The Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer

I recently finished reading "The Ten Year Nap" -- a slightly sprawling saga of 4 New York women in the present day who have all followed the "mommy track" to raise their kids. It weaves back and forth between the lives of these 4 women, and their mothers who were/are very different from their daughters. Although I was mildly annoyed at first by the mothers' stories (I was anxious to learn more about the 4 women of today) but soon figured out that it was necessary to understand the mothers in order to understand their daughters.

There is no mystery, no great reveal, no secrets, but Meg Wolitzer's writing and story line really held my interest all the way through. It actually made me want to go to the gym and do my hour on the elliptical or bike, just to have a chance to read more of this book. Not a bad thing, huh?

Now I am looking forward to reading some of her older books, most notably, The Position and The Wife, considered by some to be some of the best modern writing about women and sex.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meg_Wolitzer

And something said by one of the minor characters in The Ten Year Nap really resonated with me:
"But mostly, though, he knew that if you longed for what you did not have, then you would be one of those unhappy people you could find anywhere in any setting, the ones who couldn't appreciate what they had as long as they saw something they did not have. "