Book Review: The Wives by Tarryn Fisher
I'm the 2nd wife, the legal wife. My husband has 2 other wives I've never met. I see him once a week and this was the arrangement I agreed on so I could keep him. One morning, as I go through his coat, I found a hospital receipt in one of his pockets with the name, Hannah. I know she's the third wife. We weren't supposed to know each other, that was the rule, but now I can't help it. I need to find her.
I track her down, pretend not to know her and become her friend. During our time together, I noticed she's got bruises...from abuse. Does my husband hurt her? That's not possible. I try to ask her about it but there's a hesitant tone in her voice.
I couldn't picture my husband being an abuser. But what if he is? I need to find out. After that moment with Hannah, everything spirals out of control. I didn't know who my husband is anymore.
Spoilers ahead.
What. A. Book.
The story starts out with Thursday, the narrator and the 2nd wife, laying down the "basics" of her relationship with her husband. The husband Seth, has two other wives, Regina and Hannah and he sees all his wives once a week.
Seth divorced Regina because she didn't want children and he did. However, they still wanted to keep their relationship, so they agreed that Seth could date another woman to have children with. Thursday comes into play and despite the unusual arrangement Seth has with his ex-wife, she still agreed to be with him because they both wanted to have kids. Unfortunately, Thursday suffers a miscarriage and that tragedy meant she couldn't have children anymore. Seth then moves on to the third wife, Hannah (who is now pregnant), while still allegedly married to Thursday and at the same time, in a relationship with Regina.
I'm going to try my best and fast forward with the story.
Thursday finds out the name of the third wife. Jealousy sweeps over her because she knew she was pregnant. She finds Hannah and befriends her without revealing who she is. When Thursday sees her, she noticed the bruises and when she asks about it, there's a hesitation in Hannah's answers.
During this time, she's also tries to track down the 1st wife, Regina. To her surprise, she finds her through a dating app. She's cheating on Seth. She then decides to create a fake profile under the name of Will, to prove the alleged "cheating" to Seth so as to cut the number of wives to two.
As the story progresses, Thursday confronts Seth about Hannah's bruises. One thing led to another and BOOM! It was revealed that Thursday was having "mental episodes" once again. She was then sent to a mental institution after this huge confrontation.
From here onwards, I really thought that Thursday was indeed suffering from delusions (as the book describes) caused by her miscarriage. Seth didn't have 3 wives, that the polygamous relationship never existed. However, from her point of view she also made me believe that, she was being gaslighted by Seth in order to hide his truth. I was so torn at this point and could no longer put down the book. I immediately wanted to know the ending.
As soon as Thursday was out of the hospital, she goes looking for Hannah again, but she's non existent. I thought, damn. I really wanted Seth to be the crazy one 😒 But Thursday doesn't give up because she still believes that Seth may be abusing Hannah.
The next thing she does is go to Regina and confront her. At first, the divorcee denies all allegations of polygamy with Seth but then later on changes her mind and tells her an absurd story about their husband.
According to Regina, she was pregnant before they got divorced and Seth was the one who caused the miscarriage by giving her an herbal tea that induces labour. Thursday was surprised as the same thing was done to her right before her miscarriage.
After this revelation, I was so convinced that Seth really was the culprit!!!! Turns out Regina lied as a revenge.
Fast forward > In the end, Thursday was never actually married to Seth. She was the mistress while Regina and Seth were still married which caused the divorce. Thursday was indeed pregnant with Seth but she had a miscarriage which put her in a tremendous amount of grief. She used the polygamous relationship as a coping mechanism. Seth eventually moved on and married Hannah.
Okay. I didn't like the ending at all. It gave off an impression that a woman like Thursday may never recover from such a traumatic experience in her life. Regina clearly had her own traumas which was unfortunately not taken into account. After so many years of being divorced to Seth, she never really moved on. It also seems as though the story magnified the flaws of these women and how they were pitted against each other because of one man's actions. In the end, Seth did get his karma, but unfortunately his third wife would end up being his caretaker 24/7. Did he deserve what befell on him? I guess it's up to the readers to decide.
