More Than Enough
By Anna Quindlen
Random House, February 24, 2026, 256pp.
The Short of It:
Wholesome and sweet but with depth.
The Rest of It:
High school English teacher Polly Goodman tells her book club everything. The women are her closest friends, the ones who know about her students, her strained relationship with her mother, and her painful struggle with IVF.
When they give her an ancestry test kit as a joke, Polly expects nothing from it. Instead, the results link her to a stranger. Certain it must be a mistake, she tries to move on, but curiosity pulls her into her family’s past and toward a truth she never expected.
A well meaning gift, but what it uncovers for Polly is a yearning to know her true origins. Surprising and slightly alarming since she never questioned this before. Honestly, had no reason to. With her struggles to start a family though, her thoughts are centered on family and what it means so naturally when the results come back with a big question mark, she’s forced to look into it.
Polly is surrounded by a very supportive group of ladies. But they are also cautiously guarded over these test results. Are they accurate? Do they need to be repeated? Polly doesn’t know but in her heart she feels there is some truth so what the results say and isn’t it important to know when trying to start a family of her own?
There are some tender moments as Polly navigates this new landscape. In addition to infertility she is dealing with her father’s descent into dementia; a very dark place where loving memories surface one day, only to be forgotten that she exists the next. Painful.
I found this novel to be sweet in the telling but it lacks plot. If you are a plot driven reader, you might find it a little too safe but still enjoyable nonetheless.
Recommend.
Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.
Book Chatter 
exactly how I felt about this one.
It needed more of a story.
This has an interesting premise, but I don’t know that I would use that kit even if it was well intended.
I know, right? I don’t want to know if I am related to a serial killer. Immediately, no.
I do like plot in my novels, but this one sounds good. I have a friend who did ancestry.com only to realize his dad wasn’t his biological dad!
I think these DNA things could be useful if you are concerned about inherited medical stuff but otherwise, do I need to know that I am related to a serial killer? Immediately, no.
I love Anna Quindlen’s novels, so even without a rich plot, I’ll still give it a read. My daughter is going through IVF, so I’m interested to see how Quindlen portrays this theme. Helen wrote about a friend doing ancestry.com and discovering his dad wasn’t his biological dad. The author Dani Shapiro experienced something similiar, as I recall. She wrote about it in her memoir Inheritance.
I think the topic was handled well. I do love Quindlen, it just seemed a little loose in plot.
I’ve avoided those tests for the very same reason.
Yeah. Might me just me but I don’t care to know anymore about my background. LOL.
Yeah I read this one and thought it was only so-so for Quindlen. I didn’t think it was one of her strongest. And I wanted to like it more.
I did expect more from Quindlen. There was a lot to work with. I wish she has pushed it a bit.