Love Will Keep Us Together

Wife 22
Melanie Gideon
Fiction

I liked this book…and I didn’t like this book. I know, I know, isn’t that usually how I feel about most of the books I read? Yes, but this one was different. I wanted to like it more than I did. I wanted it to be traditional and not the way it was, if that makes any sense.

Wife 22 is about a woman named Alice. She’s married to William and they have two teenagers. Alice isn’t happy anymore, though. She feels distant from William and doesn’t know how to fix it. So when she gets an email about a marriage survey, she decides to sign up. Soon, she’s spilling her most intimate thoughts and feelings to a complete stranger—and falling in love with him.

Melanie Gideon writes fantastic dialogue. I mean, it’s hilarious and real and amazing. She’s also good at descriptions and creating three-dimensional characters. I loved everyone in this book. What didn’t I love? The structure. I get that we live in an online society now. Everyone’s Twittering, everyone’s on Facebook, everybody’s texting and emailing. Ms. Gideon obviously gets that, too, since Wife 22 is full of everything I just listed. And I hate reading emails in books. Not to mention text conversations. Oh, and since Alice is a playwright, quite a few scenes are written in play form. It’s really annoying. Luckily, the book is so good that I managed to swallow my irritation and deal with the annoying format. I also caught on to the twist coming at the end, but I imagine most people won’t. Or I suppose Ms. Gideon hopes most people won’t.

Wife 22 is a great read, if you can get past the non-conventional format. And I’m sure you can. Because you should.