Review: The Wife Who Knew Too Much (by Michele Campbell)



My Rating:  2 stars



This is the third book I've read by author Michele Campbell and the second one that I've disliked strongly enough to give it only 2 stars (and still feel like I'm being too generous).   

Last year, when I read Campbell's A Stranger on the Beach, the two biggest issues I had with the book were the badly executed story line as well as the frustratingly cliched and unrealistically written characters.  In my review of that book, I remember writing how much I loathed the characters (especially the main protagonist Caroline), whose actions and behavior would get more ridiculous and outrageous the more the story progressed.  Unfortunately, Campbell's newly released fourth novel The Wife Who Knew Too Much was plagued by pretty much the same issues as her previous book — the execution was poor and the characters were absolutely loathsome.  Actually, in my opinion, the characters in this story — especially the main character Tabitha — were way worse....I disliked most of them from the very first page.  Its not often that I react in such a negative manner to characters in a fictional story, but Tabitha truly did get on my nerves.  Perhaps I'm tired of reading about middle-aged women who are immature and childish and come across like petulant teenagers, or who are portrayed as naive and overly emotional and incapable of thinking rationally.  Tabitha is the type of character I can't stand — indecisive, foolish, immature — throughout the entire story, she knowingly makes poor choices over and over (and over and over and over) again, and if that's not bad enough, whenever things go south because of those choices, the main reaction is to whine and cry and beat herself up for being foolish (the word "stupid" is more appropriate but a bit too harsh)...then, instead of learning from her mistakes and trying to fix them, she pushes all rational thought away and dives headfirst back into the foolishness that had gotten her burned in the first place.  It's hard to dislike a character so much that you end up having zero sympathy for them as well as not caring one bit what happens to them, but that's definitely how I felt about Tabitha (and all the characters in this story, for that matter).  Don't get me wrong — I have no problems with flawed characters, as those flaws are usually what makes characters realistic, but the characters in this story were beyond flawed...Tabitha, Connor, Nina, and  just about every other character in here were so cliched and stereotypically drawn that they essentially became caricatures.

Aside from the characters, the other thing that annoyed me was the plot, which I found to be ridiculously contrived from beginning to end.  It's one thing for a plot to be predictable, but entirely another when it veers into "outlandish" territory, to the point that I have to suspend disbelief every step of the way.  Barely halfway through the story, I got so annoyed that I started skimming through to the end, which I'm glad I did because I know if I had read it word for word, I probably would've thrown my Kindle across the room in frustration. The writing itself was also a problem for me, as it felt very elementary and clunky, plus the fact that, as the main character, Tabitha narrated the story from her first person point of view made it so much worse, as I got fed up hearing her go back and forth trying to rationalize every dumb decision she made.  

After 2 books in a row that left a bad taste in my mouth, I think I'm officially done with this author, at least for now.  With that said though, I don't want to discourage anyone from reading this if they so choose, as not everyone will have the same negative experience I did. So definitely check out other reviews first before deciding.

Received ARC from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley