Sadie, Beth, Emily, Lil, Tal and Dave: six friends graduate from Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1998 and go to make their fortunes in New York. Joanna Smith Rakoff 's partly autobiographical first novel - published in Britain a year after the literary memoir , which was her second book - is an impressively organised and psychologically astute account of the trials of growing up: finding a home, a job that means something, and a partner.

Beginning with Lil's wedding and ending with a funeral, the novel follows each young woman and Beth's former boyfriend, Dave, in and out of love and through the trials of their early careers, using their friendships as a framing device. Rakoff's characters slide in and out of focus as she shifts perspective, zooming in close on a chunk of each life before moving on. The author knows her material intimately - locations, personalities, turn-of-the-century attitudes - and handles it well.

The group, all Jewish, are arts graduates who mostly majored in English. Beth and Lil both harbour academic ambitions; Emily and Tal want to be actors; Dave, a musician. Only Sadie and Tal achieve their goals painlessly, Sadie in publishing and Tal in movies.

Beautiful Sadie - with her wealthy Upper East Side childhood, dominant mother and internet pioneer husband - is the group's anchor, but also a bit dull, especially when she quits her job for full-time motherhood. Lil's doomed struggle to make a success of her hasty marriage, Beth's erotic initiation by her temporarily impotent future husband, Will, and Dave's and Emily's bitter frustrations with bands and auditions are fresher and more absorbing.