Betsy Calliston grew up taking care of her mother, a hoarder who never left the house. Her father left when Betsy was eight, but the divorce judge awarded custody her mother. Thus began Betsy's Candide-like adventures where her polite tea party is picketed and she is arrested for assaulting the protesters, her best friend's husband get shot and later fatally sick, and her cheating husband leaves and marries her best friend (thus the title: Wife-in-Law).This latest "bad things happen to good people" novel by Haywood Smith follows sweet, optimistic, innocent, self-effacing Betsy from crisis to crisis, until the string of evil abruptly ends, and, as if my magic, everything is wonderful. Betsy and her girlfriend Kat get makeovers at fancy salons, go shopping at expensive department stores, and enjoy a "Cougar" cruise. (Spoiler Alert:) In the end, Betsy's mother even fully recovers and her long-lost father returns.Until the final chapterS of fairytale bliss, the book is a page turner. At the end, diabetics must be warned to keep their insulin close at hand. I think Haywood Smith has a lot of great ideas for stories, but not great execution. Wife-in-Law is approximately 300 pages of exposition, 10 pages of action, and 60 pages of denouement. The conclusion feels like an epilogue that was tacked on, but what happened there is more interesting than the whole rest of the book and could have been its own story. Quite honestly, it didn't really fit in with this story. Also, what one reading the jacket might assume is the meat of the story happens outside the pages: Betsy's ex and her best friend getting together. The book starts when Greg and Kat are getting married, and when it returns to that point, there is no explanation how they got that way other than "He Found God." I actually boosted my review from 2 to 3 stars because the characters were kind of enjoyable (although Betsy is too good to be true), and despite the lack of plot quite a few of the anecdotes were funny. Still, I'm pretty sure I'm already starting to forget it, and I just finished it five minutes ago.
What do You think about Wife-in-Law (2000)?
Liked it but didn't love it. Just okay for me.
—bellab
