I don’t know how many of you are on TikTok, but if you are, you’ve almost certainly heard of user ReesaTeesa’s 50+ part saga detailing her hasty (and, spoiler: very much regretted) marriage to a man who turned out to be a pathological liar. And if you’ve heard of it, chances are you’re obsessed, or at least curious. If you don’t have time for 10 hours of storytelling, or like me you’ve already watched it all and are dying for something else to scratch that regrettable marriage itch, I have book recs for you!
The quintessential regrettable marriage is the one central to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I mean, the prologue literally has narrator Nick looking at his wife’s head and wondering what on earth is going on in there, which isn’t too far off from ReesaTeesa’s titular question. Nick and Amy are celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary. Well, they’re supposed to be. But Amy has disappeared, leaving confusing clues and a diary behind. As police and media swarm, questions mount. What’s happened to Amy? Had Nick had something to do with it? Who’s telling the truth about their marriage, and who are these people anyway??? On a meta level, it’ll have you wondering if we can ever really know someone well enough to marry them, or if we should commit to living peacefully alone. Read or re-read the thriller that launched a genre as a print book, an audiobook on CD, an ebook on OverDrive, or an audiobook on OverDrive. If you’re more into the movie starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as Nick and Amy, the library has a copy of that on DVD.
The other story I immediately thought of watching ReesaTeesa reveal just how many things her husband had lied to her about was the true crime tale unraveled in Surviving Dirty John by Debra Newell. Debra had four failed marriages behind her when she met John Meehan, but despite everything she still believed in love. Unfortunately what she thought was true love turned out to be danger wrapped in deception, culminating in a terrible night of violence and trauma for Debra’s family. In this book, she tells in her own words of her denial of the warning signs and ultimately her family’s survival. The result is absolutely riveting and surprisingly relatable. You can read the print book, an ebook on OverDrive, an audiobook on OverDrive, or an audiobook on Hoopla.
The wives of The Wives by Tarryn Fisher have probably wondered who exactly it was that they married. Tuesday, the narrator, is the second wife. She shares her husband with two other wives, women she’s never met. He spends Monday nights with his first wife and Thursday nights with his third, newest, wife. Tuesday is happy with the arrangement. At least that’s what she says. But when she has a chance to track down one of the other wives and strike up a friendship under false pretenses, she leaps to do so. Hannah, the third wife, is much as their shared husband describes her: young, sweet, pregnant. She also seems to be hiding mysterious bruises. Tuesday has never known her husband to be violent, but she finds herself worried about if Hannah is in danger. Find out just how founded those worries are in the print book, the large print book, the audiobook CD, the ebook on OverDrive, the audiobook on OverDrive, the ebook on Hoopla, or the audiobook on Hoopla.
Celestial and Roy of An American Marriage by Tayari Jones don’t have the same kind of questions about their spouses, but circumstances have them uncertain about their marriage too. Young newlyweds Celestial and Roy are just starting their life together when Roy is arrested and convicted of a brutal crime he did not commit. Celestial never doubts his innocence, but with her husband sentenced to twelve years in prison, her future and marriage no longer look the way she planned. When Roy’s conviction is overturned after five years and he is suddenly a free man again, he and Celestial once again confront their future. Does Roy have a wife to come home to? Can they find their way back to each other? Or has the past changed them into people who can no longer live together? This emotional story of a couple whose life is upended by the criminal justice system was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club when it was released in 2018. You can read it as a print book, a large print book, an audiobook CD, an audiobook Playaway, an audiobook on OverDrive, an ebook on Hoopla, or an audiobook on Hoopla.
I’ll finish out the list with one of my longtime favorites. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier isn’t named after the protagonist/narrator; it’s named after her new husband’s first wife, a glamourous society hostess who was tragically lost at sea under a year before her widower’s remarriage. The young woman who becomes the second Mrs. de Winter meets the older, mysterious, aristocratic Maxim de Winter abroad at a vacation resort, and marries him after a whirlwind romance. After their honeymoon, Maxim brings his new bride home to his estate, Manderley. But Manderley is haunted for both by reminders of the lost Rebecca, and confusion clouds the relationship between husband and wife. What happened to Rebecca? Why won’t Max talk to his new wife? Does he even love her, or is he still in love with Rebecca? The answers, when they are revealed, are stunning, and it’s easy to see why this story has captivated for decades. You can read the book in print, as an ebook on OverDrive, as an audiobook on OverDrive, as another audiobook on OverDrive, as an ebook on Hoopla, as an audiobook on Hoopla, or as yet another audiobook on Hoopla. If you prefer an adapted version, the library has a DVD of the Hitchcock film, a BBC audio drama version on OverDrive, or a Masterpiece Theater miniseries on Hoopla.
That’s it for today. Be well, and don’t marry a stranger!
