Book Review // The Husband's Secret

The Husband's Secret*- Liane Moriarty

Like The House of Mirth, this book was sent to me by Beth, and I spent forever getting around to reading it! When I started hearing more and more good things about it, I knew I had to put it on the top of my pile.

The Husband's Secret follows the lives of different women whose lives intertwine in ways that become increasingly clear as their stories develop and close towards each other. All stories revolve around a letter found by Cecilia, written by her husband only to be opened in the event of his death. Eventually curiosity gets the better of her and she reads the letter to discover information that changes her life, and the lives of the other women, forever.

I'm going to put this out there straight away: It's predictable. As predictable as can be. I knew the secret within about 15 pages and, although I thought it couldn't possibly be that obvious, it turns out it was. The main women are irritating: Cecilia spends far too much time fussing, simpering and generally being a do-gooder and Tess needs to stop fat-shaming her beautiful, witty cousin. Rachel is adamant on ruining a man's life because she suspects him of killing her daughter and ends up neglecting her son as a result. 
Having said that, it wasn't a terrible book. It's pretty much the epitome of a summer beach read: Nothing challenging, nothing confusing. Even the parallel stories are easy to follow. It was entertaining enough and I became impatient to find out how the stories would come together even though, as I said, I didn't expect my prediction to be completely accurate. I will also say that Moriarty's use of short sentences to build up tension in the climax of the novel is well developed and certainly creates suspense.

Although the book wasn't terrible, it was far from the best book I've ever read. This may be influenced by the fact that, as a rule, I'm not interested in what you may call "light women's reading". I'd still encourage people to give it a go, though, as it seems very divisive- some people were not impressed while others absolutely loved it. For me, though, it's a four out of ten.

If entwined, character-based stories are your thing, I completely recommend JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy. It's a lot more complex than The Husband's Secret but also more developed and a lot less predictable!

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