Growing up in 1950s Detroit, Jo and Bethie Kaufman live in a perfect “Dick and Jane” house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and women’s lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture and is up for anything (except settling down). Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, nor has a life that feels authentic or brings her joy. Is it too late for them to finally stake a claim on happily ever after?

Growing up in 1950s Detroit, Jo and Bethie Kaufman live in a perfect “Dick and Jane” house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and women’s lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture and is up for anything (except settling down). Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, nor has a life that feels authentic or brings her joy. Is it too late for them to finally stake a claim on happily ever after?

Jennifer Weiner is many things: a bestselling author, a Twitter phenomenon, and an “unlikely feminist enforcer” (The New Yorker). She’s also a mom, a daughter and a sister, a former rower and current clumsy yogini, a wife, a friend, and a reality-TV devotee. In her first essay collection, she takes the raw stuff of her life and spins it into a collection of tales of modern-day womanhood. Born in Louisiana, raised in Connecticut, educated at Princeton, Jennifer spent years feeling like an outsider before finding her people in newsrooms, and her voice as a novelist, activist and New York Times columnist.

Rachel Blum and Andy Landis are just eight years old when they meet one night in an ER waiting room. Born with a congenital heart defect, Rachel is a veteran of hospitals, and she’s intrigued by the boy who shows up alone with a broken arm. He tells her his name. She tells him a story. After Andy is taken back to a doctor and Rachel is sent back to her bed, they think they’ll never see each other again. Yet, over the next three decades, they will meet again and again --- linked by chance, history, and the memory of the first time they met, a night that changed the course of both of their lives.

Allison Weiss frets about the truth of her seemingly happy life: that her husband is becoming distant, that her daughter is acting out, that her father’s early Alzheimer’s is worsening and her mother is barely managing to cope. She tells herself that the pills she’s taking let her make it through her days. But what if her ever-increasing drug use, a habit that’s becoming expensive and hard to hide, is turning into her biggest problem of all?

Ruth Saunders headed west with her 70-year-old grandma in tow, hoping to be hired as a television writer. Four years later, she finally hits the jackpot when the sitcom she wrote, “The Next Best Thing,” gets the green light. But her dreams are threatened by demanding actors, number-crunching executives, a crush on her boss, and her grandmother’s impending nuptials.

Three women --- two seeking to earn money by donating their eggs, and one wealthier woman who believes a baby will ensure a happy ending for her marriage --- come together in this unexpected love story, which interweaves themes of class and entitlement, surrogacy and donorship, the rights of a parent and the measure of motherhood.