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koz108's review
2.0
If you've read Gone Girl and you want something similar, this is pretty good. The characters felt a bit flat to me, but I still couldn't put it down.
bibbo's review
3.0
This is a very quick read. Solid 3 stars, but seemed a bit too spare in the telling. Maybe this is my big book bias showing. Perfect length for a couple hour plane trip,
gweiswasser's review
3.0
Full review at: http://everydayiwritethebookblog.com/2015/12/the-daylight-marriage-by-heidi-pitlor/
The Daylight Marriage by Heidi Pitlor is a thriller about a suburban Boston mother who disappears from her daily routine the day after a bad fight with her husband. Hannah and Lovell have two children, ages nine and fifteen, and have been married for seventeen years. Lovell is academic and distracted, and while he feels he married out of his league, he’s no longer good at noticing or appreciating his wife. Hannah is a stay at home mom with a part-time job in a flower shop who feels distant from her husband and bored/unfulfilled with the routines of motherhood.
After the fight, in which Lovell questions how she spends her time and why she can’t get anything done, Hannah simply vanishes. She doesn’t pick her children up at school, and never returns home. What happened to her?
The Daylight Marriage was just OK for me. Pitlor is observant and creates very believable scenes and dialogue. There are little details sprinkled throughout the narration which made the action come alive for me. Her description of Hannah’s life and routine – picking up the kids, going to the orthodontist, making one of the few meals they would eat for dinner, homework, her husband’s vacancy – gave some clues as to why Hannah might want to disappear. She wrote, “When in [Hannah’s] life had she lost her desire for the next moment and then the next? It seemed to have happened slowly, not in one sudden blow, but over thousands of ordinary moments, in the tiniest of choices meant to lead her toward a well-defined future, the sort that had been chosen and lived by so many other people.”
Lovell was frustrating at first in his obtuseness, but he is redeemed somewhat by the end of the book. Faced with Hannah’s disappearance, he is forced to participate as a parent in a way he hasn’t before, and that process is gradual but convincing.
So why did this book fall short? I think it was the ultimate resolution of what happened to Hannah. Despite her apparent depression and desperation, her actions were unrealistic and unlikely. Pitlor throws in a few red herrings, but ultimately the answer to what happened wasn’t terribly shocking.
In the end: good writing, some keen observations, but an unfulfilling story.
The Daylight Marriage by Heidi Pitlor is a thriller about a suburban Boston mother who disappears from her daily routine the day after a bad fight with her husband. Hannah and Lovell have two children, ages nine and fifteen, and have been married for seventeen years. Lovell is academic and distracted, and while he feels he married out of his league, he’s no longer good at noticing or appreciating his wife. Hannah is a stay at home mom with a part-time job in a flower shop who feels distant from her husband and bored/unfulfilled with the routines of motherhood.
After the fight, in which Lovell questions how she spends her time and why she can’t get anything done, Hannah simply vanishes. She doesn’t pick her children up at school, and never returns home. What happened to her?
The Daylight Marriage was just OK for me. Pitlor is observant and creates very believable scenes and dialogue. There are little details sprinkled throughout the narration which made the action come alive for me. Her description of Hannah’s life and routine – picking up the kids, going to the orthodontist, making one of the few meals they would eat for dinner, homework, her husband’s vacancy – gave some clues as to why Hannah might want to disappear. She wrote, “When in [Hannah’s] life had she lost her desire for the next moment and then the next? It seemed to have happened slowly, not in one sudden blow, but over thousands of ordinary moments, in the tiniest of choices meant to lead her toward a well-defined future, the sort that had been chosen and lived by so many other people.”
Lovell was frustrating at first in his obtuseness, but he is redeemed somewhat by the end of the book. Faced with Hannah’s disappearance, he is forced to participate as a parent in a way he hasn’t before, and that process is gradual but convincing.
So why did this book fall short? I think it was the ultimate resolution of what happened to Hannah. Despite her apparent depression and desperation, her actions were unrealistic and unlikely. Pitlor throws in a few red herrings, but ultimately the answer to what happened wasn’t terribly shocking.
In the end: good writing, some keen observations, but an unfulfilling story.
nikkidominique's review
3.0
The book was lacking a good plot. The whole plot was just based off of the husband's angst of his wife missing, that's it. Near the end of the book, the author takes just a few pages to recall the wife's experience of what happened. This book was not written well. It builds up "suspense" (if you can even call it that) just to have the book end with no detailed explanation of why it happened and instead with a memory the main character had with her. It was not good.
howifeelaboutbooks's review
2.0
Recommended to me by a friend. I thought it was going to be suspenseful and twisted based on the cover blurbs - Stephen King, Tom Perrotta, etc. It was well-written, but the suspense just wasn’t there. The story wasn’t too compelling either - it was hard to identify with any of the characters. They weren’t very detailed, and their problems seemed kind of basic: husband doesn’t ask about wife’s day, wife doesn’t show husband love, etc. Once you start it, you have to finish because you want to know what happens, but this is NOT a must-read book.
bookreadergal's review against another edition
2.0
UGH. I didn't like anything about this book. Very poorly written, no character development, a lot of plot holes, and is the author kidding me with the teenage daughter swearing like a sailor at her dad? Get real woman.
whatsheread's review against another edition
The Daylight Marriage is the type of novel that keeps readers guessing. Hannah’s fate remains nebulous until the very end, and the constant predicting and hoping keep a reader emotionally invested in Hannah’s and Lovell’s story. The back and forth between Lovell’s internal reflections of his wife and his marriage versus Hannah’s actions that fateful day remain intriguing. More importantly, the story shows how one small decision can change one’s life forever.
