Sister Reads| Review: The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

Book: The Husband's Secret 

Author: Liane Moriarty 

Pages: 416

Plot Summary: My Darling Cecilia
If you're reading this, then I've died . . .

Imagine your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret - something so terrible it would destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others too. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive . . .

Cecilia Fitzpatrick achieved it all - she's an incredibly successful business woman, a pillar of her small community and a devoted wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home. But that letter is about to change everything, and not just for her: Rachel and Tess barely know Cecilia - or each other - but they too are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband's devastating secret.

General Thoughts: At the heart of this book is a very simple question- do you really want to know every secret your spouse has? Maybe you do and maybe you don't, but the thing is that once you do find out what this big secret is, your life is definitely not going to stay the same. Ever. 

Cecilia faces such a dilemma. While looking for a piece of the Berlin Wall (<begin rant> there is a whole backdrop thing going on through the book about the collapse of the Berlin Wall in this book. It is a bit weird to have the fall of the Berlin Wall as a backdrop, especially, when it does not, in any way or form, connect to the past or present events in the narrative! <end rant>), Cecilia finds an old letter addressed to her by her husband to be opened after his death. Needless to say, Cecilia is curious but being a good wife in good, open and honest relationship with her husband, she tells him about the letter and he dismisses it by saying that it was a purely sentimental note that he had written after the birth of their first daughter. Cecilia puts the letter away and doesn't open it, until her husband returns three days earlier than he was supposed to, thereby fulling arousing her suspicions and making her open that letter.

The letter, needless to say, contains a secret (pretty guess-able by this point in the time in the book), which turns Cecelia's perfect world upside down. 

The secret also has a bearing on a few other, sort of related, characters, but I am not going into that here because that will spoil the book for those of you who want to read it.

At the end of the day, this book is amazing because it makes you question your own values and beliefs and what you would do in Cecelia's place. Would you do what you believe and know is the right thing to do or will you do what is right for you? 

The book also has a wonderful cast of characters such as Rachel- an elderly widow with a tragic past, Tess- a young mother who has to deal with a betrayal that brings her life crashing down around her. Though I enjoyed reading about Tess and her life and her issues, I felt it was a tad unnecessary! I'd rather have had more of Cecelia and Rachel- much more drama there. 

All the characters' lives weave in and out of the narrative making it a quick and interesting read. Would highly recommend this book if you enjoy reading about the big and little events in the lives of 'real' people. :) 

Rating: 4/5