This was an interesting one. I thought it was going to be a classic story about a woman whose husband cheats on her and she wants revenge. I thought that the twist might be that things get a little out of control, maybe she murders the husband or the mistress. There were twists, but they were not the kind I was imagining.
I enjoyed this story, but I was also puzzled for the bulk of it. The twist gets revealed near the end, which is normal. But before I figured out what was going on I was irritated with the main character, Adira, for being too soft. Even with the help and support of her new friend, Jocelyn, who is all for Adira dumping her husband, which I fully agreed with, she can’t seem to let him go. She is a beautiful, successful, and very wealthy woman, who has been made stupid because of her love for a man who is absolutely not worthy of her. One thing that makes me furious in both literature and real life is a woman who is hung up on a man who is not deserving of her. But let me get into why this book had me questioning multiple things for the majority of the time I was reading it.
When the murder case that was currently the talk of the town was first mentioned I thought that it would be important to the plot. But even when it is mentioned a second time it ends up adding nothing to the overall story, it has nothing to do with the plot. It was literally filler, conversation between characters that we didn’t need. Was the author trying to trick us into focusing on it as a means of attempting to get us to not focus on the mystery of whatever is going on with Adira? Perhaps. But I just found it to be a meaningless plot that the story did not need at all because it added nothing of substance. And nothing could have distracted me from trying to figure out what was going on with that woman. Half of the reason I read this book so fast was to try and determine what was really going on.
If I read something and it doesn’t make sense to me, I am immediately suspicious. Did the author actually mean to write something that seems to make no sense, something that seems like an actual error, or was it purposeful? When Adira directly asked Gabriel about Jocelyn and nothing came of it, I was baffled. She asked him about the woman he was having an affair with, by name, then he kind of made a joke about it, and then the conversation ended. I can’t think of a single circumstance in which a person confronts their partner about an affair, the partner brushes it off, and then the accuser lets it go. She did not question him at all after he told her that he had no idea what she was talking about. But then later in the story when she asks him about it again, he admits to the affair. And she forgives him so easily! Adira was calm, too calm in my opinion, I knew something was off. When you figure out what was going on and you go back to read those two passages, plus a few others, they make sense. But for a while I was a little confused while at the same time angry with Adira for forgiving her husband too easily.
Will I read this again? No. But I will not say that it is not worth a read. It’s a good time and you can get through it very quickly. I think I was just expecting a little more darkness and danger and I was disappointed that I didn’t get it. Hopefully I will find a book like this soon, because I now find myself with a thirst.
Nonfiction and Nonsense 