In a situation in which the two partners are at obvious odds with each other, it is easy to side with one person over another. In The Daylight Marriage, however, Ms. Pitlor manages to make both Lovell and Hannah equally guilty and innocent in the downward spiral of their marriage. Both are extremely flawed, and both contribute to their problems. One is no more guilty than the other, and this feels exactly right because as with anything in a relationship, both are at fault for the events leading up to Hannah’s disappearance. To pit one against the other or to lead readers to pick sides would be to change the story and not for the better. Ms. Pitlor balances the line quite nicely and in turn makes the story about something more than someone being innocent or guilty.
While The Daylight Marriage is not about guilt or innocence of any one character, it is about marriage. It sheds light on this institution in which two strangers meet and get to know one another enough to want to share a life with each other. It highlights the fact that one’s spouse will always be somewhat of a stranger because it is impossible to know everything any one person has ever thought, felt, or experienced in the course of one’s life. The Daylight Marriage is not disavowing the idea of marriage or the act itself, but it does highlight how difficult it is for two people to come together and make this long-term situation work. Lovell and Hannah struggle just like every other married couple, but their fights take on more significance in light of Hannah’s sudden disappearance. This is the truly interesting dynamic at play throughout the story.
One last curious element of The Daylight Marriage is that at no point in time is a reader ever in doubt of Lovell’s complete innocence. This is not a story of a husband victimizing his wife or an unreliable narrator telling a highly edited version of a story. Ms. Pitlor establishes this fact early in the novel, and by doing so removes all traces of speculation. In turn, this allows readers to focus on what truly happened and on Lovell’s self-reflection. This also emphasizes the importance of the question of what went wrong that both Lovell and Hannah contemplate.
While there is an ominous tone to The Daylight Marriage, it is a quiet little novel full of deep thoughts and even deeper regrets. It is the culmination of a relationship gone south but one that has not yet reached the point of no recovery. Lovell and Hannah have their problems, but underneath their anger and frustration is that same love they had on their magical honeymoon. That it takes Hannah’s disappearance for both of them to realize this is the true tragedy of the story. Common marital advice includes never going to bed angry with each other and never taking each other for granted. The Daylight Marriage is a great reminder of why that advice is sound.
In a situation in which the two partners are at obvious odds with each other, it is easy to side with one person over another. In The Daylight Marriage, however, Ms. Pitlor manages to make both Lovell and Hannah equally guilty and innocent in the downward spiral of their marriage. Both are extremely flawed, and both contribute to their problems. One is no more guilty than the other, and this feels exactly right because as with anything in a relationship, both are at fault for the events leading up to Hannah’s disappearance. To pit one against the other or to lead readers to pick sides would be to change the story and not for the better. Ms. Pitlor balances the line quite nicely and in turn makes the story about something more than someone being innocent or guilty.
While The Daylight Marriage is not about guilt or innocence of any one character, it is about marriage. It sheds light on this institution in which two strangers meet and get to know one another enough to want to share a life with each other. It highlights the fact that one’s spouse will always be somewhat of a stranger because it is impossible to know everything any one person has ever thought, felt, or experienced in the course of one’s life. The Daylight Marriage is not disavowing the idea of marriage or the act itself, but it does highlight how difficult it is for two people to come together and make this long-term situation work. Lovell and Hannah struggle just like every other married couple, but their fights take on more significance in light of Hannah’s sudden disappearance. This is the truly interesting dynamic at play throughout the story.
One last curious element of The Daylight Marriage is that at no point in time is a reader ever in doubt of Lovell’s complete innocence. This is not a story of a husband victimizing his wife or an unreliable narrator telling a highly edited version of a story. Ms. Pitlor establishes this fact early in the novel, and by doing so removes all traces of speculation. In turn, this allows readers to focus on what truly happened and on Lovell’s self-reflection. This also emphasizes the importance of the question of what went wrong that both Lovell and Hannah contemplate.
While there is an ominous tone to The Daylight Marriage, it is a quiet little novel full of deep thoughts and even deeper regrets. It is the culmination of a relationship gone south but one that has not yet reached the point of no recovery. Lovell and Hannah have their problems, but underneath their anger and frustration is that same love they had on their magical honeymoon. That it takes Hannah’s disappearance for both of them to realize this is the true tragedy of the story. Common marital advice includes never going to bed angry with each other and never taking each other for granted. The Daylight Marriage is a great reminder of why that advice is sound.