Another Disclosure: I just took my insomnia medication. Which means that I will be getting very mentally uncoordinated soon. Writing this will be like the timed obstacle course in Legends of the Hidden Temple. In about ten minutes a proverbial stone boulder will close upon my coherency. Countdown started five minutes ago. Maybe seven. Maybe... OKAY LET'S GET TO IT!
I read The Husband's Secret immediately after finishing Big Little Lies. I wanted to see what else Moriarty had produced. Her style of writing and her characters were so enjoyable that I immediately wanted to revisit Moriarty's fictional world. Good news is, Moriarty is improving, getting better with each book. Bad news is, I didn't take to The Husband's Secret, which preludes Big Little Lies.
I'd say I enjoyed the book up to a certain point. Like Big Little Lies, the narrative follows three women. There is Cecilia, who was scrounging in the attic and finds a letter her husband wrote to her about fifteen years ago. It says that it ought to be opened and read only upon the event of his death. She calls her husband, away from Sydney on a business trip, and he reacts in an odd way. Cecilia's story is likened to Pandora. She has to decide whether or not to open a potentially explosive letter and then deal with the aftermath.
Tess was my favorite character. She spontaneously leaves Melbourne for Sydney with her son, following an unreal moment where Tess's husband and her best friend and cousin tell her that they've fallen in love with each other. Tess deals with this insanity so well. You just want to applaud or salute her gutsy character. Especially when she runs into an old flame in Sydney...
Rachel was my least favorite character. She's an older, embittered, woman. Her daughter was murdered years before and the case was never solved. Rachel, however, has a pretty good idea of who is responsible.
Disclosure: I can barely type right now.
I had two main dislikes with this book. For one, the split narration got pretty choppy at times. It was a pain to have to shift among three distinct stories, especially you're facing a Rachel Chapter after enjoying immensely a Tess chapter and seeing it end on a cliffhanger. I would up speeding around in the book, so that I could read the women's stories linearly.
What I also didn't like about the book was its ending. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone but WHY LIANE MORIARTY?!
So, obviously I'm going to have to be a fan of Moriarty's later works, as she's made some vast improvements between The Husband's Secret and Big Little Lies.
There will be editing of this tomorrow, but I'll leave it up overnight for people who want to have some fun reading reviews written under the influence.
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