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Book Review: My Husband by Maud Ventura
The view of one week in a French woman’s marriage gradually demonstrates the obsession she displays for her husband.
Summary:
At forty years old, she has an enviable life: a successful career, stunning looks, a beautiful house in the suburbs, two healthy children, and most importantly, an ideal husband. After fifteen years together, she is still besotted with him. But she’s never quite sure that her passion is reciprocated. After all, would a truly infatuated man ever let go of his wife’s hand when they’re sitting on the couch together?
Determined to keep their relationship perfect, she meticulously prepares for every encounter they have, always taking care to make her actions seem effortless. She watches him attentively, charting every mistake and punishing him accordingly to help him improve. And she tests him–setting traps to make sure that he still loves her just as much as he did when they first met.
Until one day she realizes she may have gone too far . . .
Review:
This was listed as a “readers also enjoyed” book for Rouge by Mona Awad. The title drew me in right away, and the description had me intrigued. From the first chapter, I was drawn in by the narrator.
It is immediately apparent that not all is right with either the marriage or the wife narrator. She acts like she is young in love. In other words, she’s obsessed with him. She’s uncertain about his love for her. In spite of the fact that they’ve been together many years and have two children together. It’s exhausting just reading about how she overthinks every little move he makes. This also begs the question. Is she really in love with him? Or is it an obsession?
As time progresses, the reader becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the narrator’s behavior and starts to worry about the husband. This all comes to a head at the end of the book. The twist didn’t shock me per se. I suspected it might be where it was going. Unlike some readers, though, I wasn’t disappointed by it. I felt it made for a richer overall picture of the marriage. This review sums up the issues others have with the ending. (Be warned it does disclose the twist.)
This is a book in translation. It was originally written in French. It also won France’s First Novel Prize in 2021. While I don’t know much about translation, I thought that the translator, Emma Ramadan, did a phenomenal job. The narrator of the book is a translator herself and teaches English in a high school. There are a few passages all about the differences between French and English. I can only imagine what a challenge that was when you can’t deliver the original lines in French! It still worked, though, and I was able to get the narrator’s point.
In spite of this book being relatively short, it did take me a while to read. It wasn’t quite as engaging or forward-moving as a thriller typically is for me. That could be down to it being translated. It could have something to do with the scenes of infidelity. (Not a spoiler, this happens early.) I don’t enjoy reading about infidelity. It can sometimes even make me put a book down entirely. In this case, it slowed me down a bit.
Overall, this is a different thriller. A mix of an analysis of a relationship with what one might expect from a psychological thriller. It is decidedly French. The translation hold up well. Recommended to those with an interest in different psychological thrillers and/or in modern French literature.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 272 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Library
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Book Review: Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis’ Fortress Prison by Ben Macintyre
The true story of the Allied Prisoners of War in Colditz, a German fortress turned into a prison.
Summary:
During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend.
Review:
This is a rare combination for historic nonfiction. Well-researched and engagingly written. As easy to read as a well-paced thriller. Yet chock-full of fascinating facts.
The book is organized into sub-sections chronologically by year. Each year then has however many chapters it needs to tell the story. This made it quite easy to keep track of what was going on. There are two insets of wonderful photographs, clearly labeled. This allows the reader to easily put a face to the name of the person being discussed at various points.
Here are just a few of my favorite things that I learned in reading this book.
- An Indian officer was a prisoner at Colditz – and Indian soldiers were prisoners of war in general. Indians fought in WWII on the British side. The Germans tried to get them to come over to their side by appealing to the desire to be free of British rule. This appeal worked for some but not for others.
- A real person inspired the character Q from James Bond. He was responsible for some very creative methods of getting supplies through to the Allied POWs. (For a read about spies in WWII, check out this other book review.)
- The demographic with the most successful escape attempts were the French.
- It’s not so much that officers had a duty to escape as that the Germans would treat them with the courtesy “due an officer” so it was safer for them to attempt escape than for enlisted soldiers to do so.
- The British had a fighter ace who was a double amputee. He was missing part of both legs. He was an excellent flyer but, by all accounts, a real jerk to other people.
- Class structure existed within POW camps. Officers were sent to Colditz with enlisted men who acted as their servants. These men were called orderlies. These men even had their escape attempts denied to continue serving the officers. In one case, a man was given the chance to go home with German consent, but his officer blocked it, insisting he couldn’t go home until the officer did.
My one complaint about the book is this. There were some POWs who the Germans called “Prominente.” They were men with prestigious ties in the West. (For example: a relative of Winston Churchill.) The Germans oversaw them much more closely as they thought they might be valuable as a bargaining ticket. When the Allies were approaching Colditz, these Prominente were sent deeper into German territory, along with their orderlies. Given how attentive to detail this book is, I found it jarring that the two Maori orderlies who accompanied the Prominente were left nameless in the book. (They were Ben McLean and Reginald Mitai.) There were also no details provided on if they escaped the war with their lives. This in spite of the book providing a very detailed run-down at the end of what happened to most of the named prisoners and Germans in the book.
Overall, this is a well-written and enjoyable read on a specific area of WWII. Anyone with an interest in the experience of Allied prisoners in WWII will enjoy this one.
If you found this review helpful, please consider tipping me on ko-fi, checking out my digital items available in my ko-fi shop, buying one of my publications, using one of my referral/coupon codes, or signing up for my free microfiction monthly newsletter. Thank you for your support!
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 368 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
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