A review by hotties4literacy
My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

If you’re going to rip off Gone Girl, at least do it well. This book did not thrill me, it bored me. The actual interesting piece of the plot did not start for 250 pages which is way too long to try and keep a reader hooked for. Also, imagine discovering empathy for women that you are killing because your daughter is scared. Get real. This book was a great lesson in how to do the “scorned woman” trope poorly. The wife was so one-dimensional and her motivations were ridiculous. She flipped from perfect to evil in one second and she was never framed well. To bring it back to Gone Girl, Amy Dunne also cites cheating as her final straw that goes into this insane plan to frame her husband BUT her motivations and personality are much deeper than “I got cheated on and now I’m mad >:(“. She has actual critiques of the expectations of the modern women in marriage and how she couldn’t deal with it any more. But on top of that, she’s still a morally complicated character who does wrong. She is neither good nor evil, she’s a person. And the wife in this book was not a person. She was a plot device. And it made this book reprehensible. Congrats to My Lovely Wife for being my first one star read of the year.