The Ten-Year Nap (2008)

What determines a woman's worth? Meg Wolitzer (The Position) turns her laser gaze on the rarefied world of NYC moms wealthy enough to stay home with their kids, but intelligent enough to feel the tugging lack of purpose that results. In The Ten-Year Nap, she hopscotches through time, occasionally dropping in brief vignettes of the main characters' own mothers as well as of high-achieving women like Nadia Comaneci and Margaret Thatcher — a risky gamble that somehow works. Wolitzer's middle-aged moms are flawed: selfish, neurotic, and occasionally petty. But they — and their conflicts — feel vividly, satisfyingly real. A-