BOOK REVIEW: Bookworm by Robin Yeatman

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

Bookworm by Robin Yeatman is a new noir comedy about a drastic marital mismatch and more. It could be seen as a cautionary tale about why readers should not marry T.V. watchers. Or why a sociopath should not marry a control freak. 

Victoria is the bookworm. She is a massage therapist married to a high-powered lawyer who is struggling to make partner (Eric). As far as everyone else is concerned, her parents, his parents, Eric himself, even Victoria’s best friend, she is extremely lucky to have him. He’s rich and handsome. What more could she want?

Apparently, she wants the cute guy (Luke) she saw in her favorite coffee shop who was reading the same book that she was.

Victoria has a very active fantasy life, fed by the books she reads non-stop. She makes up very detailed lives for the strangers she sees during the day. She fantasizes about flying to Luke’s house in the middle of the night for illicit rendezvous. The details she invents make these things seem quasi-real. She also fantasizes about ways her husband will die. Accidents or murders made to look like accidents.

Her husband is no prize. Fitness obsessed, he constantly makes snide comments to her about what she eats or how much she works out. He expects her to keep the apartment immaculate. He buys her an e-reader to get rid of the clutter of books and is disgusted by library books because other people have touched them. He works late. They have nothing in common. He is closer to her parents than she is and complains about her to them. Worst of all, he tries to gaslight her, telling her that reading too much can cause depression. He forces her to spend a week watching movies with him and forbidding her to read. It has the creepy feel of nineteenth-century controlling husbands who commited their wives to asylums for reading novels.

So, yes, she needs out of this marriage, even if it does mean giving up her lavish lifestyle. 

But, yuck, she is an awful person. In fact, there is not a single decent human being in the entire novel. I was drawn in by the twisty plot, but was glad to be finished with the book.