Book Review: The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

 

Book: The Wife Upstairs 

Author: Rachel Hawkins 

Pages: 304 

Read on: Kindle 

Read in: 3-4 hours 

Plot Summary: Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates––a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name.

But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estates’ most mysterious resident. His wife, Bea, drowned in a boating accident with her best friend, their bodies lost to the deep. Jane can’t help but see an opportunity in Eddie––not only is he rich, brooding, and handsome, he could also offer her the kind of protection she’s always yearned for. 

Yet as Jane and Eddie fall for each other, Jane is increasingly haunted by the legend of Bea, an ambitious beauty with a rags-to-riches origin story, who launched a wildly successful southern lifestyle brand. How can she, plain Jane, ever measure up? And can she win Eddie’s heart before her past––or his––catches up to her?

Things I Liked: 

1. The Wife Upstairs is inspired by Jane Eyre and that was reason enough for me to pick it up! I am not sure if this is an official adaptation or not, but the story is broadly inspired by the classic in the sense that we have an Eddie Rochester, a Jane and even a wife upstairs. The book, however, is fairly different from Jane Eyre and has a few interesting twists. 

2. The setting of the book in a wealthy gated community in Birmingham, Alabama really adds to the narrative. The faux nice wealthy neighbours, their polite but fake interest in the lives of those poorer than them and their fake relationships with each other- everything echoes back to the original book and makes the story more interesting. 

3. The characters are also nicely etched out and bear some kind of superficial similarities of those in the classic, but the author does a good job of spinning some character traits and assumptions on their head and adding an element of the unreliable narrator to the story. As you go through the book, you wonder who is telling the truth and who is lying...

4. At the heart of this story is a murder or a suspicious death, at any rate. That of Blanche, Bea (Eddie's wife's BFF), who had gone to the lake house with Bea for a girls' weekend and both women had gone missing after that, presumed dead. However, Bea is locked in a panic room at the house whilst Eddie carries on with Jane. So, who killed Blanche? Eddie says his wife did, the wife claims Eddie did. All we have for clues are pages of Bea's diary, which she writes whilst being imprisoned and Eddie's version of the days leading to the lake house trip. 

5. This book is full of dysfunctional relationships and characters, which adds to the intrigue-level of the book. I enjoyed reading about the frenemity between Blanche and Bea, Jane's complicated past and her selfish and self-seeking relationships with pretty much everyone she meets and Eddie's questionable past and the fact that he starts a relationship with Jane whilst he has his wife locked up in a panic room. What bunch they all are! Interesting to read about for sure! 

6. The ending has a nice twist or two and though it was a bit predictable, I enjoyed it! 

Things I Didn't Like:

1. Even within the crime/ thriller/ murder mystery genre, readers want a character they can connect with and root for. In this book, there is not a single likeable character! You don't care what becomes of any of them or if they live or die! That was a bit of a bummer. Even Jane is shady as hell and is quite unlikeable. 

Rating: 3.5/5