Review: "Husband and Wife" by Leah Stewart

Sarah Price, mother of two small children and the wife of a fiction author, gave up her dreams of writing poetry to support the household. Her husband, Nathan, stays at home with the children and works on his novels. His upcoming novel, Infidelity, has received some fantastic pre-publication raves and everything is set to change for their family. That is until Nathan confesses that Infidelity is loosely based on his own personal experience- a year prior he cheated on Sarah while away at a writer's conference. Sarah is stunned by the revelation. She was under the mistaken impression that her marriage and home life was a happy, balanced one.

Sarah isn't quite sure how to proceed. Does she kick Nathan out? Does she stay with him and try to forgive him? She finds that neither answer is quite what she was looking for, and she sets out to try to reassemble the jagged pieces of both her life and marriage.

Husband and Wife is filled with lyrical prose, the kind that you want to say out loud and savour on your tongue. I practically devoured the beautiful words, as one would a particularly delicious dinner. For that reason alone I would have recommended the book, but Leah Stewart has filled the book with raw truths as well, making it that much more enjoyable. At first glance one may think that Husband and Wife is a reflection on marriage. It is, but it is so much more. It is a reflection on marriage, motherhood, parenthood, and losing oneself in the midst of all of the additional roles that we take on when we become responsible for others. There were so many instances in this book when I thought, "Yes! Leah Stewart really gets what it is like to be a parent and to have not one ounce of patience remaining in my person to be used on the kids. She understands what it is like to put the kids to bed at 6 o'clock just because I can't take one more minute of being responsible". Stewart has captured, and mananged to convey on paper, the all-consuming job of being wholly responsible for small children.

I don't know if there is much more that I can say about this book other than to tell you to read this one. Recommend it to the woman in your life, the mother, the wife, the sister, the friend. This is a book that women have to read, if only so that they understand that there is a person out there who understands what it is like to lose a little of your identity when you have children, but that it is never too late to get those pieces back. Take a moment to browse inside this book and sample what Husband and Wife has to offer.

Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Recommended to: Wives, mothers, women
Challenges: 2010 100+ Reading Challenge, New Author Challenge 2010, 2010 Support Your Local Library Challenge