3.5⭐️Really fast pace book,really loved the quemistry between the characters and really loved their relationships.

I loved this one. It's a short but powerful read about a floundering relationship, longing and what-ifs. The conversational style and humour of the narrative made it incredibly engaging and I ate it up in one sitting, finding myself gripped by Zuzu's past and her current path. I loved how messy, frustrating and relateable she was as a character and felt an emotional pull that only increased as I learned more about her. Quiet, moving and very thought provoking, especially at the end.

The Other Wife by Jackie Thomas-Kennedy

Approaching 40, Zuzu seems to have it all—a beautiful wife, a child, and a picture-perfect home. But her mind keeps drifting to the past, wondering how life might have turned out if she’d made different choices: pursuing a relationship with her friend Cash, moving in with her father after her parents’ divorce, or passing the bar after law school. This fixation on what might have been begins to cloud her present, affecting her decisions and relationships.

When Zuzu returns home after her father’s death, her carefully constructed life begins to unravel. Grief collides with nostalgia, and she finds herself mourning not just her father, but the version of herself she never became.

The Other Wife, Jackie Thomas-Kennedy's debut novel, explores themes of memory, identity, and longing. It’s a novel about grief, but also about friendship, race, class, and the complications of love. Zuzu is a complex and often frustrating character—so caught up in the past that she struggles to see what’s right in front of her.

If you enjoy stories about sliding doors moments, college nostalgia, and the intricacies of relationships, this book is well worth your time.

I really wanted to enjoy this book, the plot sounded interesting and I love character-focused, slow moving books. However, unfortunately in this case, the characters were hard to care about, and I found Zulu’s uncertainty quite jarring. This made it difficult to get through and ultimately the ending felt quite unsatisfying.

Unfortunately, I ended up marking this one as a DNF at 22%. While I enjoy books that go nowhere, they must at least feel immersive and feature rich characters. The Other Wife sort of hovered in the middle with nothing that drew me in, and I found I had to keep rereading pages as I’d misted over them.

As she approaches her forties, Zuzu has everything she’s ever wanted. Yet she can’t shake the feeling that something is missing. A tragic event brings her home, where she begins contemplating all of the decisions that’ve brought her to her ‘now’, including the decision to marry her wife Agnes, despite having unresolved feelings for her best friend.

This felt like an extreme slow burn with not much to show for it during the pages that I did read. Like I say, it hovered around the middle and Zuzu was an unlikeable character to read. (Unreadable character, perhaps?)

This was not quite the book for me. Whilst I enjoy character driven fiction, the book ended and I was disappointed to see nothing happened. I didn’t quite understand the title, I kept thinking oh Agnes is secretly married and Heidi is the other wife, in fact, Zuzu is the one who certainly cheated? Also I felt her desire for cash erased her queerness.

This was an odd book, almost a sliding doors scenario with the main character, Zuzu, seemingly unsure about her relationship with her wife Agnes and wondering if she should have made different choices. She is a frustrating person who you really want to take some control over her own destiny, but maybe this is the great writing of the author? Unfortunately I remain unsure.
Thank you to netgalley and Penguin Books for an advance copy of this book.

Susan ‘Zuzu’ Braeburn is almost forty. She has the life she’s always dreamed of – a beautiful house, a child, a successful partner. But something between her and Agnes has been off for a long time, and she can’t help but wonder ‘what if’.

What if she had chosen to live with her father instead of her mother after their divorce? To pursue art over law? And, most importantly, to pursue her feelings for her male best friend from college, Cash, instead of marrying Agnes?

I thought this book started well, tailed off and never really finished. It wasn't really for me as I didn't like any of the characters. Parts of it were well written but others not so much.

Zuzu is unhappy in every aspect of her life - her marriage, her career, her family, her friendships, motherhood. The problem is that it’s hard to feel sympathetic because she’s so unlikeable as a character.

It appears that she accidentally fell into her same sex marriage with Agnes, with very little evidence of love or romance between them in the early days - especially since Zuzu is still pining over her (male) college crush all these years later. In fact, over the course of a weekend, Zuzu still manages to sleep with him and the only other Black guy in her small town, who she ignored throughout college for reasons unknown. Maybe she didn’t want anyone to figure out she was Black, which the reader certainly wouldn’t have if not for 2 (maybe 3) throwaway references in the whole book.

Even the end of the book gave neither a conclusion nor sufficient interest to warrant a wonder about what happened next in Zuzu and Agnes’ relationship. A shame.

This is a book about longing—for clarity, for connection, for a different version of a life already lived.

