The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth - Book Review

The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth

Publication Date: 5th April 2022

Genre: Psychological Thriller/ Domestic Thriller 

3 Stars 

One Liner: What’s with the ending? 

Stephen Aston, a successful heart surgeon is marrying his girlfriend Heather, an interior designer. The only issue is that Heather is twenty-nine years younger than Stephen, and he is still married to his first wife. 

Tully and Rachel are Stephen’s daughters, and needless to say, they are not happy with the situation. After all, Heather is younger than them, and their mother Pamela is in a nursing home, suffering from dementia. 

As if the situation isn’t bad enough, every single person seems to be hiding something. Why did Rachel stop dating when she was sixteen despite being gorgeous? Why is Tully almost always on the verge of a mental breakdown, even though she has a loving husband and two adorable sons? What is Heather hiding about her past? Why do things seem to happen when Stephan is involved? 

What I Like: 

• The book is 350+ pages long but is fast-paced from the first word. 
  
  
• The story comes from Rachel, Tully, and Heather’s limited third-person POVs and in the first-person POV of another character. However, the narration is not confusing at any point. 
  
  
• Towards the second half, we’ll realize that the narrators are unreliable, but it was fun (to a point) trying to figure out what’s true and what’s not (until the end. More about it in the next section). 
  
  
• Issues like domestic violence, rape, gaslighting, kleptomania, anxiety and mental health are the core themes in the book. However, it doesn’t get overwhelming or dramatic (at least to me). 
  
  
• For a change, some leading men are actually good. That was nice to read in a domestic thriller. 

What Didn’t Work for Me: 

• None of the characters seemed fully developed. Only Rachel’s seems to be the best of all, though the resolution felt too easy. Tully gets a lot of space (more than Heather), and I still don’t know the reasons for most of her actions. 
  
  
• Some issues are not explained and are left to the reader’s imagination. That would’ve been okay if not for the ending. 
  
  
• Now… I hate that ending. The book was a 4-star despite not-so-good character development. But that ending just killed it. Twists are well and good until they don’t nullify the majority of what happened earlier. 
  
  
• This one is downright vague and hints at the ‘aha! Tricked you!’ style of ending a book. I’ve never been a fan of ‘pull the rug’ or ‘punch in the face’ twists. No, thank you.
  
  
• Even if I ignore my personal bias, the ending has a major impact on the themes used in the book. It negates the gaslighting and experiences of women victimized by domestic abuse. That is something I cannot accept (especially from a women’s fiction author). 

I still rate the book 3 stars for the pace and the fact that I did enjoy it, to a point. 

To sum up, The Younger Wife is a quick read about messed-up women (who are not surprisingly connected to the same man), though I wish the ending was dealt with more care. 

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. 

#NetGalley #TheYoungerWife