Review: The Husband’s Secret

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Genres: Adult, Women's Fiction
Published by Penguin on July 1st 2013
Also by this author: Big Little Lies, What Alice Forgot, Truly Madly Guilty, Nine Perfect Strangers
Format: eBook (394 pages) • Source: Purchased
Goodreads •

At the heart of The Husband’s Secret is a letter that’s not meant to be read

My darling Cecilia, if you’re reading this, then I’ve died. . .

Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive. . . .
Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all—she’s an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of her small community, and a devoted wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home. But that letter is about to change everything, and not just for her: Rachel and Tess barely know Cecilia—or each other—but they too are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband’s secret.

Acclaimed author Liane Moriarty has written a gripping, thought-provoking novel about how well it is really possible to know our spouses—and, ultimately, ourselves.

Review: I was surprised at how suspenseful a non-mystery/suspense book could be. I got wrapped up in this book so quickly that I spent most of my work day sneakily reading it on my computer’s Kindle app. I could absolutely not stop. The beginning was the most suspenseful part of the book. It kept building and building until I said JESUS what did this dude write in the letter?!?! Once you finally find out, the novel slowly starts falling together. I’ll say it for the hundredth time: I LOVE books with multiple perspectives/characters whose lives are somehow intertwined. I knew that the different characters in the book would end up coming together somehow but it took some time to get going. I think that helped though; you were able to learn about each character/family without getting caught up in the holy-shit part. The story follows multiple characters and switches between them for each chapter. It takes a good author to pull this off without being confusing (I’m looking at you, Jennifer Close. Ugh). Cecilia is the woman whose husband wrote the lifechanging letter. Tess is a woman who comes home to her mother’s house after her husband has betrayed her in the worst possible way. Rachel is an older woman whose daughter died at a young age. I’ll admit that I had sort of figured out what the letter was going to say before reading it, but that totally didn’t impact the novel for me. I was so happy to follow along with everyone and keep wondering what was going to happen next. This is a novel about secrets and how people carry so much with them each day. It’s hard for me to say a lot about this novel, but it is one of my absolute favorites from this year. I try to stick within the YA genre, but this is the exact type of adult fiction book I like to read. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of Liane Moriarty’s novels. It is much more than chick lit and isn’t about romance per se. This book was laugh-out-loud funny at parts and tearjerking at others; it was a really nice balance. This book was a lighter read somehow, which was surprising given the subject matter.  This was the type of book where character development was extremely important; I felt strongly about each person in the book and needed to know what happened to them next. The Husband’s Secret did a great job of pushing me back into more mature books. As I said, YA is normally my specialty, but fiction like this pulls me in sometimes. I can’t really think of anything I didn’t like about this book, made from the fact that I predicted some parts. Even still, that didn’t ruin the book for me by any means. With a book like this, you start to develop theories about how the characters are connected and at least one of them ends up being correct. The story was fully wrapped up in the epilogue, which is something I really appreciated. I’m pretty sure my mouth hung open as I read it; a lot of my suspicions were proven incorrect by the end. This is definitely one of the best books to read if you like the concept of intertwining characters.

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