Heart of the Matter

 I just finished Emily Giffin's newest book, Heart of the Matter, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Here's a quick recap from emilygiffin.com:

Tessa Russo is the mother of two young children and the wife of a renowned pediatric surgeon. Despite her mother’s warnings, Tessa has recently given up her career to focus on her family and the pursuit of domestic happiness. From the outside, she seems destined to live a charmed life.

Valerie Anderson is an attorney and single mother to six-year-old Charlie---a boy who has never known his father. After too many disappointments, she has given up on romance---and even, to some degree, friendships---believing that it is always safer not to expect too much.

Although both women live in the same Boston suburb, the two have relatively little in common aside from a fierce love for their children. But one night, a tragic accident causes their lives to converge in ways no one could have imagined.

Emily Giffin definitely has a gift for making you relate and route for each and every character she creates. I'm just not sure I liked this book as a whole. It kind of depressed me. So much of book's storyline was about men cheating on their wives, which is not a topic I tend to enjoy. Because of Giffin's descriptive representation of each character I couldn't figure out who I wanted to love whom and how I wanted it to end....which made it more depressing. Am I routing for the guy to leave his wife and kids? Do I want him to break someones heart? It was tough and has left me feeling all around bummed out. 

The book's theme is about relationships in a marriage, relationships with children and friendships and although I am fully aware of the complexities that arrive in any kind of relationship, this was too much. I'd like to believe that marriages can work and there are men who don't cheat. I'd really like to believe I'm with one of them. I'm not so naive to think marriage comes without a lot of hard work and many ups and downs, but I'd like to think the fairy tale is possible and things can be overall good from beginning to end. The book did raise some really good points--one that really stuck out was that relationships, of any kind, are two way streets. You need to put in to be able to take out and sometimes if one is down the other needs to raise them up. Even though the themes from Giffin's first two books, Something Borrowed and Something Blue are similar, I found those to be much more lighthearted and more fun to read. This one just made me feel overall, blue.

Have you read this book? What were your thoughts?