Who Loves You Best is a won­der­ful break from the heav­i­ness of today’s cur­rent events. Author Mar­i­lyn Simon Roth­stein wit­ti­ly dis­cuss­es the rela­tion­ships between par­ents and their chil­dren and grandchildren.

Jodi Wexler lives a busy life in Flori­da. She is a prac­tic­ing doc­tor and enjoys her mar­riage, patients, and social life. When her daugh­ter, Lisa — a culi­nary pro­fes­sion­al in the Berk­shires — needs help car­ing for her only child, Macallen, Jodi jumps at the oppor­tu­ni­ty to prove her­self as a lov­ing grandmother. 

It turns out that Jodi’s hopes and dreams about what her vis­it will be like are quite dif­fer­ent from real­i­ty. She loves Macallen with all her heart and can’t wait to make up for lost time. As a geo­graph­i­cal­ly dis­tant grand­par­ent, she has craved qual­i­ty time with Macallen, but she’s missed out on her day-to-day life. She rumi­nates about the choic­es she has made as a moth­er and wife, real­iz­ing that bend­ing to the desires of her hus­band and chil­dren has shaped her path.

Upon arriv­ing in New York, Jodi real­izes that she must nego­ti­ate the time she gets to spend with Macallen because there are two oth­er grand­mas involved in her granddaughter’s life. Di, Macallen’s pater­nal grand­moth­er, lives local­ly and can there­fore jump in when­ev­er she is need­ed. Macallen is instruct­ed to call this grand­moth­er by her first name; Di is a career woman first and a strict care­giv­er with many rules. Di’s son Bri­an, Macallen’s father, has recent­ly been absent from home. Jodi real­izes how lit­tle she knows about Lisa’s life, lead­ing her to draw some false conclusions.

There is a third super-involved ​“grand­ma” on the scene: Grannie Annie. Annie is clos­er in age to Macallen than she is to Jodi or Di. She is an ener­gy-filled for­mer babysit­ter who has become a close friend of the fam­i­ly. Annie needs the rela­tion­ship with this fam­i­ly as much as Lisa needs her to be there for Macallen.

Di and Annie each have deep­er needs that reveal them­selves as the women get to know each oth­er. Jodi begins to grap­ple with her own needs as a woman enter­ing a lat­er stage of life.

She is sur­prised by her daughter’s mod­ern views, which con­flict with her own more tra­di­tion­al ones. There are some aha moments for each of the grand­mas as they fig­ure out what’s impor­tant to them.

The rela­tion­ship between the three women evolves from dis­like, self-cen­tered jeal­ousy, and one-upman­ship to some­thing more pos­i­tive. Their new­found sense of uni­ty grows out of an under­stand­ing that they need to do what is best for Macallen. Who Loves You Best is a relat­able and fun­ny novel.