A character study about adjusting to new roles in life, growing up, sex, sexual norms and identities, and porn; this book was a quick read that held my interest, though it never really paid off, in spite of a lot of character inter-connection and revelations.

When this book really worked for me, it was focusing on the titular Mrs Fletcher and her son (who, oddly, was the only main character out of about a half dozen to speak in first person... because he was the focal point? because he was the most self-centered?) both struggling to figure out what to do about new-found freedom; the younger exploring life without a leash at college, the elder grasping to find ways to fill a schedule without anyone demanding her care and attention any more, both trying to discover how sex might figure into their lives now (and both using porn as a kind of how-to guide).

When this book didn't really click for me was, well, all the descriptions of pornography, the sex scenes. Not that those sections are completely without merit - buried in some of the descriptions of the MILFeteria are some good insights about what people are really looking for in consuming that kind of media. Likewise, among the scenes of sexual indiscretions (both youthful and otherwise) are what I assume to be commentaries on the confusion and fraught nature of modern-day dating. For whatever reason, overall, those parts just didn't work for me ... I don't know, maybe the author intended this, but most of the sex scenes were not comfortable, the characters unsure of what they wanted. Again, maybe that was the point all along.

As mentioned before, it's a quick read and the narrative doesn't really bog down anywhere. There isn't much of a climax though and the ending feels more like a tacked-on epilogue than any kind of earned conclusion. Still, the characters all grow one way or another and the author managed to keep me guessing about how they were going to act without seeming like total idiots, which was refreshing. I found myself wanting a bit more closure on a couple of storylines, but none went fully unaddressed, and I feel like the ones that were more vague were left that way on purpose.

As an aside, a minor personal complaint:
This book did the thing where it divided itself into "sections", despite no section being long enough nor fundamentally different enough to merit the distinction. You can't have, say, Section 1: Wherein Younger Fletcher Goes to College and Elder Fletcher Starts Watching Porn followed by Section 2: Wherein Fletcher the Younger Remains in College and Fletcher the Elder Watches Porn and Imagines Porn-Inflected Rendez-vous. You can do that with, say, Lord of the Rings... or maybe even here with an At College / After College separation ... but I think chapters would've done fine.

Overall, I did enjoy the book, though I would recommend it to adult audiences only, and even then maybe more towards the Sex in the City fans than just to anyone. I would certainly read another of Mr Perrotta's books as well.