A great how-to-recover-from-an-affair-and-restore-your-marriage from a European point-of-view told with great insight and humor. Looking forward to reading Maum's second novel...or seeing this book turned into a romantic comedy. ( )

I am going to start with the positive. I really enjoyed the last 50ish pages of this. Not because it was a happy or an unhappy ending (it depends on the reader I think which it was) but because things happened. I also rather like the first 50ish pages. It was the center 200 pages that proved problematic for a number of reasons.

Many have mentioned that we spend our time with a character who is horrible. I actually did not have a problem with Richard's shortcomings because his character grew and changed and that process has moments of interest. The bigger issue for me was that Richard's wife, Anne Laure, was perfect, flawless. First, perfect people are not very interesting. Second, its kind of hard to root for the couple to resolve their marital woes. Someone so perfect should have a someone equally perfect (though of course people this perfect do not exist in real life) and because if they re together one has to imagine she spends a lot of her time feeling cheated and he spends his time feeling inadequate. Third, the author tried and failed to meld the marital struggles of the main characters with the stupidity of W going into Iraq based on the existence of non-existent WMDs and it came off as needlessly complicated, clunky and silly. (Side note -- in the age of Trump destroying the entire freaking world its hard to be offended by W starting one little war.)

In the end the book was fine, but not reading the book would also have been fine. I kept putting it down and not missing it, but enjoying it well enough when I thought to pick it up. That seems like a weak 3-star to me. ( )

I don't set out to read all the books about terrible unlikable men, it just seems like there are so many of them to find. Maum's characters, the husband and the wife, don't want to end their marriage, but they struggle to find reasons that it shouldn't end. They fight hard towards each other and towards better versions of themselves. But some fights you just can't win. ( )

"How about telling me how badly an affair would fuck up your marriage?" Was there ever a more tantalizing opening line for a go at cheating on your spouse? It's a brave author who writes in first person AND another gender, and Courtney Maum mostly succeeds in this not-chick-lit-but-lit-fic novel. It's the writing, stupid, and not the plot, which drags on a bit too long. Richard, a Brit artist, and Anne, a French attorney, meet in Providence RI and marry quickly, with a fine and active sex life and a sweet daughter. But routine sets in and in 7th year stretch, Richard succumbs to Lisa, an American wench who picks him up in a Paris museum. When Lisa breaks it off and Anne finds out about the affair, Richard realizes that he wants his wife back and back to where they were before. Possible? Maybe. Richard's internal thoughts are selfish and his parents and in-laws both confront him with his stupidity. Does he wise up? This is worth a read because it's implausibly romantic and very well written. ( )

A man has an affair but keeps the letters he continues to receive from his ex-lover. This idiot of a husband ends up taking them on vacation with his wife and child. She finds them. The rest of the tale is about how he tries to win his wife's trust and love back. I love the title. ( )