Chicklit Club
 

NEW RELEASE

 
 

The Week I Ruined My Life – Caroline Grace-Cassidy (2016)

 

Ali Devlin adores her children, loves her job, but she is in an unhappy marriage. While juggling busy schedules and trying not to have sexy fantasies about her colleague, she tries to save her marriage for the sake of her children, even if this means sacrificing her own happiness. The story is told from Ali’s point of view and I found myself siding with her, cheering her on as she endures and fights her husband’s insults and ridiculous demands. He doesn’t want her to pick up their five-year-old son in her arms, he’s telling her how to close the lid of the bin and how to wash the dishes, and that she is a bad mother because she doesn’t want to quit her job and just take care of him and the children. I was engrossed in this book and really wanted Ali to have her happy ending. Overall, this is a very engaging and relatable novel. (NP)

Rating 7/10
 
 

The Week I Ruined My Life, by Caroline Grace-Cassidy, is about a woman who is having doubts about her marriage. The summary says: "Ali Devlin never had any doubts when she glided up the aisle to marry her childhood sweetheart, Colin Devlin. But two beautiful children and twelve years can change all that. Ali can no longer relate to the man she fell in love with. He is there, everyday, a committed father but in her eyes, a failing husband. A civil word is hard to find and the vows she readily took are becoming more and more difficult to fulfil. When she decides to go back to work after being a stay-at-home mother for years, things in the marriage go from bad to worse.
Reigniting her passion for the arts, Ali finds her dream job at the City Arts Centre and despite Colin's protests that she is neglecting her family and her perpetual guilt as a working mother, she stays in the job. And when she meets artist-in-residence Owen O' Neill, she can't help but compare him to Colin. He is everything her husband isn't any more: attentive, funny, respectful, caring, charming and undeniably sexy. There is chemistry but Ali isn't the type of woman to have an affair - or is she? Unsure of everything in her life, a work trip to Amsterdam brings it all to a head.
Life can spiral on a moment with the realisation of what is truly important in our lives. As events dramatically and unexpectedly unfold in front of her, Ali realises what were the only important things all along. Now it's time to stand on her own two feet, whatever the consequences." The Week I Ruined My Life is out in June 2016.

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