Life in the Time of COVID-19

 

Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon

When I first received this book to preview, the title really threw me off. I thought it sounded like one more book about ”sister wives”. I think you all know what I am talking about, that reality show with one man “married” to four women. If that concept works for you, than great. It doesn’t work for me. The book turned out to be completely different than I originally thought.

One day Alice opens her email to find in her inbox an invitation to participate in an online survey about “Marriage in the 21^st Century. First a little background on Alice. She is a woman married for almost twenty years with two children one in middle school, one in high school. She is a Drama Teacher. Her marriage has become mundane with very little face to face time with her husband. Her husband appears to be going through some type of crisis. She can sense something is not quite right but he’s not talking. Her children are your ordinary kids going through the usual stuff you expect kids to go through at that age.

That is why she finds this survey so intriguing and signs on to do it. She becomes Wife 22 and her case worker is Researcher 101. The survey consists of lots of questions and she answers many of them pretty extensively. For her it is like talking to a therapist but better because she can say whatever without feeling limited. After all she’s not actually sitting on a couch talking to a “real” person and watching their facial expressions. Oh no she just says whatever she feels like saying and the longer she participates the deeper she goes. It’s like spilling to you best bud with absolutely no filters, no repercussions. That is the interesting and scary concept in this book. The internet has provided a place that is not touchy feely and where people can get away with so much.

The book is certainly interesting. One thing I don’t like about it is Alice’s answers to the questions are written but the questions are not written forcing the reader to guess the question. The concept of the book is still interesting. This book is being released tomorrow May 29, 2012.