Huffington Post
by Dr. Irene S. Levine
Although it's sometimes hard to accept, life never evolves like a fairy tale. Journalist and author Irene Zutell's latest novel, Pieces of Happily Ever After (St. Martin's Griffin, 2009), sensitively captures the inevitable struggles that women encounter along the way, including: infidelity, divorce, balancing care for children and parents, juggling work and family, growing up, achieving independence, losing friends and making them.
You'll meet protagonist Alice Hirsch, a PR guru, who is married to Alex, an entertainment lawyer. They have a precocious five-year-old daughter and Alice is the primary caregiver for her mom, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. When Alice's husband suddenly dumps her, very publicly, for a Hollywood starlet, she has to find a way to dig herself out of her problems and repair her damaged self-esteem. With the support of her "mommy friends," a cast of equally interesting and well-developed characters, Alice is not only rescued but finds she is able to define her own "happily ever after."
Of course, I loved some of the lessons the book offers about mommy friendships---e.g. That woman need to actively forge new friendships as our lives change; that office friends can turn out to be nothing more than that; that we need to guard against judging friends too critically before we know them; and that adversity often helps us recognize our true friends. While friends and lovers play prominent roles in the book, its layered depiction of mother-daughter relationships is especially compelling.
Friendship by the Book is an occasional series of posts on The Friendship Blog about books that offer friendship lessons.