The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison

This book was recommended to me by a LOT of people, so I was pretty excited to read it.  People even compared it to "Gone Girl" which was, in my opinion, amazing.

The Silent Wife is the story of Jodi and Todd.  They've been together 20 years but they're not married.  She is a part time psychologist and he is a real estate developer, and they live a high end life style in Chicago.  He is a serial cheater, while she lives in denial.  She knows he's cheating, but she rationalizes it away and believes that they will always be together.  Meanwhile, the way he talks about her, he loves her and she really could be his one true love, but he is addicted to the passion/lust of new relationships.  Well, he ends up getting his mistress, Natasha, pregnant.  Which is a problem because 1 - Natasha wants him to marry her and 2 - she is the daughter of his best friend Dean.  Todd decides to leave Jodi, but tells himself it's for the better.  Meanwhile, Jodi is being evicted (since they were never married and Todd owns the condo) but tells herself he will come to his sense.  It's all a crazy, twisted love story.

I've got to be honest, I don't understand the hype of this book.  It's interesting in that Todd really doesn't see what he's doing wrong, and Jodi really does live in denial of everything that's happening to her, but I felt like much of the story was just slow.  Basically Todd obsessing about women and Jodi telling herself nothing will change.  I felt like the story was leading up to the end, which was interesting.  The last 15% of the book moved quickly and pulled me in, but it was a struggle to get there.  I can't say much without giving the ending away, but Jodi ends the story still being in denial.  She's obviously mental.

The book's redeeming quality was the way it was written.  In order to really get us into the characters, it was written from his/her points of view.  Certain chapters were dedicated to Jodi, while certain chapters were dedicated to Todd.  I liked this because it gave you better access into the characters minds, and you could sit back and compare them along side each other after you read about the same incident from their opposing viewpoints.  I wouldn't go as far as to say I didn't like the book, but it's not one I'll be recommending to others.

<3, jacq