The Husband's Secret

This is a page turning book, but not a book that I particularly liked. My mom gave it to me after someone gave it to her. I thought I would read it and pass it along to make room on my shelf.

Here are a few reasons I didn't like it:

1. It's skates on the edge of being made into a Lifetime movie. Not my genre at all.
2. The characters are unlikeable, and I didn't agree with any of their decisions.
3. The author's view of marriage, of men and women, of justice, of God, of life in general I don't agree with. It's bleak and bitter, just like her middle-aged characters, and is basically the reason Peter Pan didn't want to grow up.
4. The writing was confusing. Mostly, the book takes place in the heads of three women, one of whom is irrelevant to the main plot. You mostly are just reading their thoughts. Apparently they are all very reflective people who like to ponder every little thing. Interspersed with that is this “broadcasting” about the Berlin Wall. Oh, and also flash backs to some of the secondary characters' back story. Not cohesive. Plus—
5. Every once in a while the seemingly objective omniscient narrator comes through as ultra-opinionated and ultra-omniscient, which is just weird. The epilogue came out of left field. The rest of the book could have been written to accommodate it or it could have been eliminated at all, but it comes off as odd, as if the author wants to rub in your face how much more she knows than you.

Oh well! It was a quick read and it somehow was a page-turner, despite how quickly and easily you figure out “the husband's secret”.