It started with a droopy eyelid.
Or did it?
Alice Buckle is 44 and for the most part, she has never felt or looked her age. But this morning is different. It could be because Alice is about to turn the same age that her mother was when she died. It could be that after twenty years of marriage there just wasn’t a lot of excitement anymore. She is constantly analyzing her two children, Peter and Zoe…
was she bored?
Then Alice receives an email offering her to be part of a n online Marriage study. Alice fills out the basic information and within a few days discovers she has been excepted into the study, and for the purposes of anonymity, she will now be known as Wife 22 for all correspondence. She is assigned a case worker (Researcher 101) who will coach her through and question she has. And the questions start coming in.
It’s almost like a double life. While Alice on the outside appears to be still Alice, she is also Wife 22. As the questions continue Alice strikes up a side conversation with Researcher 101. Before she knows it, Alice has questions of her own. Questions that could change her family dynamics forever.
Why did I want to read this book? Curiosity. By the synopsis, I knew I wanted to know more about this woman who is my age, and suddenly questioning her purpose. It sounded smart and it sounded funny.
Wife 22 is written much like the Bridget Jones books were, except instead of Bridget writing to her diary, Alice is answering questions about her marriage and chatting with Researcher 101. the book created some realistic scenarios. Job trouble. worrying about your kids, using the internet, in this case Facebook for escapes…
When the questions are presented, all we as the reader see are the answers to the questions, not the questions themselves. Some, by the way they are answered, you can guess what the question probably was… others I had no idea… and some just cracked me up by Alice’s response. What I didn’t know until the end, was that the actual questions are listed in the back of the book which made it fun to peek through the book again, and think how I would answer them.
Written mainly in the conversations between Researcher 101 and answers to questions, the book moves fairly quickly. If you are looking for a book to take to the beach or for sitting with on your deck as I did, summer is a perfect time to sit back and enjoy Wife 22.
Amazon Rating
Goodreads Review
This book was sent to me for review by Big Honcho Media
Book Journey 
I just won a copy of this and I’m really excited about it. This sounds fun to me!
Ir was fun – not one to take too seriously 😀
Unfortunately this was not the book for me. I found the MC weak and desperate. I just did not like her very much.
I can see how that could be Steph, that has bothered me in some books but for some reason it didn’t bother me so much here. 😀
Sounds like a book I’d enjoy!
It was fun Mary 🙂
I wasn’t blown away by it but I did enjoy it. I’m glad I knew before hand that the questions were in the back. I think that would have annoyed me not knowing what questions she was answering!
That is about how I felt Angie – it didn’t blow me away, but it worked for me, held my attention. I didn’t find the questions until the end, yeah that would have been helpful if I would have found them first – but on the other hand… it was fun to guess what she was talking about 😀
I’ve seen this book all over the place. Glad you enjoyed it.
It fit my mood and attention span Laura – short chapters…. little bits of info at a time… LOL 😀
I’ve been wanting to read this one…glad you liked it.
Laurel I think you will too… it is a fun one 🙂
I adored this book! I lost count of the number of times I laughed out loud, but I also got a good dose of the bittersweet. I\’m so impressed that this is Gideon\’s first novel, because she writes like a pro. I\’m still wondering about the way she formatted the questions and answers. It was clever, and it definitely made me think and guess (often wrong!) but I found myself flipping back and forth and it was a bit tedious. Regardless, I still loved this book!
It really was a fun idea for a book, and I can relate to the 40’s being a time of “what am I doing with my life” LOL My kids are grown up (well, out of the house anyway ha ha) but I can imagine at this point how I would feel if my husband was acting all weird and lost his job, and my kids habits concerned me… 😀
I reviewed Wife22 for Library Journal and thought it was very good, too, with a few minor plot weaknesses. It’s essentially chick lit for the middle-aged woman, but if you’re in the mood for light reading, it hits the spot. I thought it was pretty funny. For me, if chick lit isn’t funny, I can’t read it. (I never thought to look for the questions in the back of the book, so I just assumed we were meant to just read through the lists of answers, and that the randomness of them made them amusing.)
That’s a great point Laurie, I was in the mood for this book… it made me laugh. I too am glad I didn’t discover the questions until the end, I kept thinking what is she talking about… my imagination probably made it funnier then what it really was which was probably the authors point in doing it that way 😀
I’m in the mood for something like this – will have to get my hands on a copy!
Carrie I hope you enjoy it – it was perfect timing for me – light and fun.
I like the sound of this story!
definitely an example supporting those who read the back of the book first 🙂