REVIEW: "The Other Mrs." by Mary Kubica
For pretty much my whole life, I have been change avoidant.
It seems odd to say, really, because I have, admittedly, willingly undertaken endeavors that require change.
I went away to college — albeit only 2 hours away.
I spent six months studying abroad, exploring Europe and trusting in a way that only an inexperienced 20-year-old would that I wouldn’t end up either murdered, or kidnapped, or — worst of all — both.
I abandoned my plans to work with the safe, suburban kids I knew and committed to an inner-city teaching job for which I was woefully unprepared.
But, still, these efforts towards putting myself out there haven’t made me like change any more than I used to.
In fact, they have probably left me even more eager to stick with what I know.
Because, while none of the occasions on which I put myself out there resulted in anything negative, everything now feels so… precarious.
It feels so unlikely that I am where I am in my life.
Because so many of the things I wanted in my youth — things I never dared dream for, like a spouse and kids and a writing career — are things that I have now.
So now, more than ever, I don’t want things to change. Because I feel like embracing change in one part of my life would necessarily mean opening myself up to change in all parts of my life and, in doing so, putting it all at risk.
It is probably because I am so resistant to change that I initially felt a tremendous amount of sympathy for — and, by connection, attachment to — the protagonist in The Other Mrs., the most recent novel by the increasingly prolific Mary Kubica
Sadie Foust’s life is all about change, lately. She has recently relocated from urban Chicago to a sleepy town in Maine with her husband and their two sons. While both Sadie and her husband, Will, were reluctant to leave behind the metropolis in which they met and began building their family, a collection of circumstances made uprooting their life the logical choice.
First, Sadie discovered that Will — whom she had always trusted relatively implicitly — had been cheating on her.
Then, Will’s sister, who suffered for years from fibromyalgia, killed herself, leaving behind a high school age daughter to raise and a large house to care for.
So the couple moved, putting distances between themselves and Will’s betrayal and honoring Will’s sister’s likely wishes that her daughter, Imogen, have the opportunity to finish growing up in the small town she had always known.
But trouble has followed them, it would appear. Shortly after they move in, a neighbor, Morgan, is found dead in her home.
Though Sadie insists she knows nothing about what happened to Morgan — in fact, she barely knows Morgan at all — there is evidence to the contrary.
An elderly couple who live down the street insist that they saw Sadie and Morgan in a heated argument one day. Sadie knows the couple’s account can’t be true, as she doesn’t remember having any real interactions with Morgan.
Finding herself in the unexpected position of having to clear her name, Sadie does all she can think to do. She tries to find out what happened to Morgan so she can escape the thick cloud of suspicion under which she is trapped.
I must admit, when I began this book, I was intrigued.
From the start, it was clear that Sadie was a complex and rich character. A flawed woman with a murky past and confusing present, it seemed that she would be an engaging character to unpack.
But, sadly, my enjoyment of the book very quickly dwindled.
This was due to two things, really.
First, I had the majority of the plot figured out by about 40 pages into the book.
It seemed… obvious what would happen.
And this made continuing to read frustrating. Because when you have it all figured out, watching characters hamfistedly struggle to grasp the truth is not a fun experience.
Because the twist seemed so obvious to me, I kept hoping — expecting, really — that I was wrong.
But, I wasn’t. What I expected to happen happened. Right on schedule. More reliably than a midwest weather forecast.
My second issue was the protagonist herself.
Though I started out liking Sadie, she grated on me very quickly. And it wasn’t long before my perception of her shifted. What started out as flawed and damaged became obnoxious and whiny.
She became frustratingly weak and I, in no way, enjoyed watching her bumble through the plot.
I mean, she is supposed to be a doctor for fuck’s sake. Am I really to believe that she is truly this inept?
I didn’t buy it. And, perhaps more importantly, I didn’t enjoy it.
The primary — and, honestly, only IMO — strength of this book was the ending.
As you can pretty much glean from my thus far less-than-sparkling review, I slogged through this novel. I continued picking it up day after day not because I was enjoying it but instead because I generally refuse to DNF.
I almost always hold out hope that a novel will, in some way, redeem itself.
And, while novels rarely do redeem themselves, this one did.
Following the twist I had seen coming was a secondary twist. It was something that actually did catch me off guard.
And, better yet, it was an effective twist.
*Spoiler Alert*
We come to find that, while Sadie is crazy — which I knew — so is Will — which I never expected.
He transforms from this trustworthy, put-upon husband to a true, conniving psychopath.
And… wow.
It worked.
This book was, suddenly, an interesting read.
But, the thing is, this didn’t happen until the very end of the book.
For the preceding 7/8th of the novel, reading felt arduous.
So, it left me really thinking: is this one, satisfying twist enough?
Should readers really be expected to trudge through 7/8th of a book before something awesome happens?
I… really don’t think so.
*End Spoilers*
I need to confess that I have, historically, not been a fan of Mary Kubica books.
Yet, I keep reading them.
Because I know other people like them. And I don’t understand it. I keep seeking to see how others can be so enamored with her writing while I continue to find it oddly forgettable.
And it looks like the reading of this book has brought me no closer to divining this understanding.
Even the legitimately compelling ending wasn’t enough to sufficiently temper my distaste for this slow-paced and obvious novel.
It ekes out 3 out of 5 cocktails — but just barely.
If you’re a Mary Kubica fan, you might find something you like here. But, if you’re not a fan of this author, this book likely won’t induce you to become one.
What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken? Did it pay off? Tell me about it in the comments, below.
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