Review : The Silent Wife by A. S. A. Harrison
The Silent Wife by A. S. A. Harrison
Pages : 336
Genre : Mystery, Psychological Thriller
Stand Alone My Rating : 4/5
From Goodreads :
My Thoughts :
The Silent Wife isn’t a fast paced action thriller; if you are looking for a story full of twists and characters to root for, this isn’t it! Instead, The Silent Wife offers the slow tale of Jodi and Todd’s crumbling relationship, told from both of their point of views until the growing tension culminates with the crime.
Almost right from the start, Jodi’s guilt is announced. With Todd being a serial cheater, I would say the novel might not be for you if you need likable characters to enjoy a book. Even if you make abstraction of Jodi’s future crime, she isn’t a character you fall for easily. The strength of her denial made her life seem infinitely sad to me, yet it made it all the more difficult for me to have some sympathy for her.
And that was sort of the point, I guess. Rather than following a mysterious investigation or rooting for the survival of the unfortunate victim, here we take a much more distant, almost clinical, look at Jodi and Todd’s relationship. Very little happens, in fact, and each of their narration is filled with details of their lives, some of them life-changing but most of them mundane, details that slowly create a portrait of their complete relationship. The narration, which switches from him to her in the third person, certainly accentuates the distance we feel.
For sure, I really enjoyed reading this one. It was captivating in a very strange way! You know most of what’s coming, so it’s not about the surprise; yet getting into the characters’ mind was endlessly captivating. Even though I didn’t like either of them or agreed with their actions, watching the train wreck that was their life had me turning the pages in a slightly voyeuristic way. If the story felt slow in terms of action, it never felt slow to me when reading it. The pages flew by as I discovered how self-involved Todd was and how passive Jodi could be.
The ending, I’ll admit, let me down a little. I can’t say much more about how or why without spoiling too much, but I felt it was a little of the easy way out.
Dark, a bit twisted and uncomfortable in (many) places, The Silent Wife was a psychological thriller I could hardly put down. It’s the perfect pick for readers who are not afraid of unlikable characters and stories focused less on the action and more on the characters’ motivations.
The Silent Wife is available for sale today! Thanks to Penguin for generously providing a copy of the book for this review!
I’d never heard of this book until a few days ago and now I’m reading a lot of great reviews that make me want to read it!
I hope you do! I hadn’t heard about it until a few days before I read it. The reviews made me excited to read it and it was a great read. I still think about it a lot!
This might sound a bit weird but I find that I learn more from unlikeable characters. When I’m not emotionally invested in the outcome, I can focus more on other things. Which might make this work really well as a psychological thriller. Although really dark, this book does sound appealing to me. I’ll be adding it to my list!
I feel like this, too! I don’t mind unlikeable characters at all, as long as they are complex.
I was really pleasantly surprised with this one; I felt like this is a book that would be great for discussion. If you read it, I’ll be curious to hear your thoughts! (also, happy to see you back! 🙂 )