NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK
CLUB PICK
An insightful, hilarious, and compulsively readable novel about a
complicated friendship between two women who are at two very different
stages in life, from the bestselling author of Maine and Saints for
All Occasions.
Elisabeth, an accomplished journalist and new mother, is struggling to
adjust to life in a small town after nearly twenty years in New York
City. Alone in the house with her infant son all day (and awake with him
much of the night), she feels uneasy, adrift. She neglects her work,
losing untold hours to her Brooklyn moms' Facebook group, her
"influencer" sister's Instagram feed, and text messages with the best
friend she never sees anymore. Enter Sam, a senior at the local women's
college, whom Elisabeth hires to babysit. Sam is struggling to decide
between the path she's always planned on and a romantic entanglement
that threatens her ambition. She's worried about student loan debt and
what the future holds. In short order, they grow close. But when Sam
finds an unlikely kindred spirit in Elisabeth's father-in-law, the true
differences between the women's lives become starkly revealed and a
betrayal has devastating consequences.
A masterful exploration of motherhood, power dynamics, and privilege in
its many forms, Friends and Strangers reveals how a single year can
shape the course of a life.
