a good marriage // kimberly mccreight

"I don't think you can pretend your way through anything. Closing your eyes wont stop the bad things from finding you."

published: 2020
pages: 387
read/heard: 5/29-30/2020
book: 41 in 2020


SYNOPSIS
Lizzie Kitsakis is working late when she gets the call. Grueling hours are standard at elite law firms like Young & Crane, but they’d be easier to swallow if Lizzie was there voluntarily. Until recently, she’d been a happily underpaid federal prosecutor. That job and her brilliant, devoted husband Sam—she had everything she’d ever wanted. And then, suddenly, it all fell apart.

No. That’s a lie. It wasn’t sudden, was it? Long ago the cracks in Lizzie’s marriage had started to show. She was just good at averting her eyes.

The last thing Lizzie needs right now is a call from an inmate at Rikers asking for help—even if Zach Grayson is an old friend. But Zach is desperate: his wife, Amanda, has been found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their Brooklyn brownstone. And Zach’s the primary suspect.

As Lizzie is drawn into the dark heart of idyllic Park Slope, she learns that Zach and Amanda weren’t what they seemed—and that their friends, a close-knit group of fellow parents at the exclusive Grace Hall private school, might be protecting troubling secrets of their own. In the end, she’s left wondering not only whether her own marriage can be saved, but what it means to have a good marriage in the first place.

THOUGHTS
if I'm being 100,000% honest with yall, I only picked this book because I didnt care for any other of BOTM's May picks. ...but I'm trying to score the free tote when you hit a year, and the free bday book thing so i was like "fuck it, I'll do a good marriage. it seems intriguing enough." (My year is in December and my bday is January. 😅)

So I opened it up and easily knocked out 160 pages before I started falling asleep. I was planning to read a few more pages on Saturday and finish it Sunday before June started. buuuut then I made the mistake of jumping to the penultimate chapter and well, I done learnt who done did it.
And while I looooove spoilers and they NEVER kill anything for me, I think in this case knowing who'd done it kinda took out the last little flame i had going for this book. I think because the end result just takes a lot of work. BUT i can definitely appreciate the way the author twists it in the end as far as who did it. 

I know the point of stories told is to have them be woven intricately so that they work out and do their job but in this case I felt like the story contained TOO much. and that TOO much relied too much on the other half of the story to work. 
If you pull one little thread out of this story, it would not have worked at all. ....and once again, I cant really jump into the why because it's a bit of a spoiler...gah!
It was just all too easy and connected and for fucks sake 400 pages too long! 😧
If this would have been at least 300 pages long then okay. But again, in order for that to happen, a lot of the connections that were made would have needed to be cut or removed.

I made it up to page 266 before I gave up and decide to go the audio route. I let someone else do the work; i went outside to water the plants and I'm not a plant person at all so I'll let you do the math on that one.

I ALSO knew somehow that that one piece of evidence WAS THEEEEE piece of evidence (won't spoil that here). I never fucking see it so maybe that's when I should just given up. I mean, i don't regret reading/hearing it but 100% tbh, I wouldve been okay never having read this.

If I ever do decide to get myself a little free library for my house, it looks like ima have lots o' books to add to it.

Anyway, jump over for spoilah's. 

(but if you want a quick to the point, faster than i'll ever do it version of the spoilers!, see here. im surprised i didn't read them before hand. 

thanks for reading! .  

#bookslesreads on IG

SPOILERS

S P O I L E R
S P O I L E R
S P O I L E R
S P O I L E R
S P O I L E R


All in all it was Kerry who killed Amanda....even if it was "an accident."
Maude was hiding in the closet in Zach's office when she heard shit happen which is why her prints were on the golf club and on the wall with Amanda's blood. And how she saw that foos red basketball shoes.

Apparently Kerry was a creep.

He used to work for the same firm that lizzie now works for and he was fired for pornography and harassing other female coworkers. He went as far as miraculously appearing at their front steps offering help like he just happened to be there and as far as photographing colleagues naked.
Lizzie's current boss couldn't stand it and had him fired.

Maude was in Zach's office because she had figured out that it was Zach that was behind the current school hack which just so happens to be the same hackers who were harassing her underage, 15 year old daughter into performing sex acts/recording them and if she didn't comply, they'd release her images to the world. (it wasnt Zach himself but it was a dude he'd hire to help with this mess.)  She was looking for the emails that Amanda told her she had found in his office. Maude knew this was evidence.

Lizzie's husband is an alcoholic.
He is in a basketball team that happens to also include Kerry (see how neat that is?) The night of the murder was also the night of Maude's & Sabe's sex party. Sarah (Kerry's wife) had asked him to go but he had a game. Except the game didnt go thru because there weren't enough players so he had the idea to go to the party but he was stuck with Sam (lizzie's husband) who was ridiculously drunk. He somehow finds out that Amanda went upstairs with Sabe (at this party, if you go upstairs it means your up there for sex. Partners know, everyone knows. It's all "discreet") and automatically thinks that they're hooking up when in reality, Sabe went after her because she was freaking out.
So Kerry texted her over and over telling her to leave Sabe alone....she panics and runs away. (she thinks its her father that has been harassing her) 
In Kerry's mind he thought he would scare her a bit and then show up to save the day....except she fought him and ended up killing herself falling down the stairs.

The reason Zach hired Lizzie was because he was broke as fuck but also because he knew that she wouldnt stop until she proved he was innocent. The spyware he installed in the school parents computer, he also installed it in hers.
That's how he knew she was no longer at her dream job, how her husband was an alcoholic and how she lied on her application about the amount of debt they were in.
Lizzie starts piecing this all together as the story goes along but in the end ends up fucking him over because yes she cleared him out of jail for murder but she buries him with the whole scam thing he was doing.

Lizzie's "secret" is that her mother died and her father is in jail. Except everyone shes met, shes told them that both her parents are dead.
In reality her mother passed away but her dad was a piece of shit who cared about social status. They had a restaurant, he thought he was tough shit and he drilled it into lizzie that status was all that mattered. One day some dude tells the dad that he can idk invest money for him or some dumb shit but the guy ends up being a scammer.
The dad gets pissed and ends up breaking into the dudes home to "look for evidence", kills him and then goes back home to eat like he didnt just kill someone and ask lizzie to provide and alibi for him to which she says no to.

She never told anyone. Her own hudsband doesnt know. The only person who knows is Millie who used to be her mothers friend.
Who happens to be a private investigator who happens to help lizzie out with a lot of this shit (see how easy it is?) And who also happens to have breast cancer, which....why? That story goes nowhere.... 

And lastly, i wouldnt say Amanda was crazy but she wasn't all there.
Growing up, her mother dies and tells her to run.
Turns out her dad had been raping her. And junior prom night, she catches her dad raping her best friend, Carolyn who he also happened to have killed (I think I was over it by the time this was being revealed)...so Amanda kills him.
But of course, she had repressed this so she thought her dad was actually the one stalking her when it turns out that it had been Kerry all along. She'd repressed it so hard she forgot she'd already killed her own father until later on in the story.
"scare them enough so they can learn that they need you."

The earring. That was the one thing that had me like "this is it" and I was right. The night she dies, Kerry runs away and realizes he has her earring stuck in his sweater....he places it in Sam's shirt and smears some blood on his shoes. When Lizzie talks to Sarah she mentions her mans is in a basketball team and hes the idiot with the red shoes. That's how lizzie pieces it all together.


I'm sure theres some other stuff I left out but that's the gist of it.

Everything is neatly tied to something else in the story do yea.

I'm over it.
KTHXBYYEE