Kara’s life in Manhattan roars at a dizzying pace. She feels she is always rushing to something—work, her children’s activities, or an event with her husband. There’s no time for her to think, just to do. Then, one day when she encounters paintings in a gallery from her former lover in college, she begins to question what she really feels is important as well as how she wants her future to unfold.

Henny on the Couch by Rebecca Land Soodak takes a look at how easy it is for us to go through every day in charge of the details and lose sight of the big picture we want to create with those details. Kara experiences what many moms do: she is generally happy with her life, yet she’s also restless for something more. She started a successful business, but the work there doesn’t make her happy. She always wonders if she’s spending enough time with her children, particularly when her daughter Henny starts to have trouble in school. And her husband seems sure of where he wants to go, which is to grow his business and move the family to the West Coast, but Kara’s not sure she wants to do that either. She wants to address the issue, but she doesn’t know how to do that and stay married.

Underlying it all is Kara’s own experience as a child, with a mother who was always disappointed that she wasn’t talented enough to pursue her dream of singing professionally and drank to numb her sense of failure. When Kara meets Oliver, her old lover, again, and when her best friend makes a life change Kara doesn’t approve of, she finally takes the time the think about what she really wants and how she wants her life to be going forward.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.