content: This is the first book I've read by Meg Wolitzer, and overall, I enjoyed it. The plot brings three just-turned-thirty friends into close and prolonged contact with the 50-something mother of their recently deceased friend. Wolitzer is able to pull this off because she obviously likes all of her characters, their various flaws notwithstanding. She also has the type of sense of humor that allows her to ligthen things up when emotions and events threaten to drag things down too much. The strongest character is the Mother, Natalie, who is one of the more appealing baby boomers in recent fiction, and by no means a mere caricature. My only objection is that several secondary characters are not as clearly drawn as the main ones. But in fairness to Wolitzer, in most novels the reader would not even care about knowing more about such relatively minor characters, and it's only her gift for making you care that makes this an issue at all.