I felt sick what exactly happened to Christine by near the end of this book.
Two days in total I finished this book. It was a random selection from Amazon after I finished The Reader. I did the pre-reading on Amazon, but didn’t think about buying and keeping reading the book. Eventually, I did when I was waiting for the train at London Victoria Station. I went in WH Smith and decided buying it.
It was fascinating. I couldn’t really stop reading it even when I lied on my bed and was preparing to sleep. I shouted in my head that few more sentences, then I’d close the book and wait until tomorrow to keep reading the rest; no, it always ended up reading few more pages or even till the end of one chapter.
As I read from the beginning, I had sensed who was the suspect. It was not out of my guess, but not like what I expected in the end. And I felt sick knowing why the suspect did this to Christine. Why sick? In fact, I wasn’t expecting this book would have any connection with my thoughts or my life, unlike The Reader, understanding why Michael didn’t save Hannah in the trial. I read this book with a complete freshness of a new story, but it ended up bringing the thoughts of my relationship with him again. Right, I didn’t feel sick about how this book made the suspect become, but I felt sick with myself.
The suspect is a psychopath. I remember I have read it somewhere, says a psychopath who killed his wife didn’t understand why people didn’t understand how much his love for his wife. The death of his wife to him was not only the loss of his wife but also his best friend. However, he did not regret what he had done. When I read this, I felt chilled. I cannot deny I have thoughts of “destroying him” because of how he hurt me and used me. I have anger more than sadness about what he has done to me. I blame him using me and using my love for him to satisfy whatever he demanded. And then when he realised I had nothing more to give him, he pushed me away, as far as he could. He took every advantage from me. I had nothing, NOTHING from him. I called him a “psychopath”, but at the same time I became like a psychopath. The pain he gave me seemed shape me into a psychopath.
Turning back to discuss the book, the author left a few questions in the end of this book. Oddly, I can answer few of them by telling how I understand the pain, the anger and the sadness of the suspect.
Do you think that Christine’s affair is out of character for her? Why do you think it happened? Why do you think she risks her marriage? Does she treat her husband well? And the suspect? Was she being fair to him?
In my opinion, Christine was not fair to the suspect. The suspect did have a crush on her at first and wanted to know her more, so he tried approaching her. And at the same time Christine felt depressed from being unable to produce a second novel and feel annoyed with her husband, she noticed the suspect and gave him an invitation to approaching her. If she didn’t start the invitation, the suspect might not be involved in Christine’s marriage with her husband. She cheated on her husband, and the suspect found himself deeply in love with her. One day she realised she could not do it anymore, and she had to go back to her husband. She did explain this to the suspect and wanted him to be out of her life. She decided he had no more chance to see her again. He wasn’t given a good explanation. She controlled everything from the beginning, the invitation, to the end, blocking him out contacting her. He felt used. The time Christine being with him was just to consult her loneliness when she had problems with her family. She used his love for her to fill her lonely heart. Now he left nothing from her, not even a good explanation. How could he not be mad? He felt hurt, used and unbalanced, but did she know how badly she hurt him? They didn’t have to go to this far if she didn’t start all of this first. Even if it had started, she needed to pay back to balance how much she had taken from the suspect, and then “slowly” let go of it. I don’t know why I had no pity for Christine after all.
I’m aware that I might have become a psychopath after he used me and left me. This book came to remind me that I have to stop from thinking destroying him. I don’t want to be a dangerous psychopath, but I’m hurt, so badly. He stepped on my self-esteem. How could I stand not humiliating him as much as he did to me?
I don’t know. I really don’t. My mind splits into two fighting each other. I do wish I could be like Christine somehow to wipe out memories, but only the memories with him, because I’m so tired of thinking of how he treated me when I so much want to get him out of my head.
However, the recommendation by rating this book I gave 4 stars. As quite a few reviewers mentioned on Amazon, I did notice there were plot holes and repetitions in this book, and the ending was predictable from the beginning. I always wondered how Christine could use only last than 24 hours, or I should say “the only time her husband was out to work” doing so many things, reading her journal (especially after she’s been writing a lot during the treatment), meeting her doctor, writing her journal, etc. However, this book is still recommendable since this book is S J Watson’s debut. I believe his future novels will get more better in managing the plots.
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“To philosophise is to think for oneself; but no one can truly do so without drawing on the thoughts of others, especially those of the great philosophers of the past.”
Talking about this book, I had it for a bit while, but had never got a chance to read it until now. In fact, here I can’t say this is a book review because I haven’t finished it yet. And actually, I don’t have any interest in finishing it anymore. Why?
Just about Serena... 
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