book review
Title: The Silent Wife
Author: A.S.A. Harrison
# of Pages: 336
Summary (from amazon.com): Jodi and Todd are at a bad place in their marriage. Much is at stake, including the affluent life they lead in their beautiful waterfront condo in Chicago, as she, the killer, and he, the victim, rush haplessly toward the main event. He is a committed cheater. She lives and breathes denial. He exists in dual worlds. She likes to settle scores. He decides to play for keeps. She has nothing left to lose. Told in alternating voices, The Silent Wife is about a marriage in the throes of dissolution, a couple headed for catastrophe, concessions that can’t be made, and promises that won’t be kept. Expertly plotted and reminiscent of Gone Girl and These Things Hidden, The Silent Wife ensnares the reader from page one and does not let go.
Opinion: My roommate started reading this book and said it had a 'Gone Girl' feel to it, so I immediate sought it out. She was right in that the tone and characters do ring similar to Gillian Flynn's breakout novel, however I felt that this book had a little something that I felt Flynn's novel was lacking: her characters were entirely self-aware of each other's horrible points as well as their own. In Gone Girl you had two characters that were both just awful people on their own to the extent that I felt they deserved each other and the misery they brought upon each other, while in this one both Jodi and Todd were well aware of their flaws and actually tried to keep it together. Without going into too much detail, I admit I was actually surprised by how this book ended - not expecting that ending at all - and the writing was quite gripping that I was able to read the whole book in just 2 days. I was sad to hear that Harrison passed away, because if this was her first trip into fiction, I would have loved to read more from her.
Now Reading: Long Division by Kiese Laymon
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