Always Pouting's Reviews > The Husband's Secret

Cecilia starts poking around the attic one day to find a piece of the Berlin wall she has, her daughter is going through a Berlin wall phase, when she finds a letter addressed to her from her husband in case of his death. At first she doesn't think too much of it but her husband, John-Paul, begins to behave weirdly when she mentions the letter and suddenly she can't stop thinking what the letter is about. Rachel lives in the same neighborhood as Cecilia and has been mourning the death of her daughter Janie for years. Now that her son is moving, she won't be seeing her grandson and she finds herself getting wrapped up in Janie's death even more. Tess moves back into town after finding out that her husband and best friend have fallen in love behind her back. She struggles with what to do now, especially with her son Patrick caught in the middle, and things only get more complicated when she reconnects with an ex boyfriend.

I know a lot of people really enjoyed this book but I just couldn't get into it. I did like the authors writing style but I just felt like the story didn't come together. The passages about the past around when the Berlin wall fell felt like they didn't add anything to the story for me personally. Also Tess's story didn't tie in together with Cecilia and Rachel's stories which kind only bothered me because how well Cecilia and Rachel's stories went together. It just felt like the whole Tess story line could have been cut out of the book without any problems. It was all just really predictable, the second I read Rachel's chapter I knew where everything was going. Also that ending made me think of Jodi Picoult and her little twist endings and not in a good way. It just felt too coincidental for me to buy. So while I liked the complexity portrayed and the writing as well as the characters the plot just didn't do it for me at all.