Sunday, May 13, 2012

Wife 22-Melanie Gideon

Wife 22


Melanie Gideon

Ballantine, May 29 2012, $26.00

ISBN: 9780345527950



Alice Buckle has been married to advertising executive William for almost two decades. They have two children fifteen year old Zoe who struggles with an eating disorder after being dumped by her first boyfriend the son of Alice’s BFF Nedra the divorce lawyer and twelve year old Peter who shows early signs of being gay.



Worried about her kids, Alice also fears her haunting next birthday as forty-five is the age her mother died. She cannot turn to her support group of women without mothers as she knows what they will say or her spouse who has been acting weird lately since his esteem collapsed when he was demoted on the job. Alice receives an email inviting her to participate in an online survey of long-married women. Dubbed Wife 22 She answers the questions while looking closely at her marriage and family and at the play she wrote that bombed. Upset with William’s grumpy aloofness, Wife 22 flirts online with survey Researcher 101 while ignoring the needs of her troubled children.



This is an entertaining middle age chick lit tale for the communication age. The cast is solid especially the protagonist and her family. However, readers will become frustrated with the parents as initially William but rather quickly Alice become egomaniacs looking to take care of their respective needs while failing at parenting at a time when their teen and tweener are in crisis. Still this is an interesting older (bit not wiser) Brigit Jones Diary over the Smart Phone.



Harried Klausner

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