One plus one, by Jojo Moyes

Jojo Moyes elevates “chick-lit” to a new standard.  Her absolutely amazing Me before you made me a fan and I thoroughly enjoyed her newest book.  More formulaic than the earlier title, it still boasts flawed but wonderful and fully-developed characters, social commentary, and a plot that keeps you turning the pages.  Jess is a young single mother of two children.  Her troubled teen-aged stepson, Nicky, keeps getting beat up by the odious Fisher boys; her gifted little daughter, Tanzie, longs to attend a school that will challenge her mathematical talents instead of the local one where she will inevitably be next up in the Fishers’ sights.  The biological father of both, Jess’s husband, Marty, left the family two years previously to hole up at his mother’s house and nurse his depression.  Money is a constant worry.  Into the plot steps Ed Nicholls, a technology wiz who has parlayed his former geekiness into founding a very successful company which has been recently acquired by “suits”  – unfortunately, he has just, through almost no fault of his own, been accused of insider trading.  Jess cleans his vacation house in the town where her family lives.  An epic road trip to Scotland unites this odd band – and let’s not forget Norman, the huge, smelly mixed breed dog who adds so much to the ambiance, already fouled by Tanzie’s propensity to carsickness at speeds over 40 mph and the effects of a dubious take-away kebab on Ed.  So who are we casting in the movie?  368 pp.