The Trad Wife A darkly funny, twisted thriller that will keep you turning pages until the early hours

This was a suspenseful read, with a lot of critique between the lines about the Trad Wife movement, Christian fundamentalism and high control groups or destructive cults. This is also a story about female rage and revenge. I was rooting for the protagonist Melissa who didn’t anticipate where she did get herself and her young daughter into. She is often quite snarky and sarcastic, which as you can imagine is not received well by the trad wife Faith and her husband Marty. The book starts with an incident which happens quite late in the story, a stylistic device I have seen quite often, also in films – to catch the reader’s immediate attention. I don’t like this device much, but I have to admit, that it works well here in my eyes. The pace in the middle part was a bit slow, but I have read other books with the same problem, and I still enjoyed the read. To me, the ending felt very satisfying and there was an interesting plot twist. A word of warning: If you have religious trauma from Christian fundamentalism, or if you have escaped from a high control group or cult, this book may be hard or impossible for you to read. I do not have religious trauma and I am not a cult survivor, but even for me, the parts of Christian fundamentalism were very painful to read.