Zuzu is ten years into a marriage with Agnes, a woman seemingly married to her job. Zuzu, meanwhile, is overwhelmed and underheard, buried under life admin and the emotional weight of their disconnection. The communication between them is practically non-existent, and what remains is often brittle and passive-aggressive. It’s no surprise Zuzu is unhappy—her relationship, her career, even her family dynamics feel like they’re quietly imploding.

And yet, I found myself just as frustrated with Zuzu as I was sympathetic. Her inability (or refusal) to communicate, her obsession with a man who’s upfront about being a selfish jerk, and her seeming drift through life without meaningful action all made her feel… passive. Realistic, yes. But also difficult to root for.

At times, this book feels like it's trying to say something profound about grief, regret, and mid-life restlessness—but those messages get tangled in characters who rarely say what they mean and rarely do what they need. Cash isn’t particularly compelling or kind, so Zuzu’s fixation on him felt hollow—was she in love with him, or just with the idea of another version of herself she imagined when they first met?

None of the characters are particularly likable—and maybe that’s the point. Agnes, Cash, Zuzu: they’re messy, selfish, emotionally stunted. But they’re also painfully human. This is not a story of heroes and villains, but of people stuck in lives they built but no longer recognize. In that sense, it’s incredibly relatable. And frustrating. And honest.

The writing itself is clean, accessible, and easy to slip into—but the emotional momentum never really arrives. I kept waiting for something—anything—to jolt Zuzu into clarity or motion. Instead, the story drifts in the same way Zuzu does. That might be intentional, but as a reader, it left me feeling unsatisfied.

Still, I appreciate what the book tries to explore: how people grow apart while still living side-by-side, how yearning doesn’t always make sense, how grief over a parent can be complicated by the legacy they left behind, and how imagining another life can be both a balm and a trap.

This book will resonate with readers who enjoy character-driven domestic fiction, especially those interested in the raw, sometimes uncomfortable mess of long-term relationships and emotional limbo. For me, though, it just didn’t land the way I’d hoped.

Zuzu is nearly forty and she is frustrated with the life that she lives now; the life that, as she sits in her memories and her nostalgia, she realises her choices have led her to.

A family emergency forces her to return, with her wife Agnes, to the town where she grew up and where her sister Julia and their friend Noel both still live. She spends the whole time deep in her own head. Zuzu’s thoughts and observations flip around in time; she sits deep in her memories of Cash, a college friend who never quite loved her in the way she refused to admit she loved him but who still texts here now. She fantasises about a future she had once imagined. And she recounts, dully, the facts of her experiences here in the raw present.

I thought this was a brilliantly written book about the life fork experience that most people have in midlife. Intersectionality is handled deftly (Zuzu is mixed race and bisexual, and seems to wear her clear ambivalence about those things in a realistic way, without guilt but still with some shame) and the characters, while some are quite unlikeable, are well drawn. The observations of married life are accurate and funny. I enjoyed it a lot.

A story that seems to have characters who are all flawed, almost to the point of unlikeable characters at times. As a woman hurtling towards 40 I thought I’d find this quite relatable as life is full of the what ifs and maybe the grass is greener, however it seems I lived Zuzus life in reverse so couldn’t quite connect with a character who seems to crave the opposite.

I spent a good portion of this book feeling pretty frustrated with the main character and the author did quite well to write such an unlikeable character in a way you want to continue reading.

The Other Wife is a quietly powerful and introspective novel that offers a deep dive into the psyche of its protagonist, Zuzu. What I found most compelling about the book was its rich exploration of Zuzu’s inner world—her doubts, regrets, and the subtle emotional undercurrents that shape her life. The writing is thoughtful and evocative, drawing you into a contemplative space where the complexities of identity, desire, and—most prominently—dissatisfaction unfold with nuance.

And that’s a key word to hang on to here. Because Zuzu’s apparent passivity can be both a strength and a source of frustration. Her tendency to drift through life, waiting for others to make the first move, feels realistic and relatable, but at times I found myself wanting her to take more agency. A number of reviews I’ve read have said similarly and even questioned the point of the novel. For me, this IS the point. Ms. Thomas-Kennedy ties no neat bows anywhere here, choosing to reveal a layered character, one who is only now just realizing her paths taken and isn’t (yet) fully able to accept it, let alone face it and make changes.

The novel’s pacing is deliberate, and its structure non-linear. Stick with it though, even if you fear it veers to the point of stalling at times, as the non-linear choice reveals itself to be cleverer than you initially realize. The ending is open, hinting at possibilities but leaving much for the reader to interpret. While this ambiguity suits the novel’s reflective tone, it may leave some readers wanting more closure. I love tropes and arcs and definitive endings, as a rule. This novel chucks out most tropes and does its own thing, and I found that refreshing as I plowed through Zuzu’s narrative and the author’s very nicely constructed prose.

