This was not a book I particularly liked. I think the problem was what the story evolved into and I just didn't like the story content. So the book starts off through the eyes of Tessa, the wife of a fabulous pediatric surgeon and mother of two young children. Then the following chapter the books switched gears and we meet Valerie, a single mom to one child who ends up getting badly burned at a sleepover. The novel flips back and forth between the two women, and what I realized halfway through the novel is that the chapters with Tessa are told in first person, and the chapters about Valerie are 3rd person.
Tessa seems like the usual mom struggling to do it all, not be too nagging to the husband, the best parent she can be. She quits her job to be the stay at home mom to handle their lives. Although her husband deals with life and death situations daily, he tries not to bring that home with him. He seems to resent the upper class world they live in, and refuses to spread more gossip into that world, and slowly seems to be pushing away his wife because she is trying to adapt to this life they are leading. Where as Valerie is a lawyer, single mom, who has to be parent provider and everything to her son.
I liked the book up until the plot between Dr. Nick, (Tessa's husband) who is the doctor to Valerie's son, starts to become inappropriate. I understand that people have affairs and there are cheaters and those who are cheated on, but I just don't like it. My moral compass is strongly against acting in the moment and "giving in" to passion or whatever the excuse is. I have never been a cheater, and I don't like reading about it or watching movies involving it. If you don't know me well, let me tell you, I tend to be a really objective person in an argument. I have always been the person who always puts myself in the other person's shoes, or tries to see an issue or fight from every angle possible before making my decisions. The thing with cheating, is that my heart always goes out to the one cheated on. My immediate reaction is sympathy, for the other person who has no idea what their partner is doing, how they are lying and not being faithful. I understand that passion and romance can be lost over time in a relationship, then you need to end it and move on, or accept it for what it is. No one deserves to feel that pain and embarrassment of finding out the one you have been faithful to and honest to is nothing like the person you thought they were. I have never been cheated on myself (which I am thankful for) but this whole dynamic frustrates me and I just can't sympathize with characters that make such choices.
So, I know I rambled, but my point is this. I could not stand the book because of what it became. It reminded me of the movie "He's Just Not That Into You". I love Scarlett Johansson and Bradley Cooper in almost every role they have taken. I have to say almost, as I hated their plot and characters in this movie. ScarJo knew Cooper's character was married, and Cooper knew that what he was doing was wrong. But they did it anyway. The scene in his office was really when I was just horrified. But again I digress. My point was, Cooper was married to Jennifer Connelly in the movie, and she was an annoying person, but I still did not believe she deserved what happened to her. Even if she had accepted it and was willing to say with him anyway... I did not approve. So whatever, my personal opinion and this really has no review of the book, but basically the book was about "Matters of the Heart" and what to do when you heart says one thing, even if you know its wrong, should you still do it?
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