Mo Daoust
THE STARTER WIFE is the most difficult book I've ever tried to rate, so I settled for three stars. I think it's one of those books one has to judge for oneself. I don't wish to say much about the plot or it would be all spoilers. I had to scrap almost every note I had written for my review because of the humongous plot twist. One detail had not escaped my notice, I should have put two and two together, and I didn't, so I guess I'm partly to blame, but the exceedingly disagreeable characters distracted me. Most of them were so unlikable, except for Chrissy, Derek, and Sarah Sterns, I read "angry" until almost the very end. It was a satisfying and logical conclusion, I might add. THE STARTER WIFE is, I suppose, the ultimate in unreliable narrators, but I don't believe I had ever read a book where I hated every main character. I guess in the end it was well done, but I didn't enjoy it. If the author hadn't made me hate everyone, it would have been different. I think the fact that it was all written in first person POV contributed to why I disliked the characters and failed to connect with them. I felt I had been manipulated by the author, and not in a good way. I really didn't care about what happened to the characters, but I kept reading because I wanted to know how it ended. Still, it's a miserable feeling when you have no one to like, no one you care for, no one to cheer on throughout an entire book. I've read books about sociopaths and psychopaths where I didn't wish for their swift demise as I did here. The writing itself is excellent, and although there are some inconsistencies and contradictions, there aren't any typos, which is highly commendable. However, I think there was an error in a significant date, the only one written in numbers. I found THE STARTER WIFE an extremely frustrating, confusing, and "feel-bad" book. It was so unpleasant (here's that word again), but I guess it was clever and I wasn't in this case! I will probably read other books by Nina Laurin, because she is very talented.