More Than Enough by Anna Quindlen

 In the latest novel from Anna Quindlen, More Than Enough, she tackles dementia, mother-daughter relationships, terminal illness, identity, and infertility. Whatever narrative is active, all these issues play seamlessly in the background.

Polly Goodman is on her second—and highly improved—marriage to a gentle veterinarian who adores her. She loves her career teaching English at a private all-female high school. On the downside slope, her father is in assisted living and fading away, she and her mother struggle in their relationship, her friend is battling cancer, an unknown person reaches out claiming a blood connection through DNA testing, and she and her husband struggle with infertility.

As her father descends into a condition that may force him into a higher level of care, she holds a grudge against her mother for ever placing him into an institution. She has always felt a disconnect in her relationship with her mother.

Even though her friend has had a double mastectomy and is seemingly in good health, the latest tests say otherwise, and Polly finds herself struggling to accept the inevitable. When her friends get her a DNA test kit as a gift, she soon is contacted by a young woman claiming they are closely related even though Polly knows there are no relatives outside of her mother, father, bachelor brother, and an uncle. Who could this mystery person be?

At 42, Polly knows her biological clock is ticking down as she and her husband have gone through endless treatments and procedures without a viable pregnancy. Her students are somewhat surrogate daughters but she yearns for a baby of her own to hold just like her sister-in-law who has two daughters and a newborn son.

Polly is weighed down with the empathy that author Quindlen has trademarked. The story would be a downer if not for the wry humor that Quindlen inserts throughout the story through Polly’s husband, brother, and friends as well as an off-beat trip to an alpaca farm

Anna Quindlen, a novelist and journalist whose work has appeared on fiction, nonfiction, and self-help bestseller lists, won the Pulitzer Prize as a columnist at The New York Times. She lives in Manhattan.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting November 29, 2025.

I would like to thank Random House and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.