Alice Buckle is a typical housewife. She doesn't have the
most exciting life, but it's bearable. Her typical
schedule is interrupted, however, when she decides to
participate in a research study. She is dubbed "Wife 22"
and put in contact with "Researcher 101" who is supposed to
answer her questions about the research along the way.
Before long, her chat with Researcher 101 begins to feel
illicit and she gets more and more secretive. How long can
Alice keep this up before her family catches on or she
decides to take things with Researcher 101 too far?
Alice's character was okay. She was hard to connect
to because she was so analytical about her children, yet
failed to make an important connection about her daughter.
She didn't seem to be trying with her husband anymore, and her
marriage wasn't holding up well. Much of her energy went
into this research study.
William, her husband, comes off
as a little too brusque and forceful at times, but readers
will love him by the end of WIFE 22. Readers will be
introduced to multiple other characters.
For the most part, the
characters are well-developed and dynamic, readers may
wish that Alice was more likable.
The plot itself is very unique. The title makes it sound
like either a formidable divorced man or polygamy, but WIFE 22
is anything but those two things. WIFE 22 takes a
look at what happens when a marriage is slowly eroding and
how social media, like Facebook, can affect relationships.
WIFE 22 is hard to put down and the ending will
satisfy you.
For fans of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary
and Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It
comes an irresistible novel of a woman losing herself . . .
and finding herself again . . . in the middle of her
life.
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.
7. Sometimes I tell him he’s snoring when he’s
not snoring so he’ll sleep in the guest room and I can have
the bed all to myself. 61. Chet Baker on the tape
player. He was cutting peppers for the salad. I looked at
those hands and thought, I am going to have this man’s
children. 67. To not want what you don’t have. What you
can’t have. What you shouldn’t have. 32.
That if we weren’t careful, it was possible to forget one
another.
Before the study, my life was an
endless blur of school lunches and doctor’s appointments,
family dinners, budgets, and trying to discern the
fastest-moving line at the grocery store. I was Alice
Buckle: spouse of William and mother to Zoe and Peter, drama
teacher and Facebook chatter, downloader of memories and
Googler of solutions.
But these days, I’m
also Wife 22. And somehow, my anonymous correspondence with
Researcher 101 has taken an unexpectedly personal turn.
Soon, I’ll have to make a decision—one that will affect my
family, my marriage, my whole life. But at the moment, I’m
too busy answering questions.
As it turns
out, confession can be a very powerful aphrodisiac
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