I think the best way to judge this book would be to decide whether I’d read another by the same author, and on reflection I would probably try one sometime. It’s mostly a character study with no real plot to speak off.

Various thirty something mothers in suburban Arlington Park ramble through a the day pontificating on their trials and tribulations, relationships, children, work, the state of the world, that kind of thing. I was expecting more in the way of unification between the separate threads of the book but in the end I didn’t really object to the lack of it. And I would have preferred it if the threads had entwined a bit quicker.

There were so many great characterisations, not just the major players but some of the unseen minor ones (the headmistress silently making “tucking motions” to girls with their school shirts hanging loose will stick in my head, just too true to life!) though that I’m left with a good impression of the book now I know the whole of it whereas when reading it I was sometimes wondering where it was going.