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A review by marilynw
The Starter Wife by Nina Laurin
3.0
The Starter Wife has two unreliable narrators. There is the mysterious student who is stalking college professor Byron and his wife and there is Claire, Byron's second wife. The student feels that Byron's wife if not worthy of him and that she must protect him from her devious ways. She actually considers herself his "Guardian Angel", determined that at some point she will be married to Byron and he will know she is the perfect wife for him.
Claire is dealing with feelings of jealousy and resentment towards Byron's first wife, Coleen, whose wealth was responsible for the house they live in and the money they can spend on luxuries. She resents Coleen's former college professor career and also her second career as a painter and she hates that they are still living in the house that Byron and Coleen lived in before Coleen committed suicide.
I can't say that any of the characters in the book are likable although it's hard to know the truth of the other characters because we only see them mostly through Claire's eyes and sometimes through the eyes of the stalking student. When the book starts, Claire begins to get messages from Coleen and phone calls from an anonymous woman, alluding to something that is missing. Claire puts all her effort into finding out who is harassing her while she also is trying to set up fertility treatments behind her husband's back.
The book is very interesting except that the two narrators are so unlikable and seem to have no redeeming qualities that it's hard feel invested in what happens to them. The other characters, seen through those two women's eyes, can't be fleshed out realistically since we aren't getting the real facts about them. I did figure out some plot points ahead of time, but still had no idea how the book would end.
Published June 11th 2019
Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC.
Claire is dealing with feelings of jealousy and resentment towards Byron's first wife, Coleen, whose wealth was responsible for the house they live in and the money they can spend on luxuries. She resents Coleen's former college professor career and also her second career as a painter and she hates that they are still living in the house that Byron and Coleen lived in before Coleen committed suicide.
I can't say that any of the characters in the book are likable although it's hard to know the truth of the other characters because we only see them mostly through Claire's eyes and sometimes through the eyes of the stalking student. When the book starts, Claire begins to get messages from Coleen and phone calls from an anonymous woman, alluding to something that is missing. Claire puts all her effort into finding out who is harassing her while she also is trying to set up fertility treatments behind her husband's back.
The book is very interesting except that the two narrators are so unlikable and seem to have no redeeming qualities that it's hard feel invested in what happens to them. The other characters, seen through those two women's eyes, can't be fleshed out realistically since we aren't getting the real facts about them. I did figure out some plot points ahead of time, but still had no idea how the book would end.
Published June 11th 2019
Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC.