Since I
started by blog, I’ve done an annual Advent Book Calendar highlighting books I
have enjoyed and authors I really like.
This year I thought I’d do an Advent Book Calendar with a twist; for
each day leading up to Christmas, I’m going to post a review of a book to which
I’ve given only one star (Throw a book at this one) or two stars (Don’t put this book in your book bag). Though I would not recommend these books,
others have disagreed with me. Each
book, on Goodreads, has received a 3 or 4 Star average rating.
Review of The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty
2
Stars
The novel
deals with three women whose lives intersect after each learns something which
changes their lives. Cecilia is a Tupperware salesperson par excellence and the mother of three daughters; people tend to
label her the perfect wife and mother. She discovers a letter written by her
husband, a letter which she is not to open until after his death. Like a
modern-day Pandora, she opens it. She discovers a secret that tears apart her
seemingly perfect life. Tess is a career woman whose husband decides he is in
love with Tess’s cousin, their business partner. Rachel is a school secretary
whose daughter was murdered two decades earlier; though no one has ever been
charged with the crime, Rachel becomes convinced she knows the identity of her
daughter’s killer. The women’s reactions to these pivotal “realizations” impact
the lives of many others.
I chose
this book to read during an 8-hour plane flight and, by sheer chance, I chose
well. It is a light read that does require much thought. I could put it down
and pick it up easily three weeks later when I was taking a return 8-hour
flight. It maintained my interest sufficiently so I did actually finish it, but
it is fluff.
None of the
three women is particularly likeable because of the decisions they make. Though
a reader may feel some sympathy for the situations in which the women find
themselves, it is impossible not to see that the women also bear some
responsibility for what befalls them – the murder of Rachel’s daughter being an
obvious exception. And inaction, infidelity, and impulsiveness do not endear
these women to this reader. The author made an attempt to portray them as
dynamic characters who learn something about themselves, but what they learn
would be evident to virtually everyone. One of the women, for example, realizes
that love after years of marriage is “an entirely different feeling from the
uncomplicated, unstinting adoration she’d felt as a young bride.” Really?!!
The
epilogue left me shaking my head. In it the author reveals some secrets about
the characters, secrets which, had they been known, would have changed people’s
lives. She concludes with this paragraph: “None of us ever know all the
possible courses our lives could have and maybe should have taken. It’s
probably just as well. Some secrets are meant to stay secret forever. Just ask
Pandora.” This suggests, again, that the author tried to write interpretive
fiction, but missed the lesson about letting the work speak for itself.
This would
be a perfect book to serialize in a women’s magazine, were such things still
done.
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