Continuing my theme of “I read this in February and only have vague recollections of it” in:
The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
3.5 Stars rounded up to 4
The Wife Between Us is another book with alternating POVs of Vanessa, an unreliable narrator due to a drinking problem, who has recently gotten out of an abusive marriage with a man named Richard and Nellie- a young woman who is about to marry Richard.
“In my marriage, there were three truths, three alternate and sometimes competing realities. There was Richard’s truth. There was my truth. And there was the actual truth, which is always the most elusive to recognize. This could be the case in every relationship, that we think we’ve entered into a union with another person when, in fact, we’ve formed a triangle with one point anchored by a silent but all-seeing judge, the arbiter of reality.”
A former friend informs Vanessa, who is now working at a department store, that Richard is engaged to the woman he left Vanessa for and this news overtakes her life. Vanessa desperately wants to stop Richard’s upcoming nuptials to the point that she loses her job and begins stalking the couple. Nellie, a preschool teacher, has been feeling like someone is watching her but her fiancé, Richard tries to comfort her but as their wedding draws nearer Richard’s behavior becomes more suffocating than comforting. He wants her to quit her part time job waitressing, he follows her the night of her bachelorette party and he buys a McMansion without her knowledge! While Richard is clearly not a great guy Vanessa seems equally unstable and spends most of the novel trying to catch her “replacement” while she is alone so she can give her side of the story.
As with all unreliable narrators tHiNgS aRe nOt aS tHeY sEeM and this one was doing so well at keeping my intrigued and then absolutely botched the ending. I don’t remember a lot of details but I remember the ending and I am still annoyed.