Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica
I’ve been hit or miss on Kubica’s books (two with one star and one each of two, three, and four stars), but I keep coming back for more, so I feel like that says something. (However, I do the same with Ruth Ware but overall dislike her books so maybe I’m not the best judge.) My feelings on this book were a bit conflicted…
First, some pettiness: I’m so sick of titles about women/girls/wives/couples. The Perfect Couple, The Golden Couple, The Couple Next Door, One Perfect Couple.
Also somewhat petty: I’m tired of prologues. Some can be well done, but many in thrillers just throw you into a random scene with no context. I understand it’s supposed to grab you and pull you in, but I often skim or skip them because they do nothing for me. This prologue was especially worthless to the story, in my opinion. I went back to it after I finished the book and pieced it together to figure out where it went in the book, and it was still meh. It didn’t add anything. So… why have it? To meet a word count? Because every suspense book seems to have them these days? Who knows.
The writing style was also a bit lacking and felt like Kubica was saying the same thing in many ways to meet a word count. I know there needs to be some rise and fall in suspense to keep you on the edge of your seat, but this was a LOT of slowness that made me want to skim ahead to see what the point was. Lots of mundane details that didn’t matter to the story except to bring it to a halt.
Begin the spoilers:
I’m also hating this trend (is it a trend even if it’s the worst thing ever?) of women characters accusing men of sexual abuse, but later in the book it comes out they were having a consensual affair and she was just lying to her husband or to protect herself/her reputation. I’m sure it happens but it feels gross and I’ve seen it a lot in books lately and want it to go away.
Possible spoiler for the ending: Were Lily and Nina supposed to be sisters? Lily’s cancer comes out of nowhere after Nina talking so much about her mother’s cancer, and since her father cheated on her mother I was wondering if Lily was the love child? It doesn’t really matter for the story, just wondering if this was the point or if anyone else thought that was the issue.
Overall, I have to admit that I read this book in two days and wanted to finish it - it wasn’t one that I gave up on because I just didn’t care. But also, I mostly just wanted to see if I was right, because from chapter one I knew Lily had an affair and wasn’t being totally honest about her assault. However, I thought the baby would be Jake’s so I’m glad that didn’t pan out. So the suspense was decent here, but when I took time to reflect on the book, I liked it less and less.
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