's something sad about our collective desire to stay as dewy fresh as possible, letting yourself go isn't all it's cracked up to be either. And there's nothing inherently ennobling about ugly shoes.

I guess my question at this point is, does this make you want to get Botox or not?