I requested this book because I thought it was another book I may have dreamed up because I can’t find anything about it on the internet (it was about buying a house in France with a husband soon-to-be divorced from, having already been divorced once or twice before). This is a New York divorce book, so no France, and no buying a house, and really not what I was thinking it was going to be at all. But that’s okay — sometimes we can surprise ourselves with our late night clicking on Netgalley where we must get ALL. THE. FREE. BOOKS!
Or sometimes we get a meh. Guess which one I got here?
I feel to say anything too critical about A Beautiful, Terrible Thing is somehow like me discounting Waite’s experience: she got married to who she thought was the perfect guy. In the end, he cheated on her and had some psychopathic tendencies and the marriage fell apart. The psychopathic tendencies weren’t of the mutilating-small-animals-and/or-humans kind, just more of the mundane, every-day-life psychopathic ones (lying, blaming, manipulating, etc.). The whole thing is so mundane and Waite so overwrought such that, even though she is the victim here, she isn’t that great a protagonist. But I’ve never been bound by marriage to someone so deceitful, and, perhaps I don’t even have the same deep well of feelings at Waite (I’ve often thought I’m just a shallow puddle of emotion rather than a deep, swimming hole quarry of them), and maybe if I found myself, like Jen, with a newborn and a cheating husband, I’d melt down just as much and then rescind my assessment of overwrought, but until then, nope: too much emotion for me.
And she has a kid. Her ex-husband does not come off looking great in this memoir. What will her kid think of all this when she is older? Obviously, good on Waite for rebuilding her life,
but I guess along with being unfeeling, I’m also pretty private. Hopefully though, writing and sharing this helped Waite recover, and hopefully, her daughter will understand someday.
A Beautiful, Terrible Thing by Jen Waite went on sale July 11, 2017.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.