When I started reading the description of this novel, my first thought was, "Older woman deals with marital problems by moving to vacation home in CT, eventually joined by adult daughters with problems of their own?....The Three Weissmanns of Westport!" I imagine that Jennifer Weiner must have been dismayed when Catherine Schine's novel was first publicized, because the similarities in plot seem striking. Closer reading reveals a completely different feel to Weiner's novel, though. Her heroine, Sylvie Serfer Woodruff, is strong and resilient, living firmly in the real world and facing her husband's infidelity by withdrawing to her family's country ocean-side vacation retreat to heal and to think about her choices for the future. Daughters Lizzie, a recovering drug addict, and Diana, a high achieving, staunchly correct physician who has herself been unfaithful to her boring husband, also face life-changing dilemmas that result in their joining their mother in Connecticut to think through their options, or perhaps to hide.
Weiner has an interesting way of taking current events like the ubiquitous trend toward cheating married politicians and turning them into a thoughful, entertaining novel. Her treatment of Sylvie's approach to dealing with her husband's infidelity is right on the mark. I think I might behave the same way, assuming that I am an itelligent, thoughtful woman, in a similar situation. Lizzie's happy ending and Diana's marriage are a little too trite and predictable, but perhaps Weiner preferred to produce an uplifting, life-affirming novel rather than a contender for an eventual Oprah pick. If you are a fan of Jennifer Weiner, or even if you are not, this novel is well worth taking a look at!
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