The novel is about the tension between two families with opposing views on the world. First there's the Richardsons: Mom, Dad, and high school children Lexie, Trip, Moody, and Izzy. They live in wealthy suburban Shaker Heights and are committed to living the traditional American Dream. Then there's Mia and Pearl, who move into a rental house the Richardsons own. Mia is an artist, traveling as inspiration strikes her with her high school daughter Pearl. As the children form friendships with each other, the mothers' opposing viewpoints are brought into conflict.
Mia is the hero of the book: wise, comforting to all, unflappable, unrelenting in pursuit of her craft. Her big secret--that she agreed to act as a surrogate for another couple but instead ran off with her unborn child--is a sign of her love and devotion. At the end she leaves intensely personal, perfectly tailored, on-the-nose art pieces for each member of the Richardson family. Which, c'mon, is just creepy. If she hadn't been run off by Mrs. Richardson, what would she have done with them? While Mia has many admirable traits, I wish she had been more nuanced. Is it that admirable to pursue your audience-less and payment-less art at all costs, even the life of your daughter?
If Mia's the hero, then the suburban characters--no, the suburban moms, of course--are the villains. I'm fully ready to acknowledge there is plenty wrong with suburbanites, but a broadly characterizing them as self-entitled, narrow-minded, and insular feels dully stereotypical at this point, especially when such criticism is always targeted at the moms. Even the names suggest such disdain. Mia, though an adult mother, is just Mia. But Mrs. Richardson and Mrs. McCullough are always their surnames, just another reflection of their lack of identity and coolness. Mrs. Richardson is portrayed as completely unsympathetic, and even though Mrs. McCullough ought to be more sympathetic given her enormous number of miscarriages and the loss of a child she has cared for as her own for a year, she too comes off undeserving because of her money.
Ultimately the book is deeply--and troublingly--romantic. It favors the passionate free spirits and vilifies the orderly suburbanites, all while ignoring reality. It suggests any pursuit of money or suggestion that money correlates to happiness is wrong but says nothing about the horror of poverty. At the end (massive spoilers), Bebe kidnaps her child from the McCulloughs and returns with the child to China. We're led to see it as an act of heroism, a rightful return, but Bebe is also destitute. A mother-daughter bond is powerful but does not provide food. I don't mean that to say that the baby should have stayed with the McCulloughs, but rather to suggest that Bebe and May Ling's ending is not a "happily ever after" as the novel implies. Similarly, 15-year-old Izzy runs away at the end after setting fire to her family home, with the implication that she will miraculously someday join Mia and Pearl and they'll all be happy, free spirits together. Again, this is a horrific misrepresentation of the life of a homeless runaway teen.
In the end the book paints with a very large brush in depicting its teenage and adult characters. Its targets feel easy. It's an engaging mystery with little depth or meaning.
Note: Looking up the cover for the book, I saw that the new Hulu miniseries specifically casts Mia and her daughter Pearl as black, a change from the book where their ethnicity is never referenced. I think this contrasts could add a layer that's missing from the book and also perhaps complicate Mia and Mrs. Richardson's relationship more than the novel does.
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