Book Review: Every Wrong Reason by Rachel Higginson

From Goodreads

First comes love.

Then comes marriage.

Then comes the… really nasty divorce.

Kate Carter thought she married her soul mate. She thought she had her happily ever after. But seven years into Kate’s marriage, she realizes that her husband Nick is not what she wanted. He’s selfish, he’s oblivious and he doesn’t love her anymore.

Maybe she doesn’t love him anymore either.

Divorce is the only option if either of them wants to find happiness.

Kate and Nick thought they knew what they wanted, but neither is prepared for the heartache that separating will bring them. The journey they embark on is not the freedom they wished for, but a painful look at the people they’ve become.

At the end of it, Kate has to decide if this is really the life she wants or if maybe there’s a way to salvage her broken heart.

My Review

1.5 "Am I Insensitive or Is She Just a Bitch?" Stars

Today I'll be skipping my usually ambiguous summary, because Goodreads says it more diplomatically than I ever could. Let's jump right into this one!

This book released just a few weeks ago, and as soon as I heard about it I was intrigued. I haven't read very much about couples on the verge of divorce or ones that have divorced, and I was interested to see how things panned out. I've only read one other book along the same vein (Fisher's Light by Tara Sivec - amazing!), and it became one of my favorite books for this year. 

I was severely disappointed in this book. It made me furious, and I'm surprised I finished it. I suppose that was the story's saving grace: for all its flaws, I was still curious enough to finish it. 

The writing wasn't horrible, and there's a few admittedly beautiful lines throughout the story. That's where the positives ended for me, though. 

Kate and Nick separate in the beginning of the story, living apart while Kate attempts to work out a divorce. Nick isn't keen on the idea, and he decides to do his version of fighting for her. Needless to say: #angst. 

Kate might just be the most aggravating, self absorbed, stupid, childish woman I've ever had the displeasure of reading about. She claims to no longer love her husband for the stupidest reasons, like how he gets the bathroom floor wet when he showers or the fact she sometimes has to wipe toothpaste from the bathroom sink. I shit you not, she has a list of reasons she can't stand him, and nearly all of the reasons are so asinine I can't put it into words. 

She constantly nags at her husband, Nick, constantly complains about every single thing and nitpicks beyond all reason. No wonder her marriage is on the rocks; if I had to live with a person like Kate, I'd commit murder. It's all Kate, all the time. She can't grasp that the world doesn't revolve around her, can't fathom why everything and everyone doesn't bend over backwards in order to smooth over her perceived slights. 

Nick was a shell of a character. He had no personality beyond meek pleading and groveling when he'd done nothing wrong. He wasn't a man, he was a little boy. He didn't even know what he liked to eat, and had to cozy up to his almost-ex-wife in the grocery in order to figure it out. I can't make that stuff up. 

They had no chemistry together, and I didn't care where either ended up or with whom. They were so unlikable and unrelatable!

There's no real backstory, flat secondary characters, and constant inconsistencies (Kate has a dog, but the dog only greets her when she comes back from work some of the time. I'm sorry, but anyone that has a young dog like that knows they wouldn't ignore you coming home. I have four dogs, and I can't come back in from taking out the trash without an enthusiastic welcome). 

Around 30-40% of the way in, infertility is tossed in, just for the hell of it. It didn't fit well with the story, and felt like an excuse the author used to drive a wedge between the couple. 

The pacing was quite odd. The book spans the time of around...6 months or so (maybe 9?), and sometimes everything was describe in too much detail, while others are skipped over in such a way that I felt like the story was missing chunks. The over-detailed parts where the inconsequential bits, if you ask me!

Like I said earlier, my hopes where high for this after loving Fisher's Light by Tara Sivec. They weren't met. If you're looking for an incredible, emotional, second chance love story, go with Fisher's Light, and skip Every Wrong Reason.

Stats:

Rating: 1.5 stars

Genre: Adult, contemporary romance

Series: Standalone

POV: 1st person, single perspective 

Steam/sexual content: Fairly graphic sex scenes, but no chemistry so low steam

Cliffhanger: No

Warnings: Sex, insufferable characters

Length: 311

Goodreads

- The Bibliophile Babe