Heart Of The Matter
Author: Emily Giffin
ISBN: 9780312554163
Warning: There are some spoilers in this review.
Heart Of The Matter by Emily Giffin tells the story of two women whose lives collide in the most unexpected way.
Tessa Russo is a newly stay at home mom with two beautiful children and a loving husband, Nick, who is a surgeon. Valerie Anderson is a single mom with one young son.
On the night of Tessa and Nick’s anniversary, tragedy strikes. Valerie’s son Charlie is in an accident at a classmates party making s’mores. He falls into the fire and burns his face and hand. Nick is paged and leaves his anniversary dinner to rush to the hospital.
When he arrives, Charlie is in bad shape, and so is Val. Nick provides comfort to them both, in more ways than one would expect. Valerie finds herself falling for this married man. She tries to deny her feelings, but she can’t…and neither can Nick.
Tessa realizes her marriage is going in a downward spiral, but she can’t pinpoint why. Everything seems fine on the surface, but she becomes very suspicious of her husband who claims to be working late hours.
Heart Of The Matter tells a story of love, trust and forgiveness. It takes a raw look at relationships and what makes them work and what makes them fail.
The thing I loved most about this story is that I equally liked both women. In a story where cheating is involved, you usually favor one woman over the other. One woman is the hero and the other is “the other woman.” In this story, it was hard to dislike either woman, because both of their motives were honest and in a good place. You know a writer is good when you find yourself relating to “the enemy.”
Another thing I loved about this story was that it kept me on my toes. I’ve been reading a lot of predictable (but good!) books lately. As I near the end of these books, I am merely turning the pages watching the story unfold just as I predicted it might. This book, however, completely kept me guessing. I had NO idea how it would end and I was excited to find out how everything would turn out.
It was refreshing to read a book so honest. Giffin really blew my mind with Heart Of The Matter. I’ve read her other books and I enjoyed them, but none as much as this one. I’d also read a few negative reviews on this one, so I was nervous. However, this book far exceeded my expectations.
5/5
I am dying to read this!! Must get on that asap!
I'm listening to this one on audio right now and really enjoying it! Glad it doesn't get a predictable place. Both women are very interesting and sympathetic figures!
Its funny, I felt the except opposite of you, and wound up not liking either of the woman. But even though, I couldn't seem to like either character, I still couldn't book the down and I'm definitely glad I read it!
This one was great! Emily Giffin can do no wrong in my eyes. Loved it. 🙂
I liked this one too – my book club read it and we had lots of discussion about it. I agree – she made both women likeable.
Sounds like a must read. I agree with what you said: it is really difficult to present "the enemy" in a light that reader can relate to. But even if someone makes a mistake, or does something that we might not agree with like falling for another woman's husband, there are definitely reasons behind it. And although it's easy to forget, we should try not to judge before we really know the whole situation, which we rarely do.