I picked this book up looking for a lighter read and it fit the bill. Rebecca Winter is a 60-year old photographer, still famous but no longer sought-after, who moves to a rural town in an attempt to save money by renting her Manhattan apartment. She feels lost until she begins spending time with a local roofer, twenty years her junior, and finds a photography project in the mysterious crosses and mementos scattered through the woods. This didn't blow me away, but Quindlen is always a solid choice for excellent prose and depth of feeling. (Every Last One is my favorite of hers.)

Anna Quindlen's memoir is less the story of her life and more a series of essays reflecting on her own life and how the lives of women in general have changed over the last century. From marriage, friendships, parenthood, careers, loss (and the familial expectations placed on women during those times), to facing our own aging and mortality, Quindlen's reflections have a universal feel for American women even several generations after the baby boomers. I wasn't sure whether to laugh in solidarity or cry in...exhaustion, maybe?...over Quindlen's views on how the expectations of motherhood changed from when she was a child to when she was raising children. The activities, constant supervision, and the need to entertain and enrich every moment. This, from a woman who was a parent when I was a child, at a time that, compared to now, seemed filled with childhood freedoms and less parental oversight in every aspect of life. Or maybe this is the perspective of most children, once they become parents and hold the awesome responsibility. This is the part that stands out, since it is the stage of life that I'm in, but so much of what she says rings of truth, regardless of generation.

A mother who seems to have it all together deals with the aftermath of a breathtaking act of violence.