Reviews

For more of my reviews, check out my book blog at www.readingreckless.wordpress.com.

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine is about a con woman named Amber who tries to worm her way into the life of a rich socialite, using Daphne’s foundation for the research and cure of cystic fibrosis. Her ultimate goal is to get a rich husband, Daphne’s husband. The book gives us the perspective of both Amber and Daphne. However, I don’t like the execution of the book. Maybe if I hadn't read The Wife Between Us before this book, maybe I would have enjoyed it more.

The odd thing is that I liked the writing for the most part. I didn’t like the repetitiveness of the description of the opulence of the Parrish home. I saw the twist coming from a mile away. The first sentence of Part II made me want to put the book down. The first part of the book was slow, dragging and then in a couple of sentences, we were rocketed two months in the future, which is jarring for a number of reasons, the first being that when we switch over to the other narrator in part 2. There isn’t any consistency in the time frame of the story. We are told about what was happening when it happened a long time ago. We get the whole love story of Daphne and Josh.

A big part of the thriller is the motive. A good thriller has a motive that makes sense. This motive for the systematic destabilization of a marriage is nonsensical at best. Amber’s motive is simply for her to have a better life, but there was nothing in Amber’s story or character that made us empathize with her. It’s important for a character like that to have layers instead of just being plain evil. There are moments where the author could have given her a backstory to garner sympathy but we don’t get anything. When we finally figure what is going on, which is predictable, it feels overplayed. The only character I liked was Tullulah and she was a child.

Now we come to the spoiler part of the review

Spoiler

The big twist (which again is not shocking in the least) is that Daphne knew about the affair and wanted a way to get out of her marriage.
That is my main problem with this book. We are supposed to root for Daphne because we want her out of her abusive relationship but for her to sacrifice another woman for that, it makes me not root for her.

Pitting women against each other in fiction is extremely problematic. I really wanted to like this book because I’ve heard so many good things but I just can’t.

amandamariex0's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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