A review by shrutislibrary
Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown
mysterious
medium-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? Yes
3.0
"Women have so few choices, Nellie. Our gender can be our greatest strength, but it is also our greatest weakness."
Have you ever been on a train you were promised would be a fast ride, which started pretty slow and steady, then arrived at the last station without ever hitting the highest speed you had anticipated?
Well, this book felt exactly like that. It didn't ever cross that maximum speed limit.
Let me explain.
The story follows two parallel timelines, one in 2018 navigating the recent move of married couple Nate & Alice Hale who leave their city life behind in New York City to shift to quiet suburban life in Greenville. The other jumps back in time following Richard and Nellie Murdoch who lived in the same house that the Hales recently bought back in 1956.
Unsettled by the house move which is crumbling in aspect but has a lovely garden to its credit & her husband Nate's designs to get her pregnant, Alice is feeling discomfort, unease & uncertain of her future. Will she become the boring suburban housewife, just content in cooking and cleaning for her hardworking husband?
Who am I? A failed wife, an amateur novelist, a liar? These questions plague Alice.
The 1950s plotline unfolds when Alice chances upon the letters written by Nellie to her mother Elsie and the family cookbook passed down from her mother to Nellie. Through this correspondence, we, like Alice, witness the unravelling of Nellie Murdoch's perfectly happy life & marriage.
This novel shows the lack of agency women had back in the olden days, & even now when it comes to making choices in their lives in general & their marriages in particular: be it regarding their bodies, sex, childbearing, career, or whether or not they should be wearing kitten heels or flats to Tupperware parties. It explores themes like female desire, women's roles in traditional heteronormative societies as efficient homemakers, 'good' wives & attentive mothers, and what a successful marriage should look like.
How far one can suffer lies, deception and abuse in marriage & how far one can do those things to present the facade of a happy marriage is the central concern. Or is it as Oscar Wilde once said "the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties."
The writing was pretty factual, and the persona of Nellie was the most enigmatic one. She displayed all the qualities of a 1950s wife. The whole book could play like a movie because of the way it was written. The thing is that I thought that the mystery element was going to be a lot stronger, but alas the key mystery/shocking event I could guess from a mile away so it didn't matter when it was delivered to me, only the mode of it varied. So overall the reading experience was okay, nothing very 'thrilling' happened as I had expected.
Have you ever been on a train you were promised would be a fast ride, which started pretty slow and steady, then arrived at the last station without ever hitting the highest speed you had anticipated?
Well, this book felt exactly like that. It didn't ever cross that maximum speed limit.
Let me explain.
The story follows two parallel timelines, one in 2018 navigating the recent move of married couple Nate & Alice Hale who leave their city life behind in New York City to shift to quiet suburban life in Greenville. The other jumps back in time following Richard and Nellie Murdoch who lived in the same house that the Hales recently bought back in 1956.
Unsettled by the house move which is crumbling in aspect but has a lovely garden to its credit & her husband Nate's designs to get her pregnant, Alice is feeling discomfort, unease & uncertain of her future. Will she become the boring suburban housewife, just content in cooking and cleaning for her hardworking husband?
Who am I? A failed wife, an amateur novelist, a liar? These questions plague Alice.
The 1950s plotline unfolds when Alice chances upon the letters written by Nellie to her mother Elsie and the family cookbook passed down from her mother to Nellie. Through this correspondence, we, like Alice, witness the unravelling of Nellie Murdoch's perfectly happy life & marriage.
This novel shows the lack of agency women had back in the olden days, & even now when it comes to making choices in their lives in general & their marriages in particular: be it regarding their bodies, sex, childbearing, career, or whether or not they should be wearing kitten heels or flats to Tupperware parties. It explores themes like female desire, women's roles in traditional heteronormative societies as efficient homemakers, 'good' wives & attentive mothers, and what a successful marriage should look like.
How far one can suffer lies, deception and abuse in marriage & how far one can do those things to present the facade of a happy marriage is the central concern. Or is it as Oscar Wilde once said "the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties."
The writing was pretty factual, and the persona of Nellie was the most enigmatic one. She displayed all the qualities of a 1950s wife. The whole book could play like a movie because of the way it was written. The thing is that I thought that the mystery element was going to be a lot stronger, but alas the key mystery/shocking event I could guess from a mile away so it didn't matter when it was delivered to me, only the mode of it varied. So overall the reading experience was okay, nothing very 'thrilling' happened as I had expected.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Blood, and Suicide