Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
DNA test results rattle a middle-aged New Yorker in the poignant latest from Quindlen (After Annie). Polly Goodman teaches English at a private school for girls and meets once per month with her book club, which includes Helen, Jamie, and Sarah. As a gag gift for Polly's 42nd birthday, the women give her a DNA test, sparked by her concern that her trouble getting pregnant might result from "bad genes." After Polly submits her sample, she receives a notification from the company's website that a relative of hers has just taken the test. She then receives a message from someone named Talia Burton, who asks Polly to explain "how we're related." She travels to Vermont to meet Talia, who turns out to be a 16-year-old Black girl desperate to learn about her extended family. Back in New York, Sarah helps Polly with the mystery of her connection to Talia, though Polly's quest is complicated by Sarah's cancer and her own nausea from hormone injections related to IVF treatment. The revelations are predictable, but Quindlen charms with her nuanced depiction of the women's close bonds ("I wouldn't think it was possible, but I think you've gotten even nicer after being sick," Jamie tells Sarah, adding that she "didn't necessarily mean it as a compliment"). The author's fans will find much to admire. Agent: Amanda Urban, CAA. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Quindlen's (After Annie) newest novel features New York City English teacher Polly Goodman, who leads a full life, between her veterinarian husband and her book club friends. Polly and husband Mark are trying to conceive a child. In the midst of IVF, Polly's friends gift her with a DNA test. She ends up discovering an unexpected close genetic relative, a teenager, and doesn't share this revelation with her biological family. (Polly has a close relationship with her father, who has rapidly advancing dementia, but her relationship with her mother is strained.) The existence of this teenager who shares most of Polly's DNA leaves Polly with questions about her own parents, but she and the girl begin a friendship. Over the course of an eventful year, Polly contends with her family's secrets as well as the illness of her closest friend. In this story about relationships, familial and chosen, warm and difficult, the characters are rendered tenderly but realistically. Quindlen's writing makes the plot flow smoothly. VERDICT Highly recommended for all public library collections. Quindlen's slice-of-life tale will appeal to general fiction readers and especially to book club members.--Kristen Stewart
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Infertility, family secrets, and alpacas all figure in Quindlen's latest meditation on mothering and domesticity. Polly's life looks enviable. Happily married to the adoring Mark--a vet at the Bronx Zoo--she teaches English at a private Manhattan girls' school and loves her work. She has a protective older brother and close girlfriends, who've formed a book club where no one is expected to read the book. But Polly desperately wants a child and, at 42, knows time is running out. She and Mark have gone through endless fertility treatments, to no avail. Meantime, Polly's friends have given her a DNA kit as a jokey birthday gift, and something mysterious shows up in the test results. Then, out of nowhere, a young woman contacts her, suggesting they may be related. That's not all: Polly feels estranged from her mother, a revered judge who's insufficiently maternal in her daughter's view. Her father has always cherished her, but he's in a nursing home now with a rapidly failing mind. And something is amiss with her best pal, Sarah. Quindlen's trademark empathy is evident throughout, and her wry humor leavens some of the serious goings-on. Early on, Mark and Polly visit a fertility clinic with photos of babies in the waiting room; for Polly, "it felt…like a Weight Watchers facility with hot fudge sundae pictures on the wall." Then we meet these charming alpacas, humming and pronking, on a farm run by an earth mother, whose wisdom will help Polly get on with her life. The plot swerves around a bit, there may be one surplus narrative thread (e.g., Polly's star student Josephine running aground after graduation), and at the end, the author ties things up too neatly, pushing the "circle of life" theme too hard. Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
