THE WIVES OF BATH

Author: Wendy Holden ISBN: 0452285895 5/2005 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: PLUME

Bath, England—the swanky town once home to ancient Roman spas and Jane Austen heroines—is the setting for Wendy Holden's brilliant new novel. Birthing class brings together two sets of expectant parents who couldn't be more different. Hugo and his spoiled wife Amanda plan to throw money at the problems of parenthood, making use of private hospitals and nurses, while environmentally friendly Jake and Alice have arranged a home-delivery complete with birthing pool and whale music. But even after their babies are born, these seemingly disparate couples can't escape each other. When Amanda decides she's not cut out for motherhood and Hugo must look elsewhere for a sympathetic ear, the couples are inextricably drawn together once again, resulting in hilarious social comedy as only Wendy Holden can write it.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

While reading through THE WIVES OF BATH, I alternated between loving this book and absolutely disliking it. On one hand, it is great to watch as Hugo tries to balance his everyday life with suddenly becoming basically a single father. The way he handles things and the situations that he finds himself in, are funny and had me laughing through a lot of the book. In my mind I was trying to see this once suave, clean-cut man becoming this rumpled, unshaven single dad with baby food on his clothes. It made for a delightful picture!

My dislike for this book stems from the fact that Hugh seems to become such a wimp as the story goes on. He sits back and allows his horrid wife to say and do anything that she pleases, and just takes whatever she hands him without so much as an argument! He seems like a "yes" man and never once fights back for himself in the entire book. I wanted there to be some serious consequences for Amanda for the way she treated him and Theo. I was waiting for him to grab out a tape recorder or hide a camera somewhere for the entire world to see what a horrible person Amanda was. But, that was not all the case. Toward the end of the book, Hugo gained a penchant toward tears, which was a bit much for me. Don’t misunderstand me, I am all for a sensitive guy, but when thrown together with his wimpiness and lack of self worth, it just made Hugo seem a little like a loser.

Then we have Alice. Alice is married to a psychotic environmental freak who makes her live in squalor and dress like a pagan, and never throughout the entire book does she do a single thing to defend herself against him or regain her life. She allows him to control her mentally and take advantage of her. She gives up a good job and sells her apartment to be with him, only to find that he lives in an old morgue, with trash everywhere that he recycles, hardly any heat in the house, consigns her to only FOUR washable diapers a day and refuses to let her eat anything other than organic foods, and she goes along with him—albeit miserably—but still she does it. She has no gumption, no fight in her, whatsoever. She just allows him to walk into her nicely ordered world—with a reused condom, nonetheless—and turn everything upside down; and that is supposed to be ok? One thing that I cannot stand when I read is a spineless heroine.

So, there you have it. I felt frustrated most of the time, waiting for our "hero/heroine" to take back control of their lives. While I did think that the book had its good points, the lack of personality on the part of the lead characters just made this a very unenjoyable read for me.

Kristal Gorman