Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon {Book Review} @MelanieGideon

If I had it my way, I would be a book blogger and I would read all day and blog all night. As it is, I blog most of the night, work full time outside the home, and read in the small moments when I can. I'm online all the time and yes, my husband has texted me before to get my attention.

I was pretty excited about the idea of reading Wife 22 prior to its release {May 29, 2012} but I had no idea that I would love it so much. I should have known, though, because it has been compared Helen Fieldings' Bridget Jones' Diary {loved it!!} and Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It {on my to-read/to-watch list!!}. 

The story is about Alice Buckle, a wife and mother, who

• works outside the home as a theater teacher and may/may not be moving from part time to full time and may/may not be happy about that
• thinks her marriage may/may not be in trouble and she may/may not be happy about that
• is addicted to the internet and Facebook and may/may not be stalking her own husband by over-analyzing his status updates
• has a son who may/may not be gay {and she may/may not Google ways to find out how to find out}
• has a daughter who may/may not have an eating disorder

When she discovered a marriage survey in her spam email, she may/may not have quickly become addicted to a new pastime in her life – communicating with Researcher 101!!

This book looks long {400 pages} but it has to be the quickest, most engaging reading I have come across in a long time. I mentioned that I read in the small moments of my life when I can get a second. Lately, this has meant that I put a book in the space between my Jeep seat and the console and anytime I'm waiting for my husband to get off work {son in the car or not} then the book comes out. I found myself often telling my husband that I would just stay in the car while he ran into the store to pick up dinner groceries {and maybe take our son in… ;)}. I would occasionally leave for lunch early from my work so that I would "have" to sit outside my husband's work waiting for his lunch to start. I may/may not have "snuck" out to the car at 2-3am to read just one.more.chapter…

Alice, while a little neurotic, is a mom that most moms will identify with in one way or another. She worries about her children, her husband, her job, her online life, her friends…but she isn't really making much progress in terms of changing things. She's just spinning her wheels, digging in deeper, and may/may not be making a bigger mess of her messed up life {in her opinion}.

If you can't tell, I really enjoyed this book and plan to pass it along to my aunt who is an avid reader. I would recommend picking it up when it's available on May 29, 2012!!

Pre-Order Wife 22: A Novel

Melanie Gideon is the author of the memoir The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After, anNPR and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2009, and a New York Times bestseller, as well as three young adult novels.  Her novel, Wife 22 (to be published in 30 countries and translated into 26 languages and currently in development with Working Title Films) is forthcoming from Ballantine in May 2012.  She has written for the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, More, Shape, Marie Claire, theLondon Times, the Daily Mail and other publications. She was born and raised in Rhode Island and now lives in the Bay Area with her husband and son.

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