Book Review
Loved it! Hated it! Loved it!
My Husband by Maud Ventura
This book is translated from French by Emma Ramadan.
This book chronicles a week in the life of a woman who is obsessively in love with her husband. They have been together 15 years, married 13 years, and have two children. In the prologue, the husband says, “We need to find a moment to talk…It’s important.” She is frozen and unable to say a word. She thinks he will tell her their marriage is over!
The book then jumps back to six days earlier, a Monday. As she recounts the week, day by day, we march toward his frightening pronouncement, and we learn a lot about her and their marriage — all of it entirely from her point of view. Though she interacts with people in the book, most of the action takes place inside her head as she processes those interactions.
I both listened to this book on tape and read it. As I started off listening to it, it was very lyrical. Others might say this about writing, but it’s not a comment I ordinarily make. In this case, though, the words somehow flowed. I was eager to look at the written page to see how those words were presented. The author often gave lists of things about her feelings. Were those listed as bullet points? Did they run together breathlessly between commas? I needed to see. Another…
