Prime First Reads | The Perfect Marriage

 

Rating ⭐⭐

Oh Prime, how you have disappointed me with your First Reads offering once again.

We are told a lot that Jessica and James have the perfect marriage even though they're both terrible people because they cheated on their spouses when they met and fell hopelessly in love, or whatever.

The problem is we never really get to know most of the characters because they are flat and boring.

Even Haley, the psychotic stalker ex-wife is boring.

And it comes down to the fact that they are all boring, because everything they do is predictable.

We hear all about how Jessica's ex-husband Wayne grew up with a shitty dad who beat on him and his mom, but Wayne hides his rage well. We never see it though, we are only told about it.

We hear about how in love James and Jessica are, and how this marriage is perfect because they are so in love and so perfect for each other and  blah blah fucking blah.

Then there is Owen, Jessica and Wayne's son, whose cancer is in remission until it isn't. But we don't really get to know him either, because whatever, why would we need to?

It's not really a "twist" if the way you throw readers off the trail of the killer is literally by leaving said character out of most of the book. That's lazy and, once again, boring.

It becomes obvious who the killer is the minute Jessica and Wayne stop cooperating with the police. The explanation is at least a little interesting, but when the big climax of the story revolves around subpoenas for DNA samples...zzzzzzzzz.