Reading: Wife 22

Just finished up Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon. It seriously only took me 4 days. That is probably a record for me. This book grabbed me from the first chapter and since the chapters are short I just breezed right through them.

 Maybe it was those extra five pounds I’d gained. Maybe it was because I was about to turn the same age my mother was when I lost her. Maybe it was because after almost twenty years of marriage my husband and I seemed to be running out of things to say to each other.

But when the anonymous online study called “Marriage in the 21st Century” showed up in my inbox, I had no idea how profoundly it would change my life. It wasn’t long before I was assigned both a pseudonym (Wife 22) and a caseworker (Researcher 101).

And, just like that, I found myself answering questions.

source: goodreads

I picked this baby up on Wednesday and just finished it this morning. It was a cute, fast read. I liked that it was written first person, which most always grabs me and that the chapters were so short. Although with short chapters comes the "I'll put it down after I finish this chapter" but then bleeds into more and more.

Some of the chapters are facebook updates, her answering the questions or even a dialogue of what went on at one of her best friend Nedra's dinner parties.

This book begs the question: are we too involved in our social media to really see what's going on around us?

How often do you check facebook? How often do you have a real conversation IRL? Are you ignoring your family and the pressures that come with it for a virtual world?

I don't have a facebook but I do find that I can lose myself in a book when I don't want to face reality, pressures and obligations.

Sometimes it's good to raise ones head and take a good look around. Exactly what one wishes Alice would do with her family. Is she losing her husband, her kids? What really is going on between her and Researcher 101? Will she ever live a satisfying life?

I did shed a few tears at the very end. This does wrap up in a pretty tidy bow but it's the journey there that is really cute and funny.

I did find that having the questions at the end of the book and only her answers at the beginning of chapters a little annoying but I just bookmarked the questions and flipped back and forth which can be frustrating if you are reading this one-handed. Also I just found out this book will be made into a movie. Why? I ask.  And how can it really translate into a good movie? It's the reading of it and the facebook updates and how Alice describes the dinner parties that really make it funny. I just don't see this will translate onto celluloid and I probably won't go see it. Just like I refuse to see the Stephanie Plum movie. (I mean, Katherine Heigl, really?!)

I would recommend this, I even felt the need to answer the questions myself (there's about 90 or so them) and I would give this a 4 out of 5. (The questionnaire at the back left something to be desired and I'm disappointed that there's going to be a movie not every good book needs to become a movie. More people just need to go the library.)

relax,
paulina