The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen

Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen a book full of twists and turns in which we follow the past and present perspectives of Richard’s (one of the main characters) different wives and how either the growth or the destruction of the relationship came to be in their respective lives. It was a super interesting read with really dynamic peaks in the book that I didn’t see coming at all, so let’s get into it!

Main Characters:

• Vanessa: This is one of the main perspectives in the book and gives us a look at the destructive side of having a relationship with Richard, still not over the end of their relationship feels this duty to warn his soon-to-be wife about what kind of man she finds Richard to be
• Nellie: Is another main perspective who gives us a look at what it is to be in a good relationship with Richard, seems unaware of Richard’s past or the other relationships he has been in and is content with how the two are in theirs
• Richard: After the downfall of his marriage to Vanessa due to different flaws and issues he felt she brought to the relationship is in a new one that is bringing some light back into his life and some darkness into his ex’s

My Review

I initially was a bit skeptical going into The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen. The blurb on the back of the book was very vague as to what exactly goes down in the plot (which once getting into the book proves to be very much needed). I had quite literally just finished reading The Wife Upstairs by Freida McFadden and it wasn’t exactly that I was expecting it to be similar to that book but in my head almost I was like there is no way this one will be more creative. I am happy to admit when I am wrong though and while I won’t exactly say one book is more creative than the other because they are both very different they both hold up to be super unique books tackling a seemingly bland topic of intermarital issues. I honestly can’t dive a lot into the plot of The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen a lot because one slip gives a lot away but I found myself pulled in by some different aspects of the book and being deterred by others.

Overall I gave The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen an 8/10 rating. Something that was a bit of a struggle for me in the book was Vanessa. Her perspective takes up the majority of the book and while I totally get that she’s meant to be this suspicious untrustworthy character I just hated how pathetic she also was. Her obsessiveness over Richard and his new fiancé to a degree is understandable but there are many points when you just want to put your head in your hands and be like ‘why?’. Given that she takes up a lot of the book her complaining and winning was a bit much and as things become a bit more clear in the book this just gets even worse. I mean none of the other characters are really reliable in this book Vanessa was unreliable and a little bit annoying. At first, the plot itself doesn’t seem like it’s going to be much. It seems like we are just going to follow Vanessa as she tries to act like she doesn’t care that her ex-husband Richard, who just so happened to also dump her, is about to get married, but really she actually cares a lot. On the surface, it seems like it’s because she hasn’t come to terms with the end of her marriage yet but as the book goes on those twists start to drop and we see that there are many more things hidden in the closet of the past.

If you’re looking for a dynamic thriller that keeps you guessing I would definitely recommend checking this one out. I had a totally different idea about how things would play out in the book than it did and was pleasantly surprised with how it all went. It’s a fast-paced quick read and I finished it out in a weekend so its definitely a good thriller to pick up for the summer.

Has anyone else read The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen before or any of their other books? What did you think?

*** Don’t go any further if you don’t want to read any spoilers ***

Alright so I couldn’t really express this in the non-spoiler area but as the book went on and on I just lost a lot of respect for Vanessa. It becomes clear that she and Richard’s marriage came to an end because he was abusing her emotionally, physically, and financially. Her way to get out of the marriage was to push Richard to hate her and be so disgusted by her that he left her. The risk of course was that it almost cost Vanessa her life in the process but she was happy because at the end of it all she had sent Richard into the arms of another woman and was away from him. So what I couldn’t get was why was she so obsessed with the fact he was getting married now if it was what she wanted? Her good old conscience got the best of her and she decided it was wrong to sick her abusive husband on another unsuspecting woman and decided she needed to warn her.

Despite the back of the book literally warning you to not make assumptions I made a lot. I fully assumed Nellie was the one Vanessa sent into Richards’ arms. Nellie however is what Richard called Vanessa, and it becomes clear that Vanessa was also pre-warned by another one of Richard’s exes so we essentially see how Emma Richard’s current fiancée, is so unbelieving in the fact that Richard could be a bad person. It did kind of make you question Vanessa’s actions a little more too because she went to just such odd lengths to get her husband to leave her, only to throw herself back into his life again.

We find out at the very end that Vanessa’s therapist was Richard’s ex and she started seeing her fully knowing that she was his ex, and she knows Vanessa’s past too. It was this kind of weird thing where I think it was supposed to show this comradery between the two but the therapist wasn’t nearly as mentally unstable as Vanessa was so I don’t think it’s fair to really compare the two.

Overall it was a good ending to the book with Vanessa getting Emma to believe her and leave Richard, she and her therapist giving each other this little nod thing where it’s like they are acknowledging they both got away from his grasp, and Vanessa seemingly moving on with her life.

Thank you for checking out this review! I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to follow me on my socials @baddiebookreview to be kept up to date for when I release a new review.