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3.26 AVERAGE
3.26 AVERAGE
Wow! Very twisty! Still not sure what actually was happening!
Was Marta crazy? Was she imagining things? Who is the girl she keeps seeing? What happened to the girl? What happened to Marta?
I read it fast so I could lend my copy to a member of my book group. I will need to reread the book when I have more time. And for the members of my book group who are hung up on good writing over a good story, this one has both... :-)
Was Marta crazy? Was she imagining things? Who is the girl she keeps seeing? What happened to the girl? What happened to Marta?
I read it fast so I could lend my copy to a member of my book group. I will need to reread the book when I have more time. And for the members of my book group who are hung up on good writing over a good story, this one has both... :-)
This book keeps you guessing. Is the protagonist really remembering these things or is she simply mentally ill. There are no easy answers but I thoroughly enjoyed the read.
I had high hopes for this book, for it was compared to Gone Girl and other amazing thrillers. Every time I opened the pages I kept waiting for something interesting to happen, and it didn’t. Overall, the tale had the potential to be exciting, but it fell really flat for me. I normally love dark books where most characters are not meant to be adored, but every single character in this novel was rude and annoying. The lead especially was not pleasant with her son and his fiancé for pretty much no reason besides her own unhappiness.
SPOILER
The ending I can appreciate and understand, but jumping off a cliff on your son’s wedding day is so selfish, I cannot even begin to wrap my head around it. Mental illness and suicide are serious things, but I would hope that a mother would not taint such a special day for her own flesh and blood.
SPOILER
The ending I can appreciate and understand, but jumping off a cliff on your son’s wedding day is so selfish, I cannot even begin to wrap my head around it. Mental illness and suicide are serious things, but I would hope that a mother would not taint such a special day for her own flesh and blood.
4 stars
Damn this little book!
It's short. Deceptively short. You think nothing too good could come out of it for being so short.
WELL GUESS AGAIN. (It's late I'm tired I should write this another day oh well.)
This book kind of shocked me. Actually, let me try again: it really shocked me. I totally thought it wasn't going to achieve what it ended up achieving. I thought it was going to be your standard Gone Girl knockoff, complete with a mid-center twist and an ominous ending that may or may not involve a death.
It blew me out of the water. The first thing I noticed was the quality of Chapman's writing. It's eloquent, but brisk. I loved it. It immediately drew me into Marta's story. Then, when she started seeing things, I realized just how much I wanted to keep reading and figure out what the hell was going on.
And I am so glad I did. This little book contained so many big plot twists, so many things I didn't see coming, and delivered and end that KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF. (that's the best i can come up with at 1am i'm tired feed me.) Good job, Emma. I'll be keeping my eye out for more from you in the future.
So basically Marta and Hector have been married for quite some time but she decides to stop taking her pills (which fyi isn't usually ever a good idea don't do that) and starts sEEING CRAZY SHIT and then she starts to see a young girl who is trying to tell her things!!!!
doesn't that sound thrilling?? you should read this! it only gets better from there!!
that's all I'm going to tell you because I don't want to ruin the book for you but all I have to say is you should definitely read it because it is very gripping and the ending is explosive and kind of open-ended which is always cool, so you should pick it up if you're looking for a book to do that sort of thing.
Damn this little book!
It's short. Deceptively short. You think nothing too good could come out of it for being so short.
WELL GUESS AGAIN. (It's late I'm tired I should write this another day oh well.)
This book kind of shocked me. Actually, let me try again: it really shocked me. I totally thought it wasn't going to achieve what it ended up achieving. I thought it was going to be your standard Gone Girl knockoff, complete with a mid-center twist and an ominous ending that may or may not involve a death.
It blew me out of the water. The first thing I noticed was the quality of Chapman's writing. It's eloquent, but brisk. I loved it. It immediately drew me into Marta's story. Then, when she started seeing things, I realized just how much I wanted to keep reading and figure out what the hell was going on.
And I am so glad I did. This little book contained so many big plot twists, so many things I didn't see coming, and delivered and end that KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF. (that's the best i can come up with at 1am i'm tired feed me.) Good job, Emma. I'll be keeping my eye out for more from you in the future.
