Saturday, February 24, 2018

Evelyn, After by Victoria Helen Stone

I could not tear myself away from Victoria Helen Stone's Evelyn, After. Evelyn is a forty-one-year-old wife and the mother of a son just months from high school graduation. Her life is fine. She is heavily involved with the PTO and works part-time in the school office. She lives in a beautiful home and is married to a successful psychiatrist. So she has to take a sleeping pill every night. Lots of people do that. It doesn't mean she is unhappy with her life. At least not until she discovers how wrong her life has gone. Late one night, Evelyn's phone rings, startling her from her prescription-induced slumber. It's her husband, frantic for her help to pull his BMW out of a ditch. When she arrives, he isn't alone, and the other passenger is a very attractive patient of his. This could ruin her husband's career and destroy their family. How will Evelyn know how to come to terms with her knew world? Will she overcome, or will she take everyone down with her?

This book echoes many concerns of the average wife and mother. Are we appreciated? Does what we do matter? Below are just a few lines that ring that bell so clearly.

No wonder her husband had wanted someone else. She'd been such a wife. A dull, boring mother of his child.

Her work was cleaning and washing and planning and ticking boxes for people who only noticed that work when you failed to do it.

The reality was that she'd had to lure them close to her with scraps of food.

She needed someone to see her.

Who made her life easier while she was busy being easy for everyone else?
No one. There'd been no need. She'd never asked.

Aside from being a fascinating commentary on the life of a modern housewife, this book was also a riveting mystery. What really happened out on that dark, rural road late that night? Where had Evelyn's husband really been and with whom? Evelyn is a great character. My feelings for her ranged from pity to pride to disappointment and around and around. I love a character with enough depth to not evoke just one emotion from me as the reader. I really liked this book and I think you will, too. Can we talk about it when you finish?

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