Customer Reviews

The Wrong Mother (Thorndike Core)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I almost gave this novel three stars because it did a good job holding my attention and featured an intriguing plot, but in the end I couldn't get over its basic problems: many of the characters are irritating and behave stupidly, and -- worse -- the ultimate solution rests upon information known only to the characters. To be fair, though, the plot gets so silly and motivations so confused that I'm not sure better plotting would have been enough to save it. As for characters, there are simply too many of them. There are detectives crawling all over this novel, and half of their names start with "s". In an effort to distinguish them we waste a lot of time on the backgrounds of totally unimportant characters. It would have been a much more interesting read if there had been three or so detectives and a boss in the background. I don't regret reading this book, but there are much better choices out there.

Sally had an affair. She was exhausted and in desperate need of a break. When her business trip was unexpectedly cancelled, she decided to get away anyway. She met Mark and their tryst began. They talked about lives they lead, about their work and about their families. When the vacation came to an end, the two parted ways thinking they would never see each other again.

One night while Sally and her husband are watching TV and to Sally's surprise, Mark's name comes up on the news. To her surprise, his wife and child have both been killed. When they show Mark's picture, Sally realizes that the man she was with was not really Mark, her short term lover was using the identity of someone else. Now she is in panic mode and scared for her family. Will she be able to protect her family from this madman that she once shared a bed with?

I'm addicted. Now I have to go out and buy all of her other books. Seriously. This was a phenomenal read that blew my mind. I actually received an ARC of this at the beginning of the summer, so I had actually read it a while ago. I am still in a daze over how wonderfully thrilling this book was. If you aren't going to buy it, at least enter my giveaway because I really think you all could get hooked on Sophie's writing. If you do, maybe we could start a club. LOL.

I give one star for originality of the story line only. Otherwise, unless you've got a flow chart handy, this is not an enjoyable read. Names of main characters that are impossible to pronounce - (Kombothekra, seriously?) so you either stumble over it at each occurrence or have to skim the name each time; plus names of characters too similar (Simon, Sam, Sellers, all cops for gosh sakes); interchangeably calling characters by their first or surnames (way too hard to follow), and throw in a woman with a commonly male name (Charlie); and lousy character development; make this novel impossible to latch onto. Did I mention that characters repeatedly use each other's names along the way; and some make up aliases for themselves depending on the situation? One character plays the part of 4 individuals! And another uses 3 different names throughout the course of the novel. Very frustrating read.

In Sophie Hannah's "The Wrong Mother," thirty-eight year old Sally Thorning loves her husband and two children, but she has difficulty juggling her professional and personal responsibilities. There are times when she yearns to leave her family behind and take a breather. Little does Sally know that she is about to enter a nightmare that will make her everyday problems seem trivial. She discovers, to her horror, that a woman named Geraldine Bretherick, who allegedly killed herself and her six-year old daughter, looks very much like her. Furthermore, Sally remembers having met and befriended someone who pretended to be Geraldine's husband, but whom she now realizes was an impostor. Sally is terrified of going to the police, since she has secrets that she does not wish to reveal.

Although the detectives suspect murder/suicide, there are anomalies that cast doubt on this theory. Geraldine left a diary on her computer in which she unleashes a vitriolic attack on her young daughter and on the institution of motherhood. People who knew Geraldine well insist that she would never have expressed such rage. The police are in a quandary and in desperation, they start looking at the victim's bereaved husband, Mark, as a possible suspect.

Hannah has a feel for character and dialogue, and she effectively explores a number of controversial themes. We live in an age of the supermom, who gamely tries to take care of her husband and children while holding down a full-time job. Few mothers would admit that they are in over their heads, and even those women who dote on their kids may occasionally feel exhausted and overwhelmed. Although there are some fathers who willingly do their fair share, there are others who expect their wives to shoulder most of the burden. What impact can such continous stress have on a mentally unstable individual? Hannah plays with this theme and then carries it to an extreme.