So basically Marta and Hector have been married for quite some time but she decides to stop taking her pills (which fyi isn't usually ever a good idea don't do that) and starts sEEING CRAZY SHIT and then she starts to see a young girl who is trying to tell her things!!!!
doesn't that sound thrilling?? you should read this! it only gets better from there!!
that's all I'm going to tell you because I don't want to ruin the book for you but all I have to say is you should definitely read it because it is very gripping and the ending is explosive and kind of open-ended which is always cool, so you should pick it up if you're looking for a book to do that sort of thing.
First of all, I always feel bad when I write a mediocre review, because I have the greatest admiration for anyone who puts in the hard work to write a book, and then has the courage to share it with an audience. However, that said, my honest reactions in reading this novel were boredom and frustration. Despite this, the writing was at times haunting and lovely, and the ending was unexpected and in a strange way, satisfying.
How to Be a Good Wife is the story of Marta Bjornstad, a middle-aged woman living amidst the fjords and valleys of a non-specific Scandinavian country. Her adult son has recently left home to move in with his girlfriend, and her husband Hector is a calm, logical, professor at a nearby university.
As the story begins, Marta starts to see a young blond girl-a hallucination? a ghost? The reader, and Marta, are not sure. We are told that Marta is on some type of psychiatric medication, and that she has recently stopped taking her pills. There is not too much more I can say about the plot of How to Be a Good Wife without giving away spoilers, but I will share some of my reactions to the novel as a whole.
First of all, although the book is a short 288 pages, it seems extremely repetitive...a groundhog-day type story in which it seems like every time Marta turns around, this blond girl is appearing to her with slightly different pajamas, slightly dirtier, or thinner, or healthier. Then the girl disappears into thin air, and Marta walks into another room in her house, and the girl appears again. Over and over and over. As a reader, I understood quickly that some type of vision was appearing to Marta, and the repetition seemed completely unnecessary and tedious.
Secondly, as other reviewers have noted, this novel is extremely "cold." For much of the story, Marta is alone in her house in the country; she lives an isolated existence while her husband and son work outside of the home. Her first person narration is flat, mechanical, and stunted. We learn that Marta has a rather mysterious past, and that she has lived a very regimented existence as Hector's submissive wife, following the old-fashioned gender dynamics prescribed in a book entitled "How to be a Good Wife" that Hector's mother gave Marta as a wedding gift.
The setting for the novel reflects Marta's haunting isolation; she lives surrounded by cold fjords, shadowy valleys, and falling snow. And Marta's conversations with her husband and son are stilted and formal. There is a certain beauty to the tone created in this novel, a fragile perfection much like the porcelain dolls that Marta collects, or the ballet lessons that she remembers from childhood. But at the same time, this coolness means that it is difficult for the reader to become emotionally invested in Marta's life, or to empathize with her as a character.
In contrast to the tedium of the first 2/3 of the book, I found the final action to be extremely frustrating and even unbelievable.
All that said, the way the author chose to end the novel was not exactly what I had expected, but it had a sort of satisfying grace. It referred back nicely to an earlier event in Marta's life, and also resolved the power dynamics that Marta had lived with as Hector's wife in an interesting way. The end of the novel was well-done in that it was consistent with the cool, bloodless tone of the rest of the story.
How to be a Good Wife is a book about grief, and about personal autonomy. Unfortunately, for me, it was not an enjoyable read, and it wasn't genuinely thought-provoking, either. It left me sad, and ready to move onto something more life-affirming.
How to Be a Good Wife is the story of Marta Bjornstad, a middle-aged woman living amidst the fjords and valleys of a non-specific Scandinavian country. Her adult son has recently left home to move in with his girlfriend, and her husband Hector is a calm, logical, professor at a nearby university.
As the story begins, Marta starts to see a young blond girl-a hallucination? a ghost? The reader, and Marta, are not sure. We are told that Marta is on some type of psychiatric medication, and that she has recently stopped taking her pills. There is not too much more I can say about the plot of How to Be a Good Wife without giving away spoilers, but I will share some of my reactions to the novel as a whole.
