I finished The Marriage Lie by Kimberly Belle two nights ago and I have mixed feelings. The plot was interesting so I REALLY wanted to love it, but I didn’t. My biggest issue was that the writing overly-explaining everything and was predictable – something that I struggle with my own writing as well. Despite cringing while I read, I really wanted to find out what happened, so I kept reading. I can’t say I loved how it ended, but I don’t regret finishing it either. To be honest, I hate writing bad reviews, but I think in this case, I have to.

The Marriage Lie by Kimberly Belle Synopsis

“Even the perfect marriage has its dark side… 

Iris and Will’s marriage is as close to perfect as it can be: a large house in a nice Atlanta neighborhood, rewarding careers and the excitement of trying for their first baby. But on the morning Will leaves for a business trip to Orlando, Iris’s happy world comes to an abrupt halt. Another plane headed for Seattle has crashed into a field, killing everyone on board, and according to the airline, Will was one of the passengers on this plane. 

Grief-stricken and confused, Iris is convinced it all must be a huge misunderstanding. But as time passes and there is still no sign of Will, she reluctantly accepts that he is gone. Still, Iris needs answers. Why did Will lie about where he was going? What is in Seattle? And what else has he lied about? As Iris sets off on a desperate quest to find out what her husband was keeping from her, the answers she receives will shock her to her very core.”

Goodreads

What I Loved

I loved the plot of The Marriage Lie by Kimberly Belle. It started really quickly too, which I like. There was no dilly dallying, the story took off running and it never slowed down. I also liked the array of characters, there was a wide variety of different personalities. That being said, that is about everything I liked.

What I Didn’t Love

I always feel bad writing this part, especially since I want to publish books myself. For every bad review I write, I expect it get it back threefold, The Craft style. That being said, there was a lot I didn’t like about this book. Let me start with the writing. It’s not that the author doesn’t know how to write, because she clearly does. But everything was overly explained or predictable. I felt like the same thing was being said over and over again and everything was spelled out for the reader unnecessarily.

Then there was the tone of the writing. It felt very YA, which would be fine, but it didn’t fit the seriousness of the story. There were a lot of cringey conversations, and maybe they stood out to me because I struggle with this in my own writing. I also felt like certain characters were introduced for no apparent reason, which I found a little strange.

Finally, there was one story line that started going somewhere and it felt too good to be true, and then we didn’t even find out if it was going anywhere. To me, this ended the book on a bad note. I kept waiting for something more and it left me high and dry. Overall, the book felt naïve and I wanted it to be better.

Summary: The Marriage Lie by Kimberly Belle

I don’t know if I would recommend The Marriage Lie by Kimberly Belle to adults, but I feel like I would have enjoyed it as a teenager. Although when I was a teenager, I didn’t want to read books about adults, so maybe not. It’s hard for me to be so critical of a book, but I don’t want to just write sugarcoated reviews either. And who knows, you may like it a lot more than I did! I’ve loved plenty of books that other people hated.

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