A one-time aspiring Broadway hoofer-turned-banking-flunky, Beth Robinson has quit her job to stay home and raise her two young daughters while her husband works in downtown Toronto. She cleans the basement, rakes the leaves, makes after-school snacks, and wistfully recalls her New York dancing days.

To her new neighbor, Rachel Klein, a high-powered career woman from Manhattan, Beth is a drudge. But Beth is friendly and Rachel is needy, and thus begins a friendship – and a story – that manages to be compelling and annoying.

Moritsugu succeeds in making Beth and her home life believable and entertaining. Rachel is less convincing – and considerably less endearing. Self-centred with a tendency to be caustic, she often comes across more as a stereotype than as a well-developed character: she’s the working woman who chooses career over family, the one who makes snippy observations about her neighbours’ happy home lives because, deep inside, she’s jealous.

It doesn’t help that Moritsugu has Beth and Rachel take turns narrating the story: Despite their different circumstances, the two often wind up sounding alike. The main distinguishing characteristic is that Rachel uses profanity. Beth doesn’t – until the end of the novel, where her sudden penchant for salty language serves mostly as a device to show how Rachel has influenced her.

And indeed, Rachel does spur Beth, who overcomes inertia to recapture the passion she had for dancing before she tied herself down with a husband and two kids. Beth’s influence on Rachel is less potent. True, Rachel does bake a pie. But she also flees back to Manhattan, having failed both at romance (a fling with a former beau) and work (she doesn’t get a desired promotion).

Is a woman who has had a career and gives it up for her family truly happier? Can a career woman change? Don’t expect Moritsugu to provide the answers. Indeed, those questions will likely stay with readers long after details about the characters’ lives fade from memory. And therein lies the true strength of this novel.