The Wives

This is one of those novels where I felt that there was so much potential but it just didn't deliver in the way I was hoping it would. Right of the bat, I just felt off with reading this particular book and didn't realize the reasons until I was done with it. Even though I did enjoy it and I read it pretty quickly it was not one of those books where I couldn't put it down or couldn't wait to pick it back up again. I was curious to see what would happen in the plot but I wasn't dying to know either. It was neither here nor there for me, in regards to this novel.

The Wives is about a woman named Thursday, who is married to a polygamist but they have a rather unique setup where the wives all live apart and the husband comes to see them all separately one day a week, on their particularly scheduled days. Thursday starts to obsess about the other wives and as she digs to find out more info about who they are, she is thrust into a series of events that no one can see coming. The plot was unlike I've ever read before because this is my first novel about polygamy but whereas the first half of the novel drags a bit, the last half is too confusing and all over the place. I am still having a hard time processing exactly what the outcome of the story was. It had a promising start and premise but then veered of into something so completely out of the realm of possibility to me that I had a hard time connecting and relating to the story and the characters. Also, Thursday's relationship with Seth rubbed me the wrong way and since that was the foundation of the whole story, I was just not in this novel wholeheartedly.

Further on, the characterization was mediocre. It wasn't bad but it wasn't particularly good or memorable either. We got to see somewhat into the characters psyche but a lot of that was overshadowed by the turn the story took and nothing was the same ever again. The main relationship also didn't seem that genuine or believable to me, so that already got the book off to a bad start for me and then it just went downhill from there. The characters were somewhat two-dimensional but definitely did not pass into the realm of 3-D whatsoever.

Thirdly, the writing style was a bit confusing but not bad. There were sentences that were a bit hard to grasp fully and follow the full significance of. It didn't deter me from finishing the book but it definitely made the reading slightly less enjoyable. Also, some writing I found a bit too choppy.

In conclusion, even though I didn't hate this book, I also didn't love it. It sits in the middle for me when it comes to thriller novels. It's not going to be a book I will be recommending because it was just not entirely believable and the ending was confusing and anticlimactic at the most. There are so many great thrillers out there, I don't think you will be missing much by skipping this one.