For a group of four New York friends, the past ten years have been defined by marriage and motherhood. Educated to believe that they and their generation would conquer the world, they nonetheless left high-powered jobs to stay at home with their babies. What was intended as a temporary time-out has turned into a decade. Now at forty, with their kids growing up, Amy, Jill, Roberta and Karen wake up to a life and a future that is not what they intended. Illicit affairs, money problems, issues with children and husbands all rear their heads, and the friends wonder if it's time for a change...What comes after chick-lit? Mum-lit, perhaps - but tales of hyper-active kids, moribund marriages and the career opportunities that got away will seldom match Wolitzer's wit, bite and schmaltz-free sympathy, IndependentThis one shouldn't be only for chicks. It's for everyone. It asks far-reaching questions about the place of women in society and within the family unit, but it asks also whether life has been fair to men, Daily TelegraphThe latest novel from the excellent Meg Wolitzer presents four New York mothers emerging from a decade in babyland... a wonderful study of muddy equivocation, a hilarious yet compassionate examination of the primordial slime and the modern woman, GuardianTerrific... Wolitzer's novels have always been exemplars of the motto that the personal is political... [Offers] many pleasing, surprising contrasts, The TimesIt made me think about a woman's eternal problem of balancing the love she has for her children with what to do when they finally leave home. A serious, meaty read, Essentials