Review: The First Time

The First Time by Joy Fielding
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Liked it!
===================
SPOILERS!
.
.
.
.
.
I remembered reading this book and doing a detailed review at the time. But it disappeared completely or the author changed her name and I didn't find the old review.
You follow the story of a successful couple with a teenage daughter. They married because of her unwanted pregnancy. They stayed together for their daughter, but he betrayed her from the beginning and multiple times.
Our heroine is depressed because she has once again found proof of his new infidelity.
She is really upset about it. He is in love with his mistress and determined to divorce and leave home immediately.
He opens the game with her and says he will leave. She returns from the hospital after a car accident and finds his closets already empty. He went to live with his mistress.
Our heroine after a series of exams finds that the cause of the accident is a degenerative disease and that she will soon die.
Our Zero is not at all pleased, because his wife's illness ends up disrupting his plans with the new mistress.
Our heroine is obliged to accept his help because she has no other option. Their teenage daughter is very shaken and angry at her father's betrayal.
As the story unfolds, we learn details of their family life and what their childhood was like. Both have very serious childhood traumas, but they have never talked about it.
His relationship with mistress is very detailed. She is neither prettier nor smarter than our heroine, and I think he felt inferior to our heroine.
A psychiatrist would write a huge book just about their issues.
I cried in some scenes and in others I was very angry with Zero, because if he had commit in their relationship, everything would have been better, because deep down they loved each other. But he never accepted it and entered the marriage out of obligation. He never fully committed himself. Our heroine only reacted to the pain he caused.
Our heroin's disease has no cure and unfortunately we have seen her death and her family's mourning period.
I hoped he and his mistress got totally screwed up in the end. But that's not what happened.
There was no HEA. But it was a good read.

View all my reviews