Leah
Written on Aug 29, 2016
This sounded like a really fun read. A couple, married for a year, decided to get divorced but still live together. WHAT CAN GO WRONG? Well, actually, that's not quite how this story was told. Instead we go back to the wedding day, when Zoe is already questioning her decision. She's like the least bride-like person I've ever met in my life, and considering I could tell she shouldn't be getting married, it's worrying no one else saw that. Then, we see their first few weeks of marriage. It should be blissful, yes? WRONG. Zoe just picks at silly things, starts fights, throws a tantrum over Jack going out with his mates, when she had already been out twice since their wedding day, throws another tantrum because people assume she's taken Jack's name, and she's way, way, way too cool to do that. Or feminist? Who knows what her reasons were, but it greatly offended her that people assume that of her. It just seemed like one big over-reaction after another. She didn't seem mature enough to be married, even.
It was just too much for me. Too much negativity, too much over-reaching about the littlest things, going off the deep end because of a little joke, if all you have to worry about in life is what your married name is, or isn't, I'd say you're doing pretty well. Zoe, however, had the opinion that it was the worst thing ever. She was just so hard to like, period.
I honestly thought this would be a funny, enjoyable read. Not something that made you want to cover your eyes and scream. Not my kind of read at all.
I'm terribly curious who Bryony Fraser really is, as this is a pseudonym, and I'd be intrigued even further to know if it's an author I've previously enjoyed. I kinda think it might be Mhari McFarlane, since that's who they relate it to in the taglines, and who is in the back of the book as "if you like this, etc", but I'm not sure. Either way, this wasn't for me. I wanted to like it desperately, but you need to be able to like/sympathise with its main character and Zoe wasn't either of those things :(