by Emily Giffin
First published 2010
Tessa Russo has abandoned her career to focus on her two young children and her marriage to a celebrated pediatric surgeon. She pursues the perfect domestic life despite her mother's doubts. Valerie Anderson works as an attorney while raising six-year-old Charlie alone. His father never entered their lives. After repeated letdowns, Valerie has sworn off romance and keeps friendships at arm's length. She believes low expectations prevent heartbreak. The two women share little beyond living in the same Boston suburb and loving their children fiercely. Then one night brings a terrible accident that throws their separate worlds together. Everything they thought they knew gets questioned. Each woman faces trials she never imagined possible. Their beliefs about family, love, and what really counts get turned upside down. Giffin tells their story through alternating perspectives as both mothers navigate circumstances that have no easy answers.
Genres: fiction, domestic-fiction, family-life, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Boston
Period: 21st-century
368 pages · Hardcover · St. Martin's Press
Content warnings: anxiety, depression, mental-illness