Improvement is a very easy book to read, it flows very easily from one set of characters and situations to the next and the reader finds themselves carrying on reading just one more page or one more chapter and suddenly finds they've finished this book in one sitting. Joan Silber introduces the readers to a diverse selection of characters from a well-traveled woman who lived for a time in Turkey to a gang of criminals smuggling cigarettes. She links these unlikely characters together with ease and involves the readers in their lives. This is a very believable story with reports of young single mothers struggling to get by, young people unable to find jobs and turning to crime, stories we regularly hear in life. The characters all have a dream of how their lives could be different and better and Joan Silber carefully and skilfully steers us through their lives.