The Housewife - Valerie Keogh

Reading Challenge Category: A book I bought a while ago

Official Blurb:

“There’s no place like home” – that’s what I tell myself as I pull another flawless meal from the oven. This perfect house on a quiet street was supposed to be my sanctuary, a place to recover. But everything changed the moment I saw that woman in the charity shop. She triggered something dark, buried deep within my memory…
Now I’ve started forgetting small things, like locking the front door.
And bigger things, like remembering to pick my little girl up from nursery.
I feel terrified every time I pass through a particular spot in our living room.
And sometimes, when I’m alone, I’m sure I can hear a baby crying…
I think the woman in the shop knows what happened to me. But if I can’t trust myself to believe she’s real, who will?

My Thoughts:

Hmmm, there was so much wrong with this I don’t even know where to start.
The main thing that bugged me was the loss of time that kept happening. Diane had two timings she had to keep, taking her daughter to school and picking her up. She had 4 hours in-between, and I lost count of how many times she would just be sitting thinking and all of a sudden, she was late for picking Emma up. It drove me insane.
The repetition throughout the book was also infuriating; she’d get up, make breakfast, get Emma ready, take her to school, come home etc. etc. etc.
The poor kid as well, she spent her life on the sofa whether that be sleeping, watching tv or having a book read to her, she rarely left the sofa! She was also the most well-behaved kid in the universe, going to sleep at the exact same time of day and night and never waking until needed! The only time she misbehaved was when her mum tried to rescue her from wandering into the road, and she screamed the place down, which meant Diane was the bad guy. This made no sense.
Despite all of this, I was still gripped by the book, I thought a humdinger of a shock at the end would reward the repetitiveness, so it kept me reading. I was bitterly disappointed. It was more an ‘oh ok’ moment, nothing shocking about it at all. The reasoning behind the stalker was very weak and could have been so much better. The reveal of why she’d had the breakdown was slightly better but still fell a bit flat. It was hard to summon up any emotions for the situation or sympathy for Diane by this point.
The epilogue was frustrating; I just didn’t see the point to it; I was expecting more of the issues she had with Paul to be resolved and how she was now living her life a few months later. Instead, we get a very strange cliffhanger that I hope wasn’t a prelude to a prequel!
So, overall a very disappointing book that I had high hopes for. I’d missed out on reading this when it was released, but it had gotten so much hype at the time I was expecting big things from it. I’m giving it three stars just because it did keep me gripped and guessing, but really due to the disappointing side of things, it should only get two, so I’m being over-generous.