Not being American, I was only vaguely aware of Katie Roiphe but was drawn in by her Guardian piece about single parenting. This collection ranges widely, with some articles less interesting for non-American readers and some universal.

What struck me was that she writes about a lot of things that fascinate a lot of other journalists, but her measured tone makes her articles and opinions stand out. Take her piece about how the child is king. I must have read about a hundred similar articles (in English and German), but hers is better because it consists of more than rhetoric and ridicule. And her Shades of Grey and Mad Men articles also raise points I hadn't actually read a thousand times.

Holding the collection together (albeit loosely) is Roiphe's embrace of "messy lives" - kids and parents who don't have to be perfect, a horror at the idea that relationships are "work", admitting to failures and flaws. Yet I found her definition of messy stood in contrast to a very New York kind of neat; to be precise, a very middle class New York way of life. So I wasn't sure how far her observations could be carried over to other lives, and that disappointed me.

In my own life, I try to avoid being defensive about single parenting - but then I live in a very different place to New York. Still, I felt inspired to think more closely about attitudes where I am, and am still thinking. An excellent sign.

I enjoyed Roiphe's writing about literature and journalism, which I found clear and interesting. My greatest niggle would be that the British edition doesn't give dates of publication for the articles, which left me rather confused about what exactly she was referring to in some cases.