I’ve shied away from reading books with titles that have been directly marketed. Yes, all titles are designed to spark interest, but there’s been a trend lately of having words like “girl” and “wife” and “woman” in titles – do we thank Gone Girl for this? – and I’m tired of it.
Yet this book – The Wife Between Us – kept popping up in my feed as a book I’d like. I gave it a trial run on Audible, and for the first few chapters, I thought I was listening to a reworking of The Girl on the Train.
But then it shifted and I was hooked.
Though the point of view and timeline shifts with each chapter, Vanessa is our primary narrator and she is not happy. Freshly divorced and burning with the knowledge that Richard, her ex, is marrying again, she has become obsessed with her secret plan. Chapter by chapter, line by line, the reader isn’t entirely sure why the marriage fell apart to begin with. We don’t even know who the “bad guy” is. The Wife Between Us wants to pull you in several directions. Are you hearing the story of a bitter ex-wife? Is it a tale of sick love that keeps people coming back for more? Is it a story of revenge? Or is it something else entirely?
Again, we can thank Gone Girl for making us paranoid and unable to trust our own instincts.
This is how I know a book is good: I think of it during the day and work out possible solutions. Such was the case with The Wife Between Us. Who is the wife and who is the us? Why can’t Vanessa leave well enough alone and move on?
It was a quick listen, which tells me it would’ve been a quick read. I recommend it.