Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant Writing With Comic Relief
Review: Meg Wolitzer's "The Wife" is like sitting down to the best meal of your life. The longer you can make it last, the better. This is the wittiest, deepest novel I have read in years. I knew the book would be crawling with genius when the reviews praised her sharp humor. Women who can make readers laugh aloud are especially talented and smart. Her humor is blunt and her depth is universally appealing.
Rating: 
Summary: Mean spirited with a capital MEAN!
Review: Now that I'm finished with THE WIFE, I find myself wondering what made the narrator's voice so throughly, unremittingly off-putting. The answer, I think, is that when not filled with a kind of self-congratulatory contempt for the ego of successful writers, (and, by the way, this book is all about how writers crave fame and not at all about many writiers, male and female, who write because they need to write), it reeks with contempt and scorn for unsuccessful writers. And the wives of writers. And the narrator's own troubled children. In fact, everyone.
The voice here is so cynical, so knowing, so obsessed with reputation, that I found it unbearable. I'm not a writer so maybe I'm naive about this, but I don't buy that even in the muscular era of Norman Mailer,Philip Roth etc., all writers cared about were prizes and sales and...other people's wives.
Rating: 
Summary: Marriage Gone Bad
Review: Once I started The Wife, I could not put it down thanks to Meg Wolitzer's ability to draw me into the world of spineless Joan Castleman and her husband Joe Castleman, a major cad. They have a marriage that I won't soon forget: he is a misery you would not want to know however many successful novels he publishes and prizes he wins, and she is a female nonentity willing to compromise herself shamelessly as she puts up with this misfit of a husband and father of her children. While they appear on the surface to be upright, educated, hardworking, and successful; they are, in fact, a mess. The saddest proof of their failures is their son, David, who is on the brink of either joining the homeless or folks stuck in some institution.
The ending of the book is a bit of a surprise, but remains (to me) unsatisfying. It seems to be an easy, somewhat contrived way out of the complexity of the end of the book.
What is most noteworthy and memorable, is Wolitzer's daring to protray the cunning, deceptive traits and characteristics of an egocentric male who, despite his pronouncements and credentials, cares about nothing but himself. I wonder why he had to be Jewish. I also wonder whether there are still women around today who fall for a con artist such as a Joe Castleman.
Rating:
Summary: Insipid men; intelligent, attractive women
Review: She's still beautiful; he's an ugly slob. Ho hum.
What did Jack Nicholson's character say in "As Good As It Gets" regarding his acclaimed depiction of women? "I imagine a man and take away reason and **accountability**." It wasn't all his fault, or was it?
Rating: 
Summary: Just another peeved off wife!
Review: So like many books, this is just another peeved off wife and their lacking, boring relationship where everything is the man's fault etc etc. The ending left me saying, "That's it?!?!". I hope to try another book from the author and have a better review.
Rating:
Summary: A Surprisingly Perceptive Story
Review: Stereotypes often make life easier to navigate. Upon second glance, however, they are inherently flawed. No one person fits the same mold as another. Yet in THE WIFE, a novel by Meg Wolitzer, readers buy into the stereotype of a young co-ed who falls in love with her accomplished writing instructor, marries him, has a family and lives a successful life. Buying into this myth, this picture-perfect scenario, readers trick themselves into believing that things are as they seem. What they discover, however, is exactly the opposite.After reading the first few pages, readers understand that "happily ever after" is not part of this story. But most will not grasp the full extent of this one wife's reality until the very end of the story. It is a surprise ending that will startle the most intuitive readers. Wolitzer proves herself a crafty and deft author with her ability to distract her reader from the core of this story: the real reason Joan stays married to a notorious womanizer and famous novelist by tempting him/her with tasty morsels, why she quit her job at a publishing house that launched his career and shelved the impressive writing talent that drew him to her in the first place. Joan, who speaks clearly to readers as the narrator, is a mildly embittered woman who has come to resent the very existence she created. As a freshman at Smith College, a published female author warned Joan, a promising creative writing student, about the fraternity of the publishing world and urged her to apply her talents elsewhere. Seemingly Joan took that advice. She raised three children and nurtured her husband's successful literary career. She attended literary events and research meetings, from interviews with prostitutes to tours of war-torn Vietnam. Joan details the intricacies of her life, her compromises both small and large, and at times the litany seems self-indulgent and repetitive. It is not until the end of the story when readers fully comprehend the depth of her sacrifice that her tirade seems justified, even perhaps understated. On a larger scale the story will prompt readers to evaluate their own roles in relationships and question the exceptions they have made to their own rules. Because the hardcover edition of this book followed hot on the heels of THE SINGLE WIFE by Nina Solomon, I found myself contemplating the meaning of the word wife. "I'd been a good wife, most of the time. Joe had been comfortable and safe and surrounded, always off somewhere talking, gesturing, doing unspeakable things with women, eating rich foods, drinking, reading, leaving books scattered around the house facedown, their spines broken from too much love," says Joan. "Joe once told me he felt sorry for women, who only got husbands ... But wives, oh wives, when they weren't being bitter or melancholy or counting the beads on their abacus of disappointment, they could take care of you with delicate and effortless ease." THE WIFE is a surprisingly perceptive story about a man and a woman whose union seems to allow them to live the lives they want. A strong undercurrent of this story is a message to women who avoid future disappointments by compromising in the short run. What readers learn from Joan is that, in retrospect, possible disappointments pale in comparison to those realized along the safer road. --- Reviewed by Heather Grimshaw
Rating:
Summary: brilliant and provocative
Review: The ecstatic recommendations on the back of this book (by Lorrie Moore, Allison Pearson, Kurt Anderson, Adam Gopnik and others) are more eloquent than anything I can come up with, but I'll try. The wife is a short devastating chronicle of a marriage, its intimacies, shortcomings and deepest, darkest secrets. I disagree completely with the previous reviewer. The "shock ending" when it came was as surprising to me as the revelation at the end of "The Sixth Sense," i.e. I didn't see it coming, it seemed to come out of nowhere, and afterwards I said to myself, hmm, of course, it all makes sense now, and it couldn't have been any other way. The book is brilliantly written, beautifully characterized, in short, a perfect, devastating little "kit" of a book. Bravo all the way.
Rating:
Summary: I really liked this...
Review: the main character's viewpoints are a bit bitter but felt by many women out there unfortunately - and this book caused me to laugh out loud numerous times on a long flight home from vacation. Definitely liked the way it was written. Had just read a Va. Wolf bookclub pick that bored me to tears - this was a great relief.
Rating:
Summary: Delectable
Review: The prose in "The Wife" is so tight you could bounce a nickel on it. Every page brings a simile or a metaphor to marvel over. "The Wife" is compulsively readable and continues to be so until the very last sentence. I'm in awe. Bravo, Meg!
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary.
Review: The Wife is brilliant. I am reminded of Fay Weldon and Margaret Atwood, yet Wolitzer has a unique and mesmerizing style all her own. A must-have, from one of our finest.
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