Woman With A Secret by Sophie Hannah- I Wish The Author Had Kept This Book A Secret!

Woman With A Secret by Sophie Hannah

Rating System:
5- Fix-tastic! I have seen the light and it's in this book!
4- Fix-alicious.  Best served with wine!
3- Fairly Fix-worthy.  Not a perfect "F" but I wouldn't kick it out of bed, wink wink.
2- Fixer-Upper- Sounds like a good idea but even HGTV would have a hard time with this one!
1- Don't Fix It, Nix It.  Enough said.

***Spoiler Alert***

My book club, Lit Fix NC, was grateful to receive free copies of this book. However, it was not one of our favorites. As one member put it, it was like "Bernadette (from Where'd You Go, Bernadette) crashing a bad episode of NYPD Blue". We found the plot to be confusing and overcomplicated and it seemed as if the author was trying too hard. There were too many characters and it was difficult to determine their significance- minor characters ended up being major players and vice versa. Although this may initially sound like it was successful at being a mystery, we found it to be more frustrating than intriguing. Additionally, every character in the book was so morally flawed that it was difficult to care about any of them. The flow of the book was choppy, due to perspective changes and plot disconnects. The conclusion was fairly anti-climactic. Based on the complex build-up, we were expecting a surprise ending with a major character being heavily involved in the murder (ie the wife, husband, etc.). Instead we were left with a fairly minor and insignificant character carrying the guilt, which was a letdown. We appreciate the author's attempt to surprise the reader, but it just didn't work.
As a last note, we thought it was slightly narcissistic that she named 2 characters after herself.  That was the icing on the cake.