Book Review: The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 346 pages

Published: January 8, 2018

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Genre: Fiction & Literature, Mystery & Thrillers

Synopsis:

When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous wife and her obsession with her replacement.
You will assume you are reading about a woman about to enter a new marriage with the man she loves.
You will assume the first wife was a disaster and that the husband was well rid of her.
You will assume you know the motives, the history, the anatomy of the relationships.
Assume nothing.

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I really did not know what to make of this latest thriller. But I will definitely say this: we need to stop with these “Gone Girl” or “The Girl on the Train” wannabes.

There was just no thrill or suspense in this novel. While reading this supposed thriller, you could see every twist and turn a mile away. The authors really didn’t take the time to lay out the clues so you could at least try to be surprised at the outcome. The beginning was slow. I was very close to giving up the book in its entirety. But as I was trudging along, the story started to get interesting, so I decided to stick with it. However, I should have taken that as a sign because out of nowhere, it started to get so frustratingly confusing.

The story became clunky and contained elements that were completely unnecessary to the plot. This was just a failed attempt to create a suspenseful similar to Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. This book is nothing like Gone Girl but I can see the similarities between this and The Girl on the Train. And that should have been another clue for me since I didn’t particularly care for The Girl on the Train.  Although that book did not hold any interest to me, The Girl on the Train was a better constructed novel than whatever this mess was supposed to pass off as.

And the title?! It makes completely no sense to me. It has no connection with the story in any possible way. Maybe it was a way for the authors to play with the readers’ minds. If that was the case, they did a poor job doing so. When you are already frustrated with a book, your last hope is that everything will tie up in the end.  The conclusion just let me dumbfounded and disappointed at the fact that I got caught up in “book hype” again. The ending left a lot to be desired. It was a little surprising but also not so surprising. The twist that was attempted just wasn’t needed. You knew what was coming and when it was going to happen. The great thing about Gone Girl is that it left you on the edge of the seat, making you excited about what was coming. This book did leave you on the edge of your seat…and made you get up, close the book and forget it altogether.

Maybe The Wife Between Us was trying to be innovative, having two authors write a thriller. But this novel was just a poorly executed with an unoriginal idea. If you are looking for a good thriller to read, i suggest you bypass this one. It is not even worth your time.

Overall rating: 2 out of  5 stars

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