The Starter Wife

I have read many books since having children, but I am going to start off with the most recent read....a interesting book titled "The Starter Wife" by Gigi Levangie Grazer.I actually picked this book up at Costco. I was wandering through the book section about a week ago checking out the inexpensive paperbacks when I saw it and remembered that there was a show on USA about this book. Now, I have never seen the show and didn't really know much about it other than it was about a women who was married to a rich guy who leaves her for a younger woman.

So, I grabbed it and brought it home (after paying for it of course) and read it.

I finished it about 4 days ago....and I am just now getting around to "reviewing it," mostly because it was just OK. One thing I'm learning as I start reading more and more is that I wish there was a rating system on the printed media, like for movies. This book had some language in it, and some "romantic moments" that were a little over done...and that kind of thing really should be noted on the book somewhere.

Anyways, back to the content...like I said, the book was OK. It was a love story, obviously, and it was written well for the most part. I found that the very beginning was kind of hard to follow the way it was written. It took me re-reading a few paragraphs to finally figure out who was who, and there were a few other times in the book where I had to really stop and think about who was who, but otherwise it was entertaining to read.

Basically, Gracie has been married to a big-shot Hollywood Producer for almost 10 years with one little 3 year old girl when he calls her one day and tells her he wants a divorce, conveniently right before their 10 year anniversary...and before the 10 year deadline on the prenup. So, she has to pack up her daughter and leave what she calls the "McMansion" and ends up living in Malibu with her good friend named Joan who lets Gracie and her daughter stay in her house. "The Colony," is the name of the gated community Joan's mansion is in and she insists that Gracie and her daughter camp there while she and her elderly husband are off vacationing in some other country for the summer.

During those months Gracie discovers lots of things...she discovers that her husband was cheating on her with Brittany Spears (another thing that bugged me about the book...the author used real people, but in fictional circumstances...it annoyed me). Gracie ends up making friends with one of the girls who is a security guard at the gate to the beachfront community and starts walking the neighborhood with her daughter looking for single men, even though she thinks she is doomed to live out the rest of her life alone since she is 40 and with a kid. Throughout the book she ends up making some new friends; losing a very dear friend (her ex-husband's boss) who was supposed to only pretend to kill himself, but ends up following through. She has her life saved by a random man that she decides she is going to seduce, only to discover after having him over to dinner that he is the homeless guy on the beach...but she can't forget about him and despite how stupid it sounds she decides that she is love with him and that she has to have him. As she goes to find him and confess her love, she discovers that his makeshift home is gone along with any trace that he was ever there.

Throughout the whole story there are lots of little twists and turns, and insights into the lives of the rich and how despite their wealth and comfort, they aren't immune to what the rest of us deal with on a daily basis. The book has some humorous parts, and has some drama....but it ends in an expected but unexpected way with Gracie getting everything she could have wanted and more.

If you want to know the ending you'll just have to read it yourself, but be warned, it's not a G-rated book...if I had to rate it, I would say it was at least PG-13...but I wouldn't let my teenage daughter read it.

Now, I have started reading a book titled "The Friday Night Knitting Club" and I will let you know what I think of it when I finish it. Again, this was another Costco book section grab, but this one already is more promising than the book above!!