How to Marry Your Husband – Jacqueline Rohen – Book REVIEW
#AD – Advance review copy via Netgalley
At the point of publishing this review, I learned that in a horrible turn of fate, just before the publication date, the author of How to Marry Your Husband, Jacqueline Rohen passed away suddenly at just 40 years of age. I am so sad to be publishing a review of a debut novel knowing that there won’t be any more to follow, from someone who was clearly a talented writer, storyteller and creative. My thoughts go out to Jacqueline’s family at this very sad time.
How to Marry Your Husband – a Book Review
When I first read the title and synopsis of this book it caught my attention straight away,. The play on words, the concept of marrying someone who is already your husband – it was clear this debut novel was a little different to the classic rom com chick lit you might expect.
The book tells the story of Rachel – a women who thought she was blissfully married, until on her 15th wedding anniversary she sees her husband David kissing another woman. A younger, beautiful woman at that.
Devastated, and with the help of her friend Eva, Rachel starts to try and discover the truth about her husbands’ infidelity, but in doing so, also learns that their marriage in Bali, 15 years before, was never even legal, as the paperwork was never filed correctly! Worse than this – David knew and hadn’t told her! How can you plan to divorce someone if you were never married in the first place?
She plots her revenge, not only in small acts of damage mitigation, but by working to make him fall in love with her again, so that she can finally give him the divorce he deserves. But does she even want to divorce him? Can she actually imagine her life without him?
A great read told from two view points, both Rachel and David, this book very quickly reveals some of the challenges of modern day relationships. Hearing different perspectives of the same turn of events and highlighting just how much poor communication, secrets, lies and misunderstandings can take their toll, this book was full with lots of plot twists that made me take a sharp intake or breath as the lives of this couple slowly unravelled around them.
The book is full of likeable and relatable characters, It would be easy to hate David if this was told from just Rachel’s perspective, as after all he did cheat on his wife; however hearing his version of events play out it very quickly becomes apparent that life isn’t always as it seems – context and perception can have a huge impact on how we see the world.
I read this book from cover to cover in 24 hours and whilst the ending was perhaps a little anti-climatic for my liking, I really enjoyed the book. A great debut novel and I am so sad to learn of Jaqueline Rohen’s passing – I would have loved to have seen what she did next! 🙁
Thanks again to NetGalley and Cornerstone Digital for allowing me access to an advance review copy.
