Review of THE HUSBAND'S SECRET by Liane Moriarty

Advent Book Calendar – Day 11

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.