content: Although it has a few gems, this book desperately needs an editor. With all the character's pedestrian musings on life, marriage, sex, children, and the meaning of true happiness, no conclusion is reached, no epiphany occurs, nothing *happens*. Character and scene development rely on descriptions that are repeated in each chapter with no new information; the main character feels the same emotions again and again with no new insight. The result, to me, is a dissipated, meaningless manuscript containing some glaring mistakes (Germany is 6 hours ahead of the east coast in the winter, not 15; no woman drops to her original weight a few weeks after having a baby). I feel an editor is needed to make this into a novel I would enjoy and recommend.