Book Review: The First Wives Club

Book: The First Wives Club by Olivia Goldsmith

Edition: Paperback

Rating: 1 1/2 stars

Review:

The First Wives Club was a disappointing read, it was very slow moving and at times felt like it was written for shock value with the constant use of racist, sexist, homophobic, fatphobia etc. language as well as many of the characters were simply vile and despicable.

This story deals with three former wives, Anne Paradise, Brenda Cushman and Elise Atchison who were planning to get even against their ex-husbands who after using them to get ahead in their careers and improve their social standings tossed them aside for younger women. The ladies' plan also included seeking revenge for their deceased friend Cynthia Griffin whose ex-husband Gil was truly a horrible person.

It took some time and many pages for the women to hatch some kind of plan and then to set it into motion. At first Annie was reluctant to subject her ex-husband Aaron to the plan but after being used and humiliated by her ex to then finding out he used and lost the money from their special needs daughter Sylvie's trust fund for the stock market. She was more than ready to seek some form of justice.

Meanwhile, Brenda was trying to seek additional money from her ex-husband Morty after his company went public in the stock market. If it wasn't for Brenda and her family, he never would have been able to build up such a lucrative career as a first-rate retailer. But once he was done with Brenda he swindled her out of a reasonable divorce settlement including duping her out of stock for his company. In the end he ended up tossing her a few monetary crumbs that barely allows her to pay her bills. If Morty wasn't going to do the honorable thing then it was time for a bit of revenge.

And last was the extremely wealthy ice queen Elise who had gotten so used to looking the other way while her husband Bill (whose career she help elevate) had his numerous affairs but things changed after he left her for a younger woman. She was finally ready to start living her life again for herself but she also wanted revenge.

The concept for this story could have been handled much better because as I mentioned above this is a slow moving (and often times boring) story that relies upon shock value to sell it instead of good writing. I found the story also jumps frequently from different characters' point of view throwing off what little momentum this story had. It's hard to find sympathy for any of the characters including the ladies of The First Wives Club because most of the time this story was written in such a passive-aggressive way.

Annie, Elise and Brenda were painted as long-suffering wives but the sad thing is they were the ones who had settled for their horrible lives but only felt empowered once the men left them for someone else. I don't even understand why they could not have left their husbands and it's even more stupefying when you think about Elise's situation because she was the one who had all the money in the relationship, she could have easily left Bill.

There were times when I found the story was actually interesting (which is why I gave it an additional 1/2 star) but there were not enough of those well-written scenes as there should have been. What annoys me about their plan of revenge was that they really didn't have one and a lot of times their ex-husbands self-destructive tendencies brought about their end instead of due to the plan. And also Gil's career downfall was mostly due to all the help they received from Elise's rich "uncle" Bob Bloogee.

Overall, this was such a disappointing read and not to mention it's riddled with so many negative stereotypes. And despite the sound bite on the cover from Cosmopolitan magazine there was nothing hilarious, smooth or sexy about this book. This is one of those rare instances where the movie was actually better than the book.