Wife 22 Book Review

Wife 22
Melanie Gideon
Ballantine Books
ISBN: 978-034-5-527950
Publishing Date: May 19, 2012
Genre: Fiction

Book Description:

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.

My Thoughts:



            Wife 22 as a great book about family dynamic, you have the picture perfect family with the perfect marriage. Well at least that’s how everyone around the Buckle’s sees their lives and for a very long time Alice and Peter sees their lives as perfect as well. Thing start changing though Peter loses his job and begins to change his whole purpose in life. Alice feels lost and doesn’t know where she belongs or what to do with herself. This book takes you into the heart of a family that has so much love and passion in it but has hit a rough patch and is having a heck of a time coming back from it.

            Alice begins to feel like her world is unraveling and turns to an unexpected confidante, whom her best friend strongly disagrees with, she feels like she has nowhere to turn and she doesn’t know how to come back to where she used to be. Whether it is a mid-life crisis or common stress she can’t figure it out but she feels like Peter her husband is going through the same thing and they are drifting further and further apart and the waves just won’t stop.

I loved the characters depth in this book; it really brought a new meaning to true love for me. It was refreshing to read about a rough patch and a couple still determined to make it work because they really do love each other. It was beautifully written, captivating, and meaningful. You really don’t get that anymore with all the romance novels out there today; this was real and had real heart in it. I recommend it to all those romantics at heart.

*I was given this book by the author in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own. I was not compensated for this review.