Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsExciting, great First Reads choice!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 25, 2023
Exciting, suspenseful, thrilling. Even if I thought this might have been a familiar plot when I read the description, it didn’t matter once I started reading. It was so well-written and enthralling that I forgot to try and figure out what was going on and instead just enjoyed being pulled along into the story. Dragged into the fear of the two women and the many things you feel are being kept secret from them and the inexplicable behavior of their husbands.
I felt sorry for Livvy right from the start. She seemed so eager to please Dominic that more and more and more of her real self just kept disappearing. She loved her baby, Leo, but Dominic was the one who insisted they start a family right away and then used it as the reason to keep her always at home. The courtship itself was whirlwind and Livvy had barely started to settle into marriage before she became pregnant and had to take a leave of absence from her job. She is anxious to get back to that job and a potential promotion, something she has worked hard for for years, but Dominic finds one excuse after another to try and delay her return.
Anna wakes up in the hospital with amnesia. The doctors tell her this is to be expected and should fade, but her husband Stephen insists she take it very, very slowly until she feels almost a prisoner in her own home. A home she doesn’t remember, a life she doesn’t remember, a husband she doesn’t remember. Stephen is patient, gentle, kind but as Anna feels more and more restricted and more of her questions are brushed away or unanswered she is torn between fear that she’ll never regain her memories and guilt that she feels Stephen is hiding something from her.
The only thing Stephen and Dominic seem to have in common is wanting to keep their wives isolated. In Stephen’s cases it seems out of concern for Anna’s wellbeing. Dominic, however, is controlling and acts more and more like a bully, insisting his family mistreated him his entire life so he refuses to see them, insisting Livvy’s family is trying to drive a wedge between him and Livvy, insisting they need to move away to be on their own. He bounces between sudden bursts of anger at Livvy and laying on the guilt thick and heavy, making her feel she must choose between him and her own family.
I felt many times while reading The Forgetting that I knew what was going on, but I never knew what was going to happen next and that made the story so enjoyable, mesmerizing and ultimately satisfying. There are twists and turns and reveals you won’t see coming and you’ll be gasping and worrying until the very last word.
This was my Amazon First Read selection for March. I recommend this book without hesitation.
