Soulmates: A Novel
"For anyone who has ever suspected something sinister lurking behind the craze of new-age spirituality, Jessica Grose has crafted just the tale for you. With the delicious bite of satire and the page-turning satisfaction of a thriller, Soulmates is a deeply compelling, funny and sharply observed look at just how far we will go to achieve inner peace."--Lena Dunham
A clever, timely novel about a marriage, and infidelity, the meaning of true spirituality, perception and reality from the author of Sad Desk Salad, in which a scorned ex-wife tries to puzzle out the pieces of her husband's mysterious death at a yoga retreat and their life together.
It's been two years since the divorce, and Dana has moved on. She's killing it at her law firm, she's never looked better, thanks to all those healthy meals she cooks, and she's thrown away Ethan's ratty old plaid recliner. She hardly thinks about her husband--ex-husband--anymore, or about how the man she'd known since college ran away to the Southwest with a yoga instructor, spouting spiritual claptrap that Dana still can't comprehend.
But when she sees Ethan's picture splashed across the front page of the New York Post--"Nama-Slay: Yoga Couple Found Dead in New Mexico Cave"--Dana discovers she hasn't fully let go of Ethan or the past. The article implies that it was a murder-suicide, and Ethan's to blame. How could the man she once loved so deeply be a killer? Restless to find answers that might help her finally to let go, Dana begins to dig into the mystery surrounding Ethan's death. Sifting through the clues of his life, Dana finds herself back in the last years of their marriage . . . and discovers that their relationship--like Ethan's death--wasn't what it appeared to be.
A novel of marriage, meditation, and all the spaces in between, Soulmates is a page-turning mystery, a delicious satire of our feel-good spiritual culture, and a nuanced look at contemporary relationships by one of the sharpest writers working today.
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Community Reviews
The author found a refreshing way to tell the story from the points of view of both wife and husband. I loved looking at the story from the wife's point of view as she is reading the husband's point of view. It was interesting to see the same events as different people, and to see the complete disconnect evolving between two people.
Looking at other comments, I see that there are both people who were surprised by the "twist" and those who saw the ending a mile away. I didn't expect that ending, and enjoyed it greatly. I do think the character development leading to the ending could have been a little better, but maybe that would have made it too easily anticipated, so I won't take a star off the rating for that.
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