Heart of the Matter

I just finished a novel by my favorite author, Emily Giffin, "Heart of the Matter".


From her website:

"Tessa Russo is the mother of two young children and the wife of a renowned pediatric surgeon. Despite her mother’s warnings, Tessa has recently given up her career to focus on her family and the pursuit of domestic happiness. From the outside, she seems destined to live a charmed life.

Valerie Anderson is an attorney and single mother to six-year-old Charlie---a boy who has never known his father. After too many disappointments, she has given up on romance---and even, to some degree, friendships---believing that it is always safer not to expect too much.

Although both women live in the same Boston suburb, the two have relatively little in common aside from a fierce love for their children. But one night, a tragic accident causes their lives to converge in ways no one could have imagined.

In alternating, pitch-perfect points of view, Emily Giffin creates a moving, luminous story of good people caught in untenable circumstances. Each being tested in ways they never thought possible. Each questioning everything they once believed. And each ultimately discovering what truly matters most."


While the story was good and the character well developed, I was utterly disappointed with the subject matter: infidelity.  Really?  Really?  This is her fifth book - and of the five, three (well maybe even four if you count Something Blue) deals with cheating and how to deal with it.  She is a superb author and I would love to read a novel by her that allows her characters to be "better than that".  It annoys me so much.

Here's a link to the first chapter of this book:

http://www.emilygiffin.com/books/heartofthematter_ch1.php

After reading that, I thought "Wow, that sounds superb. Maybe her hubbie will be in some sort of car crash and she'll have to go back to work AND nurse him back to health, or maybe she'll be diagnosed with an illness, or maybe they'll be some sort of REAL tragedy in this story."  Doesn't it set it up like that?  Even her three examples of the "before moments" are all illness related.  So one would only imagine that it'll go down that route... but no.  It's about an affair.

So I won't spoil it for - at least I hope I haven't already.  

I thought I could really relate to this book - after our very own "before moment" a year and a half ago.  I can still remember Christmas morning 2008, days before Nate's diagnosis, when the tree of us woke and rushed over to the Christmas tree.  Noah was only walking for about two months or so and I can still picture him "running" down the hall unsure what the excitement is all about but joining in anyways.  But no no.  It's not about a real problem that life throws at you.   Not about dealing with cancer or an invisible disease like Type 1 Diabetes... It is about creating your own problems.   About a string of bad decisions where all along you could have still said "no".  And on top of it all, it hits a little too close to home for me - with a few of my friends' marriages recently ending because of infidelity.

I was brought to tears a few times, but I just wish Giffen would have pulled out those tears on a worthier subject.  It was a good story, but there are so many other troubles in this life.  That subject is so sad to read about and depressing to think about.  I wish she would explore other topics.  She still remains my favorite (with her first book, Something Borrowed, being my #1) right up there with Judy Blume's "Summer Sisters". 

Now there's a book that I've read over a dozen times and every copy I've even owned (over 5 or 6 of them) I've given away. Now as summer approaches I'm getting the itch for it again.  I think I'll head over to Chapters and pick it up again.  It's just that good.