I’ve read three suspense/thriller novels over the past two weeks, and each is known for having a shocking twist (or multiple twists). Typically, I wouldn’t even mention a twist, because I’ve always considered this to be a spoiler. If I know that a twist is coming, I’m going to be trying to guess it the whole time. I would rather be lulled into believing the story/narrator, and then experience genuine surprise if something shocking is revealed. Instead, this genre now markets all of its books as shocking, twisted and full of surprises. I think that the fascination with “the big twist” also leads the author to writing unnecessarily large, over-dramatic plot twists. This is sometimes cringe-worthy to read and can ruin the natural arc of the story.
I’m also finding that quite a few of these books are surprisingly sexist and repetitive. A lot of them focus on a seemingly perfect marriage with a rich and successful husband, and difficulties with having children. In fact, two of the three I read even have references to being a wife in the title. The women in these books are often portrayed as being crazy, overly-needy or hysterical. This is no bueno.
ANYWAY, to end my rant, here are the three books that I have recently read and my quick, spoiler-free opinion.
1. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
A criminal psychotherapist develops an obsession with a woman who is convicted of killing her husband. The woman is completely silent, and residing in a criminal psychiatric facility. Due to his creepy obsession, the psychotherapist decides to get himself hired at the facility, where he becomes her therapist and attempts to get her to speak.
This one was my favorite of the three, and I gave it 4/5 stars. I read it in one day, and I didn’t think that it was too over-the-top for the sake of shock value. I may be biased because I am interested by therapy/psychology, so I found the supervision sessions and insights to be particularly interesting. It is composed of many short, to-the-point chapters that made it easy to read. I would recommend this one, and I think a lot of others would as well, since it’s the hot book of the moment. It had a creepy energy as well, which is a plus.
2. The Wives by Tarryn Fisher
Advertised as “giving you whiplash until the very end,” this book follows the life of someone named Thursday, which already threw me for a loop because Thursday does not sound like it should be a person’s name. Anyway, Thursday is married to a polygamist. She has two sister-wives that she has zero contact with and knows nothing about. However, she grows curious, and decides to track down her sister-wives and learn information about them. Drama ensues.
This one must have been co-written by Jerry Springer. I gave it two stars out of five because it was reality TV dramarama, and I therefore couldn’t put it down. The premise of this book was so interesting, and I really enjoyed the first half. However, all of the “twists and turns” ruined the entire thing. I would like to see this book re-written, but without trying to see how many ways it can surprise and confuse the reader. It’s hard to write this without giving anything away, but basically, the story is full of plotholes and the author uses one big spoiler to explain why these plotholes are okay and should be disregarded.
3. The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks
This was the most boring of the three, and the reader is warned to “assume nothing.” It follows a love triangle in which a woman leads a perfect life with fancy clothes and then her husband replaces her with a younger version of herself. I did not really want to keep picking it up, because I didn’t care to hear more blabbing about what a wonderful husband and life this woman had and what a wonderful husband and life the younger woman is going to have. I didn’t care much for the twists, since they were still pretty boring and obviously thrown in just for the sake of being there. I would skip this one, as it wasn’t entertaining.
Overall, I think the lesson that I’ve learned is to stop picking up books that have the word “wife” in the title.
