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A review by okiecozyreader
The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth
dark
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
This is my first Sally Hepworth novel that I read with Friends and Fiction bookclub. Their interview with her is SO GOOD and worth the listen / watch.
https://m.facebook.com/groups/friendsandfictionofficialbookclub/permalink/821425995900472/
In it, she mentions that many of the characters deal with coping mechanisms, and that is how she tied it together. I can tell that the epilogue made a lot of people frustrated. It didn’t really bother me; I felt like what she was trying to accomplish worked for me - and this part of her story is similar to that of one that she knew in real life. (See above video)
I listened to the audio and enjoyed the Australian accents and the book moves quickly - 73 chapters (most less than 10 minutes - so it’s hard to quit reading!)
The first chapter holds a wedding, with a member of the wedding party splattered with blood, then we go back and meet the family. The father, Stephen is a cardiologist marrying a younger woman (between his daughter’s ages), but most appalling to them - while their mother and his current wife, is suffering from dementia and recently moved to a care unit. We learn about each of their struggles (most chapters have the POV of the two daughters and the new bride) in the weeks leading up to the wedding.
This book has lots of triggers: domestic abuse, kleptomania (“strange compulsions”), eating disorders, sexual assault, loss of pregnancy, etc
Quotes
“His eyes were kind. (Another thing Heather had learned growing up was to assess people’s eyes. Kind. Mean. Lecherous. They could change quickly, so you always had to keep an eye on the eyes.)” ch 16
“Upper middle class hired people to help them pack, take away the things they didn’t need, and unpack again at the other end. In addition to paying them handsomely, Stephen had given the movers a slab of premium beer and instructed her to order pizzas for them. That had been particularly eye-opening. Heather had assumed—from movies and the like—that the more money people had, the worse they treated the staff, but she understood now that wasn’t generally the case. She also understood why. When you were comfortable, you could afford to be magnanimous. Poorer people didn’t help the movers unpack because they were tired from working two jobs. If the movers broke something, poorer people were mad, because they couldn’t afford to replace it. They didn’t order pizza or premium beer for the movers, because when was the last time someone did that for them? It was strange, seeing the world from both sides. Strange, and eye-opening. So few people got to see things from her vantage point. It seemed, to Heather, an awful shame.” Ch 19
“I just mean, don’t beat yourself up for single-handedly saving yourself with the tools you had available to you. Where I come from, that’s called survival.” Ch 29
“And yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t all bad. Perhaps the very worst people still had some good in them. And perhaps the very best had some bad.” Ch 66
https://m.facebook.com/groups/friendsandfictionofficialbookclub/permalink/821425995900472/
In it, she mentions that many of the characters deal with coping mechanisms, and that is how she tied it together. I can tell that the epilogue made a lot of people frustrated. It didn’t really bother me; I felt like what she was trying to accomplish worked for me - and this part of her story is similar to that of one that she knew in real life. (See above video)
I listened to the audio and enjoyed the Australian accents and the book moves quickly - 73 chapters (most less than 10 minutes - so it’s hard to quit reading!)
The first chapter holds a wedding, with a member of the wedding party splattered with blood, then we go back and meet the family. The father, Stephen is a cardiologist marrying a younger woman (between his daughter’s ages), but most appalling to them - while their mother and his current wife, is suffering from dementia and recently moved to a care unit. We learn about each of their struggles (most chapters have the POV of the two daughters and the new bride) in the weeks leading up to the wedding.
This book has lots of triggers: domestic abuse, kleptomania (“strange compulsions”), eating disorders, sexual assault, loss of pregnancy, etc
Quotes
“His eyes were kind. (Another thing Heather had learned growing up was to assess people’s eyes. Kind. Mean. Lecherous. They could change quickly, so you always had to keep an eye on the eyes.)” ch 16
“Upper middle class hired people to help them pack, take away the things they didn’t need, and unpack again at the other end. In addition to paying them handsomely, Stephen had given the movers a slab of premium beer and instructed her to order pizzas for them. That had been particularly eye-opening. Heather had assumed—from movies and the like—that the more money people had, the worse they treated the staff, but she understood now that wasn’t generally the case. She also understood why. When you were comfortable, you could afford to be magnanimous. Poorer people didn’t help the movers unpack because they were tired from working two jobs. If the movers broke something, poorer people were mad, because they couldn’t afford to replace it. They didn’t order pizza or premium beer for the movers, because when was the last time someone did that for them? It was strange, seeing the world from both sides. Strange, and eye-opening. So few people got to see things from her vantage point. It seemed, to Heather, an awful shame.” Ch 19
“I just mean, don’t beat yourself up for single-handedly saving yourself with the tools you had available to you. Where I come from, that’s called survival.” Ch 29
“And yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t all bad. Perhaps the very worst people still had some good in them. And perhaps the very best had some bad.” Ch 66
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Dementia, and Eating disorder
Minor: Pregnancy and Sexual assault