I am going to preface this review by stating that it is going to be different from my other reviews in that 1) It was not a five star review for me and 2) I do not want to give any of the plot away. I really feel like the reader should go into The Perfect Wife blind, and based off the inside cover summary it seems that the author feels the same way. Just know that it is not what I expected (in a good way), and I found that out in the first few pages. Perhaps the unexpected plot element that is introduced in the first chapter is what kept me reading, and I really appreciate the thought-provoking twist. I may not have loved the book in its entirety, but I did find it intriguing throughout the entire story. I will gladly state that there is no gore and violence is kept to a minimum considering some of the situations presented in the book.

Right from the beginning, The Perfect Wife is different. The most glaring difference is that it is written mostly in second person point of view. If the reader is not familiar with second person point of view, like I was not, it is the point of view that directly addresses the reader by using “you” as the narrator. Yes, it really does take some getting used to. I was ready to give up on the book within the first chapter after I found out that most of the book is written this way. There are some breaks throughout the book that switch over to a limited third person point of view, and the reader is not even made aware of who the third person narrator is until the last several chapters. These breaks are distinguished by different numbered chapters, so chapter 3 goes into chapter one and then back to chapter 4 for example. It became less confusing the more I read.

Speaking of chapters these chapters are short, not more than 10 pages and most being around 2-5 pages. I appreciate this, especially in a thriller. This keeps the story moving quite quickly and allows the reader to gather his/her thoughts after each important twist. I felt like 75% of the chapters in this book ended with a major revelation in the plot, making it very difficult to put the book down. There actually became a point about halfway through the story where the shocks started causing a gridlock in my mind. It became difficult to distinguish between what was actually important to the story and what just there for the shock factor.

There were many themes in The Perfect Wife. In my opinion there were too many themes being explored to really enjoy the mystery of the book. Some of the themes listed below might be triggers for some readers.

-Human vs. AI
-Art vs. Technology
-Sexism in the workplace
-Sexual assault in the workplace
-Narcissism
-Autism
-Husband and wife roles

The last 100 pages of this book became hazy for me. I began to lose track of the mystery of the book. Narrator shifts became unclear and frequent; points of views stopped following any rules. All of a sudden second person was switching to first person, back to second person, and tossing in some third person along the way. I felt like I was running a marathon all the way through the first 350 pages when I should have been sprinting to keep up. Because of this I cannot tell if this book was a marathon or a sprint; either way I ended up very winded at the end.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t read The Perfect Wife, but I’m also not saying you should. If you enjoy a meandering psychological thriller this book might just be the one for you. The more densely explored themes of this book give this story a little more depth than some thrillers I have read in the past, but unfortunately the number of themes introduced do muddle the important ones. This book is quite a toss-up, which is why I gave it a solid three stars out of five. If you are brave enough to read this book and share your thoughts with me I would love to know what you think. It is okay if you disagree with me and love the book. The majority of reviews are quite glowing actually, so I might just be the outlier. You can purchase The Perfect Wife from Amazon. Have you read this book? Are my thoughts truly the exception? Let me know in the comments below.