The Other Wife is a slow-burning, character-driven story that excels in psychological depth but may test the patience of those seeking a more plot-driven or definitive conclusion. But I really liked it, and I won’t forget what has turned out to be a memorable MC.

Thank you to the author and publisher and to NetGalley for the opportunity to spend time with Zuzu and wish her better days ahead.

The Other Wife by Jackie Thomas- Kennedy is a book about mid life and how it makes us question the choices made and the roads taken. It tells the story of Susan (Zuzu) a woman approaching forty and at least in theory happily married to her wife with whom she shares a child and a beautiful home. However Susan has felt like something is off in her marriage and in her life for quite a while now, and it has made her wonder about what her life would have been like if she had made some different choices ,from her college major to pursuing a relationship with her college boyfriend instead of her wife.
This is a quiet, introspective, character driven novel, that moves through time to give the reader a series of vignettes that can be strung together to help build a more complete understanding of the character, a format that I quite enjoyed. The main character is not very likeable, and in fact downright frustrating at times which might grate with some readers, I liked the writing style and found it engaging but I do have to say that the ending was less well defined than it might have been, and it dampened my appreciation of the book over all
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own .

This was a decent read and entertaining in parts, but ultimately a letdown. I struggled to connect with the main character, who came across as quite frustrating, and I felt the story lacked the necessary backstory and character development to make me care more.
The writing is easy to get through and was super bingeable. It just ended up feeling a bit flat and shallow overall.

All relationships are bound to have problems.
This story left me with mixed emotions. I’m sure it had something of importance to tell and I either missed it or it wasn’t properly delivered. I’m not sure why Zuzu is so hung up on Cash, who is an absolute douche and lets her know from day one he’s not the best person. I don’t really understand Zuzu’s grief about her father’s death, although grief is complicated. I’m left wondering about the ending, I think of Agnes and Heidi and I ponder the reason behind Zuzu’s and Noel’s relationship and their encounters. This book says so much and yet says nothing all at once.
I think imagining what if scenarios and wondering about a life you never had is definitely something all people partake in, however I can’t be certain that a story like this, where a woman in a lesbian relationship is yearning for a man was needed. It is only my opinion and it is not to say that feeling this is invalid or people shouldn’t feel this way, I simply felt it was sort of tacky especially considering Cash wasn’t any better than Agnes. Perhaps it wasn’t Cash Zuzu loved, but an idea of him and their future she’d imagined. Neither Agnes, Cash nor Zuzu are perfect, perhaps not even necessary good people. And that what makes them all human, what makes them feel real and yet so distant because you as a reader keep wondering why they made the choices they did. These characters are hard to understand because life and people are complex. Nothing is ever black or white, people and their relationships are confusing and perhaps that’s the beauty of life.
I’m sure there will be plenty of people who will love this book and its characters.

Sadly, this wasn't one for me. I read the whole book, quite quickly, hoping its point would reveal itself, but instead, I finished feeling puzzled and deeply unsatisfied.

This book felt intimate throughout, it almost made you want to climb inside and have a conversation with Zuzu, the main character, to untangle the experiences and decisions of their life, to make sense of how they got where they are.
They are married to Agnes, and reflecting on their college years and friendship with Cash, the man they were in love with then ~ this real sense of moving back and forth, as if through Zuzu's mind and memories, is prevalent through the book and it almost feels cruel that the reader can see the missed opportunities, the projections, the needs, the unsaid words and they aren't able to ratify any of it with Zuzu herself.
I really loved this book, I read it in a few days and it kept me hooked which I think is a feat for a story that is so internally driven, rather than surprising in nature.

Dear publisher.
I inadvertently put a review to The Other Wife which I had written about another book. I haven’t yet read The Other Wife but will return to review once completed. I can’t submit this form to you without a star rating, therefore have awarded four stars which could be amended once I’ve completed this book.

Zuzu is almost forty and unhappy in her marriage to Agnes, even though she has the dream life, the lovely home, the child… she spends time reminiscing about her past, her friends, her relationships, and wondering about different paths.

The book is well written and flows nicely but I found myself getting frustrated on so many occasions. I wanted to shake Zuzu and get her to speak honestly to Agnes ~ who’s addicted to her legal career and doing well ~ but instead it’s all introspection and ‘might have been’.

I was given a copy of the book by NetGalley