Jodi Bret and Todd Gilbert - who have been together for twenty years - live in a posh Chicago condominium and enjoy the good things in life: a lovely home; expensive cars; fine dining; evening walks along the lake; etc.
Jodi is a trained psychotherapist and maintains an office in the condo. She sees a couple of patients a day, and spends the rest of her time working out, reading, walking the couple's dog Freud, seeing friends, shopping, cooking gourmet meals, etc.
Todd is a successful developer who's currently experiencing a money crunch because of a pricey building renovation. Todd likes to ogle women, show off his expensive possessions, and spend time with Jodi - who coddles and indulges him.
The couple's lives are humming along smoothly when Todd mentions that he'll be going on a fishing trip next weekend, with some fellows from the office. Jodi immediately sniffs out the lie, and it's one lie too many.
Jodi knows that Todd is a serial womanizer, and Todd is aware that she knows. However, Todd's behavior has NEVER been acknowledged between them. Thus the evenings when Todd is 'working late' or 'having a drink with the boys' have passed without reproach, though Jodi does small vindictive things for revenge. Todd has never gone away for an entire weekend, though, and this seems to spell trouble.
Indeed it spells trouble.....BIG trouble. Todd has been seeing a sexy college coed named Natasha, who happens to be the daughter of his best friend Dean. Worse yet, Natasha is pregnant and expects Todd to marry her. Natasha and Todd's upcoming weekend getaway, planned by the coed, is to be a romantic interlude and an opportunity to discuss their (really her) plans. Number one on Natasha's list is for Todd to tell Jodi what's going on and move out.
Todd doesn't have the nerve to inform Jodi, but she finds out anyway - from Dean, who's furious about Todd knocking up his daughter. Even afterwards, when Todd knows that Jodi's been told, neither of them brings up the subject. In fact things at home go on much as before.....for a while. (Can you imagine a more fraught state of affairs?)
Todd knows he has to cut the cord at some point, and - once lawyers get involved - Jodi discovers that she's entitled to nothing because she and Todd were never married. Things eventually take a dark turn, which is foreshadowed at the beginning of the book.
The story alternates back and forth between Jodi's perspective and Todd's perspective, and we learn that they both come from dysfunctional families. In Jodi's chapters we read about her parents and two brothers. We also see flashbacks to Jodi's psychotherapy sessions, which took place during graduate school. Jody's psychoanalysis reveals some hard truths, and may be meant to explain her passive-aggressive behavior - but it's a stretch (IMO).
For his part, Todd is unable to hold his own against Natasha, whose assertive personality is the diametric opposite of Jodi's. Natasha is continually pushing Todd in directions he'd rather not go and is planning a huge wedding he can't afford right now. Todd's angst about all this has predictable results.
I listened to the audio version of this book, which was a mistake. The female narrator - who voices Jodi's chapters - speaks exceptionally slowly, probably to depict Jodi's shock at the crisis in her life. This makes the story, which is already slow, feel moribund. The male narrator - who voice's Todd's sections - is a bit better....but the tale still meanders along.
I found the story interesting from the perspective of two damaged people in a seriously neurotic relationship. A couple going on like this for twenty years seems incomprehensible to me. I'm especially bewildered by Jodi, who (it would seem) could do much better than a lying cheat.
I didn't particularly like the book, but readers interested in psychology and flawed relationships might be interested.
Rating: 3 stars
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