I work with teens for roughly 8 hours a day, I read a lot of YA…Believe me, there are times when I can’t listen/read to one more teen-centric drama! They whine, they complain about things that really aren’t all that important in the long run, sometimes they giggle really really loud, they ask stupid questions (yes, they exist).
I hit a wall sometime around last Friday afternoon…NO MORE TEENS. I needed some adult book action. Something vague and twisted, something with big words, something from a section called ‘literature ‘and not ‘paranormal-teen-series’. I was headed up to Annapolis with my husband for a weekend at a B&B and decided to treat myself to A Reliable Wife.
I’ve had this book in queue for almost a year. A good friend said that it was just OK, that she saw the twist coming. Disappointed by the review, A Reliable Wife sat unclicked in my nook for months. Until my recent YA rebellion. On Friday I needed an adult book, and I needed it on the plane. Unwilling to pay for wifi and a new book I chose from what I had on the nook. A Reliable Wife it was.
Review:
I’m sad I waited so long for this book! It was just what I wanted this weekend. Very adult, centered on sex, lies, and longing. A love triangle worthy of a convoluted Oedipus. It was a little twisted, kinda dirty, and lyrically written. VERY anti-teen…no way to book talk this one to students…ahh, the bliss.
The book opens with Ralph Truitt waiting at the train station for his mail order bride. He has asked for “a reliable wife”. Truitt desires the opposite of his first wife. He wants someone modest, plain, and true. Thus he is reasonably shocked when the woman exiting the train is stunningly beautiful, besides her obvious disguise of modest clothing. The reader knows it’s a disguise as we’ve watched Cathrine shed her finery and throw it out the window mere minutes from the station. All is not what it seems.
Truitt is not happy with his life and wishes to start again. He wants to rectify his mistakes with and through Cathrine. Cathrine is not happy with her life either. She is outwardly searching for money and love and inwardly struggling toward something more meaningful than shallow trappings. Both have struggled through lives that did not need to be as difficult as they made them. They’ve reached the middle of their story and both want change. As intriguing as it would be to watch the two simply fall in love and fulfill one another, there is that afore mentioned twist. Truitt has a son by his first marriage. A son to whom he is not the biological father. Truitt desires to find his son and make things right with him, using Cathrine as a mediator.
I’ll agree with my friend in that the twist was not a huge surprise. You’ll see it coming. But it is not the twist that makes for the intrigue of the story. What will have you tearing through the last few pages is how this triangle of characters will choose to live their lives and who they will choose to love.
Rating: 7/10
Sara O
thelibrarianreads 