I found this a very moving and thought provoking study of a marriage. Finely wrought characters brought to life in a beautifully crafted sense of time and place. I'd highly recommend this to many women friends, though I'm not sure how men would respond to some of the author's blunt (and broad) assessments of the male psyche. I'd be interested in thoughts from others about this. ( )

One of the truest views of marriage in America in the latter twentieth century I've seen in a long time. ( )

I liked nothing about it. The story was predictable: the supposed “twist of an ending” was visible from the beginning. The first-person narrator was a weak, unconvincing, sad sack of an individual who had almost nothing of interest to say, married to a vain, cheating, soft-bellied failure of a husband. The book was filled with cutesy phrases and a lot of overreaching for that “bon mot,” which became irritating to me. I felt the author was trying too hard to be clever. There was nothing satisfying, or worth the time, in this book. ( )

Wow, if you were an English major and had to read John Irving, John Updike, et al you will love this perspective from the author's wife. She is such a believable character in a time period caught between women's lib, and her responsibilities as the wife of a larger than life man. ( )

I can not even put into words how much I loved this book. The characters were complex and well-drawn, the story was interesting and well-plotted, and the pacing was amazing. And there is a secret, and though that secret (I think) is easily guessed, the unfolding of that secret is a beautiful thing indeed, and is the crux of the novel; how Wolitzer carefully folds, twists and gradually enlarges what we already suspect but are reluctant to say for certain. It was so stunningly well done.

Joan Castleman is so thoughtfully observant and funny in a wry way that I laughed out loud at her commentary, and I felt such an empathy with her ash she looked back on her life and struggled to find and step into herself not that she is well into her middle age and has raised three grown children. Joan’s reflections on herself and on her husband, who is one of those men “who had no idea of how to take care of himself or anyone else, and derived much of his style from The Dylan Thomas Handbook of Personal Hygiene and Etiquette.”, are so funny, and doubly so because they are accurate reflections on life and the types of people we have either heard of or met ourselves.

I loved this book as a character study of a wife finally looking to take back the power that she has been afraid to possess, as a character study marriage and how it grew and changes from the ‘60’s to the present day, as an inside , and because it was a thought provoking and humorous read. I highly recommend it.