Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner

Cannie Shapiro, the main character in Jennifer Weiner's first novel returns. It's twelve years after the events in Good in Bed. Her daughter, Joy, is now almost a teenager and planning her bat mitzvah. Cannie is also very happily married to Peter, a doctor. Cracks, though, have started to appear in the mother-daughter relationship. Joy finds her mother overbearing and unfashionable. Things get even worse when Joy starts to read the novel Cannie wrote before she was born. Joy wonders how much of it is based on Cannie's own life--especially the parts about the main character's father abandoning the family when she was a child and her reaction when she finds herself pregnant and unmarried (which did happen to Cannie; Joy was the outcome). At the same time, Cannie is trying to come to terms with the fact that Joy is growing up and that Peter wants them to have a baby. Weiner gives the reader both Cannie's and Joy's points of view and the book is an enjoyable read. I did feel however a bit surprised and disappointed at something that happened near the end, maybe leaving the door open for another book with Cannie.