More Than Enough BOOK REVIEW

• Date Published:
  2026
• Length:
  256 pages—Listening Time: 8 hours 11 minutes
• Genre:
  Fiction
• Setting:
  Present day; New York City
• Awards:
  Quindlen is a 1992 Pulitzer Prize winner for her New York Times column Public & Private
• Languages:
  English
• Sensitive Aspects:
  Infertility and IVF treatments, pregnancy loss, abortion, cancer and terminal illness, dementia, death and bereavement, mental illness, suicidal ideation and death by suicide, bullying, substance use, family secrets and strained family relationships, infidelity, mild to moderate profanity and religious exclamations, brief sexual references and references to anatomy
• Movie:
  There is no movie adaptation of More Than Enough.
• Recommended for Book Club:
  Yes

You join a book club to talk about books. At least, that’s the official explanation. Somewhere between the first lively disagreement and the evening someone admits she’s barely made it past chapter two, something else happens. These people become your people. They learn which subjects make you light up, which worries you’re carrying, and when “I’m fine” deserves a raised eyebrow rather than a polite nod.

So when I found out that Anna Quindlen’s More Than Enough was about a book club, I had to read it. A novel about the friendships that grow around books? That’s an invitation I’m not turning down.

And then there was the DNA test.

Honestly, doesn’t that sound like the beginning of trouble? You send off a little saliva expecting a pleasantly distracting geography lesson, and suddenly your family history has questions you didn’t know to ask.

That’s the unsettling possibility at the heart of Quindlen’s story. Polly Goodman, a high school English teacher, has three book-club friends who know about the complicated corners of her life: her difficult relationship with her mother, her students, and her struggles with IVF. Along with her husband, these women are her anchors. Then they give her an ancestry-testing kit as a joke. The results connect her with a stranger, and what should have been a bit of fun becomes a reason to examine the family story she’s always accepted.

You can see why this premise grabbed me. There’s the irresistible pull of a possible family secret, certainly. But there’s also a more intimate question underneath it: What happens when the people who know you best have to help you navigate something you don’t understand about yourself?

Consumer DNA testing is hardly a niche curiosity anymore. A 2025 YouGov survey found that about one in five Americans had taken a home DNA test. These kits let ordinary people collect a sample—often saliva—and mail it away for analysis, bringing a once-specialized technology into everyday life.

But reliability needs a little unpacking. Identifying close biological relatives is a strength of DNA testing; estimating ancestral origins is less definitive. Those ancestry estimates compare your DNA with reference populations, rather than providing a perfectly precise map of where every ancestor lived. There isn’t one useful “accuracy percentage” that covers both kinds of results.

That tension—between what a test reveals and what a person believes—is the crux of More Than Enough. Just as important are the special bonds among Polly’s book-club members: the chosen family beside her as questions about biological family emerge. Quindlen places friendship, identity, and belonging in the same conversation, where they can complicate and illuminate one another.

If you’re drawn to stories about women whose friendships are woven into the fabric of their lives, this is a premise worth your attention. Come for the unexpected DNA match. The reason I couldn’t resist picking it up, though, was that familiar circle of women—and the promise that a book-club table might hold far more than books.

Spoiler-Free

Polly Goodman has a loving husband, a demanding job teaching high school English, and three book-club friends who hear about everything in between. Whether she’s navigating her difficult relationship with her mother or the disappointments of IVF, these women are the people she can turn to without pretending she’s holding it all together. Their gatherings are about much more than books—they’re a place to be honest.

Then her friends give her an ancestry DNA kit as a joke, and the results are anything but funny. The test connects Polly with a stranger who appears to be a biological relative. Convinced there must be a mistake, she nevertheless starts digging into her family history. What begins as an unexpected curiosity pushes her to question things she’s long taken for granted.

As Polly searches for answers, life doesn’t pause to let her sort everything out. Her hopes for motherhood, complicated family relationships, and the changing circumstances of her closest friends draw her into a deeper reckoning with what it means to belong. At its heart, More Than Enough is a story about connection: the family we inherit, the people we choose, and the relationships that help us understand who we are when familiar certainties begin to shift.

What drew me to this book was the book club. What makes me want to recommend it to you is the way its premise brings friendship, family, and belonging into one very personal conversation. If those are the things that keep you turning pages, here’s why I think this story will speak to you, too.

Friendship is more than a pleasant backdrop

Polly’s book-club friends are the women she can tell the messy version of her life—not just the version that sounds respectable over dinner. If your own reading group has ever gone from discussing a character’s problems to helping someone at the table work through hers, you’ll recognize the appeal.