Sally is a compassionate individual who would like to come clean to the authorities, but her sense of self-preservation interferes with her good intentions. Mark Bretherick appears to be shattered by the loss of his wife and child, but is it possible that he has not revealed everything that he knows? One of the detectives, Simon Waterhouse, is convinced that he and his colleagues are making some erroneous assumptions, and he senses that there is a great deal more to this case than meets the eye. In addition, Simon has romantic feelings for his former colleague, Charlie. However, she is still upset about a humiliating event that wrecked her self-esteem and she angrily refuses to consider a future with him. When the author finally brings her complicated plot to a head, we are tempted to mutter, "Come again?" Hannah expects us to buy some pretty bizarre scenarios, and some readers may find it difficult to suspend their disbelief. "The Wrong Mother" is suspenseful and involving enough, even if reading it is akin to watching a train wreck. Sophie Hannah shatters the myth that everyone can effortlessly balance parental duties and a challenging career. Sometimes, the pressure of trying to hold everything together day after day can push an erratic person over the edge and deep into the abyss.

Boring, irritating, and unsatisfying are the words I would use to describe this recent mystery by Sophie Hannah.

When I first found this book and read the description on the back, I was excited. Featuring murder, mystery, and an affair, I thought it was bound to be a page turner that would be hard to put down. I was wrong - not to mention disappointed.

It was one of those books that I almost had to force myself to finish. Why? The plot was unbelievable and hard to follow at times - plus there were long stretches of text that were boring. I also disliked every character in the book. They were shallow, often behaved irrationally, and did things that made no sense. Honestly, I didn't care if any of them lived or died. And the ending? It was almost to the point of being silly. I felt like the author was seriously grasping at straws to try and tie up all the loose ends - which didn't happen either.

If you are looking for a great mystery, with drama, suspense,and intrigue, this isn't the book to read.

I wish I hadn't wasted time with this book. I read the whole thing hoping it would get better and it never did. I have to agree with the reviewer who stated unlikeable character and unbelievable plot.Too many people competing for attention in this book. I got lost in all of the characters and found I really didn't care about any of them.
Waste of my time!

Whenever I finally thought I had it all figured out, the author threw another twist into the plot, until finally, as the intrigue seems to be falling into place, it knots itself up again.

A murder mystery, a psychological study--these elements are set against an almost comedic exploration of the police detectives assigned to the case to form a multilayered drama.

There is nothing ordinary about this tale that begins with an affair and ends in death. Whatever might seem to be a predictable scenario is soon found to be anything but, and as we struggle to add up the clues, hoping to finally understand what happened, we keep bumping up against the incongruities, the misdirection, until finally we are desperate just to understand what happened and why.

Sophie Hannah's story is so brilliantly complex that I could not read it too late at night, for fear of nodding off and missing some key elements.

This is definitely not a pleasure read, despite some actually humorous aspects, like the relationships between the police detectives. A story that kept me on my toes and moving ahead to the final conclusion, The Wrong Mother: A Novel is definitely a five-star read.

This dark thriller starts out with a bang, quite literally, and keeps ratcheting up the suspense until the shocking end. Sally Thorning's life takes a turn toward the surreal when she discovers the man with whom she shared a weeklong affair is not in fact the man she thought he was. As she attempts to unravel that mystery, police are investigating the apparent murder-suicide of that man's wife and daughter. As the book alternates between Sally's deteriorating situation and the police investigation, the suspense and questions build toward a stunning crescendo.

This book kept me guessing until the very end, and left me eerily staring over my shoulder on the street. The story is quietly dark and I was impressed by the thrills the author achieved in this psychological drama. The writing was tight and the voice never faltered though it was sometimes hard to understand Sally's actions in light of developing events. The Wrong Mother was my first exposure to Sophie Hannah- I'm delighted to discover she has other books I can add to my wishlist. Highly recommended psychological thriller.

I hated every single character in this book - they were unlikeable, had no insight, behaved badly and had no redeeming qualities. The plot was somewhat interesting but the resolution was handed to the reader in a neat little package with a bow. It was resolved by information know only to the characters, and not discoverable by the reader. It could have been so much more.

This book was an utter disappointment. At a recent book exchange, it was the hot book based on the intriguing blurb on the cover. But the story failed to live up to the intriguing premise. The portions of the plot concerning the police investigation were plodding and the side stories of the police investigators were distracting and unconvincing - I kept expecting a closer tie-in to the main storyline, but it didn't happen. The diary excerpts examined the downside of motherhood, but were too lengthy in relation to their significance in the plot and were not particularly insightful or interesting beyond a point. The main character was interesting but not used effectively - she drops out without a satisfactory resolution of her storyline. By the end I was actually indifferent and read the final chapter over several days because I did not find it compelling reading. The early part of the book was a page-turner for me, but somewhere mid-book it lost its way. Maybe I expected too much, but this in not a book I can recommend.