This book is about being a woman, trying to be a mother, having a family, trying to make a family work, failing and succeeding. Essays run from family estrangement to reconciliation, adoption struggles and recognizing the other mothers of adopted children, strengthening family ties by fighting the rats in the basement together, and realizing that, fundamentally, we all have it in us to be mothers if that is what we want for ourselves. The book is short, just 15 essays, each chosen because it represents an important event or point of view. The stories are not all happy ones. Raising children is a long tale that, if honestly told, has many regrettable chapters. Those chapters have great value if for no other reason than they make the happy times truly remarkable instead of common.