Book Reveiw: The Mistress's Revenge By Tamar Cohen

The Mistress's Revenge By Tamar Cohen

Product Details:

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; Original edition (June 7, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451632827
• ISBN-13: 978-1451632828

Product Description: (From the Publisher)
There’s a fine line between love and hate.

For five years, Sally and Clive have been lost in a passionate affair. Now he has dumped her to devote himself to his wife and family, and Sally is left in freefall.
It starts with a casual stroll past his house, and popping into the brasserie where his son works. Then Sally starts following Clive’s wife and daughter on Facebook. But that’s alright, isn’t it? These are perfectly normal things to do. Aren’t they?
Not since Fatal Attraction has the fallout from an illicit affair been exposed in such a sharp, darkly funny, and disturbing way: The Mistress’s Revenge is a truly exciting fiction debut. After all, who doesn’t know an otherwise sane woman who has gone a little crazy when her heart was broken?

My Review:
I really wanted to like this book and had such high hopes after reading the product description, however, I found this to be quite disappointing overall.  Written in first person in the form of Sally's journal, the novel initially caught my attention and drew me in but after awhile I found myself bored and frustrated with Sally's character.  We're presented with Sally, a woman in her mid-forties who is quite literally going mad following a sudden end to an affair with a married man who apparently was her only chance for happiness. Really?  At this age I would think any woman would have a greater sense of self-esteem, self-reliance and independence let alone find herself relying on a married man and neglecting her children as well as her partner.  Sally's journey through this emotional/mental breakdown and abuse of prescription drugs as well as her aloofness and misinterpretation of therapy only furthered my dislike of this novel.  The last thing we need is another female literary figure suffering from madness and the loss of a forbidden love.  Perhaps this would have been a more appealing novel if the reader was offered different perspectives other than Sally's, but I doubt it.  Overall, I found this novel to be a bit too cliché for my liking and find myself giving it a 2.