Reviews with content warning for Rape - Recipe for a Perfect Wife

I found the modern character, Alice, frankly annoying. First she is way too capitalist brainwashed whining that she doesn't know who she is if she isn't working 50 hours a week in her toxic work environment, then she repeated makes idiot plot choices to create conflict in her relationship and then at the end

everything is okay because she gets pregnant, which is was actively avoiding for a good portion of the book

. The 50s character, Nellie, is much more likeable imho because all her problems are concrete. I almost wonder if the author had the plot for her story line, found it to be much too short and then crafted the modern tale around it but didn't really have the same good ideas or passion.

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Okay, major points for the recipe-and-50s-advice-excerpt gimmick. That definitely saved a star. Sadly it’s not enough to make up for some things I couldn’t get past in order to enjoy this book.

- Alice is a jerk. I said it. I sympathized with her for a while, but with all the unnecessary lying and emotional manipulation I just couldn’t connect with her after maybe the halfway point. Nate was fine up until the thing he did toward the end (trying to avoid spoilers here). What the heck was that? Who does that? Not someone who we have already agreed is a decent husband. It just didn’t fit.

- There seems very little connection between Alice and Nellie besides owning the same house and Alice finding her letters. I think we were supposed to read that Alice felt connected to Nellie in some way, but it just wasn’t there. They were nothing alike, their situations were nothing alike. It was just two different stories told in tandem.

- So… the house is haunted? Or it isn’t? Where was that going? Nowhere. It went nowhere. Too bad, that could have been a fun spin.

I will say that I was very invested in Nellie’s story. I sympathized with her and rooted for her. I finished the book just to see her get to her (admittedly predictable) ending. I think this book could have been so much more though.

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