A Good Marriage is perfect for fans of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
Rating: 2/5
Lizzie Kitsakis is working late when she gets the call. Grueling hours are standard at elite law firms like Young & Crane, but they’d be easier to swallow if Lizzie was there voluntarily. Until recently, she’d been a happily underpaid federal prosecutor. That job and her brilliant, devoted husband Sam—she had everything she’d ever wanted. And then, suddenly, it all fell apart.
No. That’s a lie. It wasn’t sudden, was it? Long ago the cracks in Lizzie’s marriage had started to show. She was just good at averting her eyes.
The last thing Lizzie needs right now is a call from an inmate at Rikers asking for help—even if Zach Grayson is an old friend. But Zach is desperate: his wife, Amanda, has been found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their Brooklyn brownstone. And Zach’s the primary suspect.
As Lizzie is drawn into the dark heart of idyllic Park Slope, she learns that Zach and Amanda weren’t what they seemed—and that their friends, a close-knit group of fellow parents at the exclusive Brooklyn Country Day school, might be protecting troubling secrets of their own. In the end, she’s left wondering not only whether her own marriage can be saved, but what it means to have a good marriage in the first place.
What makes a good marriage?
A Good Marriage is perfect for fans of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
And if you’ve been following me for a while, then you might be able to see where this review is going…
Well, my streak of good and great reads had to end at some point. I’m just disappointed that it had to end with this one. I was really looking forward to this. But this ended up being nothing that I was expecting or hoping it would be. It turned out to be a dumpster fire, just like Gone Girl was for me. It gave off similar vibes to my reaction to Gone Girl. Which if you’ve not seen my review, you can find my unpopular opinion here!
I found the premise to be intriguing and in a way reminded me of Watching You by Lisa Jewell. However, I enjoyed that one so much more. A Good Marriage follows a lawyer, Lizzie, who receives a call late at night from an old college friend, Zach, suspected of killing his wife. This call is the last thing Lizzie needs in her already crumbling life and her rocky marriage. But, Zach is desperate and Lizzie eventually caves. Soon after Lizzie discovers that even Zach’s “perfect” life may not be so perfect as it seems. And Lizzie starts to question what is a good marriage and if hers can be saved.
As I mentioned, I genuinely thought this premise was intriguing. It was intriguing enough to get me to pick it for my BOTM box back in May 2020. But shortly after starting, I lost interest fast. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters. I found just about every single one unlikable and honestly a bit annoying. The storyline felt slow and hard to follow. There was this weird side plot that practically had no relevance to the main storyline until the very end. To me, this whole book was a waste of time. I truly wish I had DNF’d this just like I wished I DNF’d Gone Girl.
Shortly after starting, I lost interest fast. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters.
Going back to the characters, I mentioned I found them all unlikable. Our main character, Lizzie, I thought she was a twit. She kept hinting at these secrets she had throughout the entire book. Secrets that even her husband didn’t know. These secrets didn’t come out until almost the very end, which I guess is fine. Except for the fact that these were completely unnecessary secrets. They had no value to the plot and they weren’t even that scandalous. It honestly felt like the author only gave Lizzie these secrets just for the sake of having secrets, because everyone else in the book had secrets.
It honestly felt like the author only gave Lizzie these secrets just for the sake of having secrets, because everyone else in the book had secrets.
The setup of the story was also just hard for me to follow. We primarily follow Lizzie as she works to prove Zach’s innocence. We also get to see snippets of Zach’s wife, Amanda’s point of view in the days leading up to her death. In between these two points of view, we get to see examinations of various people being interviewed as part of the investigation of Zach’s case and as well as seeing the occasional odd email being sent from Zach’s son’s school. It was these emails that provided this weird side plot. The emails were hard to understand and we only vaguely get to see their relevance through Amanda’s point of view, and her chapters were already short. The side plot did fit in with the ending, but I still found these emails to be overly confusing. I would have preferred them not being there and just focusing more on Amanda’s point of view and hearing about this side plot that way.
And then these stupid examinations… These scenes were infuriating. They rarely shared any new pieces of information, and basically, every single one asked the same few questions. I usually love these types of scenes in books. But once I started seeing the same questions over and over, I was dreading these chapters, they felt like a waste of time.
Just as I had done with Gone Girl, I even tried giving myself a break in hopes that I would enjoy this a little more with a different mindset. Nope. Still didn’t gain interest after that break. The only reason I finished this was for my buddy read. I couldn’t leave my girl, Lori @inkstainedlibrarian hanging. Though, I wish I DNF’d it. I did make Lori laugh when she saw my rating of this book. So there was that!
I only wanted to DNF this because the twists felt so far-fetched even for a fictional book. Or they could have just been poorly executed. There were so many twists too. I only guessed one of the twists, but the details around it just made my eyes roll. Honestly, this whole book felt like a giant eye roll. And I thought the ending was dumb. When we discover the “whodunit,” I just went “really?” It was such a disappointment.
Honestly, this whole book felt like a giant eye roll.
Overall, this was a hard miss. I wish I hadn’t read it. It felt like another Gone Girl. However! That being said, I know Gone Girl is a big favorite as I know I was the unpopular opinion with that one. So if you enjoyed Gone Girl or thrillers like it, then you might enjoy this more than I did. I hope you enjoy it more than I did! I’d say it’s worth a shot if you find the premise intriguing!
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