First of all, although the book is a short 288 pages, it seems extremely repetitive...a groundhog-day type story in which it seems like every time Marta turns around, this blond girl is appearing to her with slightly different pajamas, slightly dirtier, or thinner, or healthier. Then the girl disappears into thin air, and Marta walks into another room in her house, and the girl appears again. Over and over and over. As a reader, I understood quickly that some type of vision was appearing to Marta, and the repetition seemed completely unnecessary and tedious.
Secondly, as other reviewers have noted, this novel is extremely "cold." For much of the story, Marta is alone in her house in the country; she lives an isolated existence while her husband and son work outside of the home. Her first person narration is flat, mechanical, and stunted. We learn that Marta has a rather mysterious past, and that she has lived a very regimented existence as Hector's submissive wife, following the old-fashioned gender dynamics prescribed in a book entitled "How to be a Good Wife" that Hector's mother gave Marta as a wedding gift.
The setting for the novel reflects Marta's haunting isolation; she lives surrounded by cold fjords, shadowy valleys, and falling snow. And Marta's conversations with her husband and son are stilted and formal. There is a certain beauty to the tone created in this novel, a fragile perfection much like the porcelain dolls that Marta collects, or the ballet lessons that she remembers from childhood. But at the same time, this coolness means that it is difficult for the reader to become emotionally invested in Marta's life, or to empathize with her as a character.
In contrast to the tedium of the first 2/3 of the book, I found the final action to be extremely frustrating and even unbelievable.
Spoiler
When Marta thinks that she remembers being abducted by Hector 30 years before, and tells a psychiatrist, he doesn't investigate what he admits would be a crime, but rather, admits her to hospital. From what I know of working at a psychiatric hospital in the US, if someone reports to a doctor that they have been abused, it is the legal duty of the doctor to report that claim to the police. I don't know if the law is the same in Scandinavia, but it seemed unrealistic to me that a medical doctor could simply choose to ignore a report of kidnapping. Furthermore, when Marta makes this report to the doctor, she is coherent, and seemingly oriented to time and place. She does not behave like a raving lunatic, but, based on the fact that her supposed kidnapper, her husband, says that she is lying (big surprise) the doctor just disregards Marta's report. The whole thing made me really angry, but more than only feeling angry for Marta's mistreatment, I felt like the author was cheating. It didn't make sense to me that she could just have doctors and nurses disregard claims of a crime in order to make the plot of the novel work.All that said, the way the author chose to end the novel was not exactly what I had expected, but it had a sort of satisfying grace. It referred back nicely to an earlier event in Marta's life, and also resolved the power dynamics that Marta had lived with as Hector's wife in an interesting way. The end of the novel was well-done in that it was consistent with the cool, bloodless tone of the rest of the story.
How to be a Good Wife is a book about grief, and about personal autonomy. Unfortunately, for me, it was not an enjoyable read, and it wasn't genuinely thought-provoking, either. It left me sad, and ready to move onto something more life-affirming.
This is a page turner! It is horrifying and chilling. I wish it ended differently, but that wouldn't have fit with the story.
This book had so much potential to be an amazing thriller. Instead I feel like I waited for climax and the poof story over. Left to many questions and could have gone in several directions that would have been more satisfying. Would 100% classify this as "only finished cuz I had to see how it ended" Kinda dull. Will look for more books by author and hope she uses the potential that is clearly there
I had high hopes for this novel, but it didn't resonate with me as I had anticipated. I struggled to immerse myself in the story because the author's intention to blur the lines between the wife's perceptions and her reality felt somewhat elusive. While the style aimed for depth, it occasionally got lost in unnecessary details. The narrative invites readers to question the differing accounts of the marriage, which is thought-provoking. However, the ending left me yearning for resolution, with several intriguing aspects remaining open to interpretation.
3.5 stars
This book felt like a cross between The Farm and What Lies Beneath. Emma Chapman set the mood beautifully - it was so creepy and dark. I love an unreliable narrator and Marta definitely delivered. The ending was disappointing but didn't take away from my enjoyment.
This book felt like a cross between The Farm and What Lies Beneath. Emma Chapman set the mood beautifully - it was so creepy and dark. I love an unreliable narrator and Marta definitely delivered. The ending was disappointing but didn't take away from my enjoyment.