The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty: Review

Amazon/Barnes & Noble

To be opened in the event of my death

With one swift, vicious movement, she sliced the envelope open, and pulled out a handwritten letter.

love you and the girls...
so sorry to leave you with this...
cannot bear

The Husband's Secret is a funny, heartbreaking novel of marriage, grief, love and secrets. When her husband announces he's in love with her best friend, painfully shy Tess picks up her young son and returns to her mother's house. There she begins an unexpected affair with an old flame. Rachel is a woman in her sixties consumed by grief and anger at the loss of her daughter twenty years earlier. When her son announces he is taking her beloved grandson overseas, Rachel begins a descent into deeper bitterness and pain. Cecilia is the quintessential "I don't know how she does it" woman. A devoted mother to three daughters, she runs her household like clockwork, is President of the P&C, owns an extremely successful Tupperware business and is happy in her fifteen-year marriage. Until she discovers a letter in their attic labelled: "To my wife Cecilia, to be opened in the event of my death"... Her husband's secret is a bombshell beyond all imagining with repercussions across the lives of all three women.

Right after reading The Husband’s Secret I went to Goodreads and wrote this:

“It's midnight, I can't sleep and had to come here and write something about The Husband's Secret. From page one this book took hold of me and didn't let me go until I finished it. Just incredible. I won't be able to get into another book for a while. I finished it 5 minutes ago and I'm missing the characters so much. God, I feel like I know them. I can't say goodbye to them. I just can't.”

I heard about this book a few months ago but I didn't think it would be for me. It’s just not my type of book. But, I was so wrong. From now on I will be more open minded and try new things because this book is one of my favorite books of the year and it would've been a shame if I missed out on it just because it’s not my type of book.

 The characters in this book felt so real to me that my mind decided to block for a few days the fact that they were figments of someone’s imagination. This doesn't happen to me often. Most of the time, if I feel that I’m feeling too much, I can pull myself away from the book I’m reading and remember that they are just characters. But for some reason I couldn't detach myself from Moriarty’s characters. There’s 3 main points of views, Cecilia, Tess and Rachel. I thought that I wasn't going to connect with them because of the age difference and the different life stages we are in. But, to my surprise, I connected with the 3 of them. I saw some of my fears and me in them. The fear of something happening to my child, the fear of someone betraying my trust, the need to be in control and putting other people’s needs before my own, just to name a few. These women were very human like. Not only were this character 3 dimensional but they also had unique voices.

From the title alone you know someone has a secret. But the book is not only about this secret and that one person is not the only one hiding something. I enjoyed this part of the book quite a lot. Although I kind of guessed the secret, it was still a punch to the gut when it was finally revealed. It felt kind of like waiting for someone to punch you and you are seeing everything in slow motion and when it finally happens it stills hurts the same. It was like that. So many mistakes and regrets. I never wanted a time machine more than while reading The Husband’s Secret. I wanted to turn back time for the characters. I really did.

I’m still thinking about The Husband’s Secret. I’m still thinking about the epilogue. The epilogue was the perfect ending. It was so amazing and just right. I think everyone should give this book a try. When I got The Husband's Secret I decided to read just a few pages because I was reading something else at the time. Those 2 pages I read lead to reading the rest of the book right there and then.