In the latest novel by the critically celebrated, #1 "New York Times"-bestselling author ("In her Shoes, Best Friends Forever"), four women bound by obligation and opportunity struggle to find a way to make a family.
May 16, 2011
Weiner (Best Friends Forever) revisits girls-are-their-own-best-friends territory with this savvy tale of a profoundly unorthodox family, unspooling the impossibly complicated and hopeful tale of how baby Aurora was born. The players: beautiful, lonely Princeton student and egg donor Jules, who uses the proceeds from selling her eggs to help save her drug-addled dad; surrogate Annie, a restless married mom-of-two trying to dig her way out of debt, a lifelong rivalry with her successful sister, and a marital rut; Bettina, India's step-daughter, who feels betrayed by her divorced parents and is desperate to rebuild the imagined happiness of her youth; and Aurora's legal mom, India, a gold digger who inadvertently falls in love with the man she married for money. Their individual paths to each other, and Aurora, are related in alternating chapters narrated by each woman, told with equal parts love and longingâwhether it be for a partner, a purpose, or a family. The men in their livesâin Jules's case, the womanâare inexplicably forgiving and disappointingly superfluous as the gals build a network and a modern village to raise the baby each of whom had a hand in creating.
Starred review from November 1, 2011
Four very different women are depicted in popular chick lit author Weiner's well-written and entertaining best seller. The women, all connected with a surrogate pregnancy, tell their stories in alternating chapters. India Bishop is a trophy wife who lied about her age and is desperate to get pregnant. Bettina, her stepdaughter, is highly suspicious and very protective of her wealthy father. Annie, a financially struggling mother of two, becomes the surrogate for India after Jules, a young student with her own reasons for accepting the money, donates her eggs. As in most of Weiner's books, the outcome is unexpected, and readers will be drawn in quickly as the four become intertwined in a surprising way. Four narrators make it easy to distinguish among the characters; their reading is professional, although lacking regional accents. This one will be popular with Weiner's many followers. ["Fans of Marian Keyes, Anna Maxted, and other authors of serious chick lit will thoroughly enjoy this title for its humor mixed with a sympathetic portrayal of real women's lives and challenges," read the review of the New York Times best-selling Atria: S. & S. hc, LJ 6/1/11; see Major Audio Releases, LJ 6/15/11.--Ed.]--Mary Knapp, Madison P.L., WI
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