The Wife Between Us by Greer HendricksMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Wife Between Us is, first and foremost, an enjoyable read that definitely kept me guessing! The characters are well developed, and the writing style is simple, fluid and comfortable. The single flaw was in the structure, though even that was not enough to dissuade me from racing to the end.
Co-authors Hendricks and Pekkanen are both new to me. What is clear is that they work well together. Each character, from the protagonist to the (ex)husband to the aunt, is believable even whilst not always likable. It is the flaws that are inherent in each, however, that allows the sustainability of suspense. One character’s drinking, paired with another’s “too good to be true” demeanor, means that either one is an unreliable narrator or that the other is truly a sadistic monster. It is in that ambiguity that the reader is mired and forced to search for clues. (If this seems muddled, it is because to be any more specific would mean spoiling one or more of the twists that popped up like that little animal in Whack-a-Mole.)
While the characters are the strength of the book, the structure is the weakness. The POV changes consistently, an obvious style choice to keep the reader guessing and slightly off balance, but a technique I found to be unnecessary and distracting. This was particularly bothersome in the epilogue, but to explain further would necessitate spoilers. Additionally, the constant movement from present to past, often within the same chapter or even the same page, made it sometimes difficult to follow. This was a book that didn’t rise to the literary level of one that made me want to invest time in thinking about it too deeply in order to discern some deeper meaning. It did, however, require that intense focus to sometimes just follow along.
All in all, I’m giving this one 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4, for a story that kept me turning the pages. Well worth the read.
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