The family mystery comes with emotional stakes

An unexpected DNA match is an intriguing hook, but the question underneath it is what pulled me in: What would you do if a test challenged the family story you’d always believed? That’s a mystery you can imagine landing in your own inbox. Suddenly, “I’ll just check my results” doesn’t sound quite so casual.

Polly has more on her mind than solving a puzzle

She’s managing work, a difficult relationship with her mother, and the disappointments of IVF. I’m drawn to a story that lets a woman have several concerns at once. You don’t have to share Polly’s circumstances to understand how exhausting it can be to keep showing up while something deeply important remains unresolved.

It gives chosen family a place at the table

Biological connections may set the story in motion, but Polly’s friendships matter, too. That balance is a big part of the appeal for me. Many of us have someone who isn’t a relative but knows exactly when to call—and when to arrive with food instead of questions.

You’ll have something worth discussing afterward

What makes someone family? How much does shared DNA tell us about belonging? What do we owe the people we love? These are the kinds of questions I want a book to leave me with—not homework, but thoughts that follow me into the kitchen while I’m making coffee.

It’s a book-club story that invites you to think about your own circle

That’s the most personal draw for me. Beyond the DNA mystery, this premise makes me think about the people we gather around us and the trust we build, one conversation at a time. If you’ve ever stayed long after a meeting ended because the conversation was too good—or too important—to leave, you’ll understand why I had to pick this one up.

Whether you loved the book-club bonds, the unsettling family questions, or the search for belonging, these eight books offer something to keep that reading mood going.

The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
Five women and one man gather to discuss Jane Austen’s novels, while their own marriages, romantic entanglements, and personal struggles provide plenty of material between meetings. The novel became a New York Times bestseller. If Polly’s book-club friendships were your favorite part of More Than Enough, you’ll enjoy another reading group whose conversations about fictional lives become a way to navigate their own.

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
A grieving widower and a teenage library worker form an unlikely friendship through a mysterious reading list that helps them face loneliness, loss, and difficulties at home. The novel was a finalist in the 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards for Fiction. Like More Than Enough, it explores how books bring people together, making it a lovely next choice if you’re drawn to reading communities that become emotional lifelines.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
In the aftermath of World War II, London writer Juliet Ashton begins corresponding with members of a Guernsey literary society and discovers a community shaped by friendship, books, and the hardships of German occupation. The novel became a number-one New York Times bestseller and was adapted into a film available on Netflix. Readers who enjoyed the chosen-family bonds in More Than Enough will find a similar pull here, as a shared love of reading opens the door to relationships that reach well beyond the page.

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro
After an unexpected DNA-test result reveals that the father who raised her wasn’t her biological father, Shapiro searches for answers about her origins and reexamines her understanding of identity and family. The memoir became a New York Times bestseller and won a 2019 National Jewish Book Award. If the DNA discovery in More Than Enough kept you turning pages, this nonfiction companion offers a deeply personal exploration of what genetic information can—and cannot—tell us about who we are.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
An artist and her teenage daughter become entangled with a seemingly picture-perfect suburban family, while a contested adoption exposes competing ideas about motherhood and long-protected secrets. The novel became a New York Times bestseller and won the 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction. Like More Than Enough, it asks difficult questions about parenthood and biological ties, making it a compelling choice if you enjoy family stories that leave you reconsidering everyone’s point of view.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
After their stepmother forces them from their childhood home, siblings Danny and Maeve build their lives around an enduring bond and memories of the family they lost. The novel was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a New York Times Book Review Notable Book. If you appreciated Polly’s struggle to make sense of her family history, you’ll be drawn to this story about how the past shapes identity—and how the stories we repeatedly tell ourselves can hold us in place.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
In 1964 South Carolina, fourteen-year-old Lily Owens searches for answers about her late mother and finds refuge with three Black beekeeping sisters, accompanied by Rosaleen, the woman who has helped raise her. The novel won the 2004 Book Sense Book of the Year Award in the paperback category and spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list. Readers who loved the supportive women and questions of family in More Than Enough will appreciate another story in which searching for biological connections also leads toward a nurturing chosen family.

The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
Four adult sisters navigate their complicated relationships with one another and their devoted parents when the arrival of a teenager placed for adoption years earlier unsettles the entire family. The novel became a New York Times bestseller and was selected for Reese’s Book Club. Like More Than Enough, it combines an unexpected family connection with questions about motherhood, belonging, and the gap between the life people see and the one we’re actually living.

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