Review: The Mermaid Chair
I had problems with this book by Sue Monk Kidd. She’s the author of The Secret Life of Bees, which was excellent. Mermaid, however, doesn’t live up to Bees. It started out engagingly, with a woman married 20 years to a kind husband with a child whose just left for college - so close to my situation. There’s the intrique of her mother’s mental health crisis too. But then it degenerates into a sappy romance as she supposedly falls in love with a monk at first sight. From there it veers on and off into a nauseating likeness to Message in a Bottle. But her husband is presented as the ultimate wonder husband - loving, successful, faithful, caring - making it hard to understand why she has any interest in anyone else, much less a monk she knows nothing about.
I’m sure I missed whatever the point of this book is.
I give it 2 out of 5 stars. **
