The sequel to Fifty Acres and a Poodle, a great book in the current flood of urbanites-move-to-the-country experiences (which seems to repeat at least once a decade). Laskas can be very funny and sometimes touching; not a particularly original style (reads like many free-paper first-person essays, lots of one-word paragraphs), but enjoyable. Laskas turns forty, her parents have health issues, and suddenly she decides she wants a child of her own (her husband has grown children from a previous marriage), tries infertility treatments and then adopts a little girl from China (another theme in many books and also in the lives of acquaintances). Full of strange, loveable animals (like Sparky, an old beagle who likes to sleep in the road) and strange, loveable people, as any good country tale should be.
Great book and accurate assessment of the writing style