Ep 11. The Perfect Marriage & The Perfect Divorce

 We read The Perfect Marriage and The Perfect Divorce so you don’t have to (or so you can feel validated if you did). From wild twists to morally questionable decisions, we’re unpacking Sarah Morgan as a character, the chaos of these plots, and whether anything in this series is actually “perfect” 

Transcript

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Hi, friends, strangers, and random people on the internet who stumbled into this podcast. Welcome to another episode of All Books No Chill, the podcast where I talk about books like we're best friends, because if we aren't already, we're about to be. Today we have another double hitter. I don't want to say double episode. Today we're going to be talking about two books, The Perfect Marriage and The Perfect Divorce. As with most of my episodes, here's where I put my spoiler alert. If you have not read these books and you don't want any spoilers because there are big twists in these specifically, pause here, go read it, and come back. If you don't care or you've already read them, stick around. Let's get into it. Today's episode is interesting. I mean, these books are so good, in my opinion. They are great thriller, crime, thriller, I don't know. Crime, mystery, what have you. They just first right off the bat grabbed my attention. So we have our narrator. Her name is Sarah. Is she reliable? Well, we'll start with the first book. She's not really. I mean, and that's kind of the point. She's very controlled, she's very calculated. She's a lawyer, right? So you're very aware of how she presents herself. And you're getting her version of events. Not necessarily what's true. You're getting what she wants you to think, what she's, you know, portraying. But it kind of makes you question whether she's manipulating the audience the same way she's manipulating all the people in her life. I mean, you just see she is the chess master. She is moving these pieces around her chessboard the way that she wants them, thinking eight moves ahead of you, not just two moves ahead. It's a full eight, in my opinion. And I think that it really talks about and it really shows the power in this marriage. On the surface, it seems like Adam, her husband, has this emotional control, especially, you know, with his affair and everything. But the more you read, the more you get into it, Sarah really holds the power structurally. I mean, she's the lawyer, she understands the system, and because of that, she gets to control this narrative. And their marriage is a lot less about love, but more about leverage. And that kind of leads to Adam, her husband, right? Is he is he a victim or is he a villain? I mean, I kind of think he's both. I mean, he's clearly he's clearly a flawed individual. He's he's a cheater, right? So right off the bat, I'm not a fan. He's very selfish. And I mean, he just makes mistake after mistake after mistake, and you're like, come on, dude, like, are you this stupid? I mean, I guess he is, but he's also in over his head like a lot. And and you can think, like, dude, are you this stupid? And I think that he is, but I also just think he's so naive. He makes terrible decisions, right? Like, don't cheat on your wife, don't try and run away from prison, but also he gets the death penalty, like what? I mean, that feels so disproportionate in a way to just the fact he's just kind of stupid. And I don't mean that in a rude way. I mean, I was about to say, I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, like he's a real person, right? Like he's a fictional character, but I mean he's just kind of dumb. He's like a golden retriever, like he's the golden retriever husband. He's just not that smart. But the problem is that Sarah is brilliant, she is so calculated, she is so conniving and so manipulative that it's just all lost on him. And he he never really figures that out. Ambition is basically Sarah's moral compass. So everything gets filtered through the lens of does this benefit me? Not really about as a lawyer, like winning cases, it's about her life. And even if that means her moral code, her empathy, I guess, just kind of goes away. She makes the sacrifice of humanity almost. You know, you read this book and you're like, how do you how do you be this cold? But she's calculated, and I think that calculation comes at the cost of empathy and humanity and just feeling like a person. So let's talk about the twist at the end of this book. Did this twist feel earned, or was it purely for shock value? I mean, this one's divisive. Some people love how bold it is, and I feel like other people think it comes out of nowhere. I think it works if you read the book, like I said earlier, like a psychological chess match. But if you're like expecting traditional character development, mmm, maybe less so. And then another question that I want to talk about is like, do we ever think do we think they were ever in love? Like, was this marriage ever real? I mean, it just feels like does Sarah even have a heart? She's so awful at the end. Like, she puts her husband through literal hell. I mean, she doesn't murder him, but she has him put to death for a crime she committed because she's just mad. He cheated, and I get, I get it. Like, cheating is bad, don't do it. You know, we hate cheaters. Just making that clear on this podcast, we hate cheaters, we don't like them. But do I think that they deserve the death penalty? That feels a bit extreme, but not in Sarah's mind. I mean, she's so heartless towards Adam at the end of this book. I mean, throughout the whole book, really, but you don't discover it till the end. And so then you just have to think, is this a real marriage or was this just built out of convenience or to portray an image rather than that genuine connection? And the title, right, is almost ironic. The it's perfect from the outside, the two of them power couple, wonderful, right? Like he's an author, she's a lawyer, beautiful, but it's so hollow on the underside, and you just feel kind of bad for Adam. I mean, I felt kind of bad for Adam. But I I'm curious too if the story was told from Adam's perspective only, how would this change? I feel like it would definitely be more tragic than thriller. So I like the thriller side of it. But I feel like on Adam's side, you would just get so much confusion because you realize he he has literally no idea what's going on. I mean, he is so confused throughout the whole book, and that's counterbalanced by Sarah being narrating half of the chapters, but you just you see her strategy, so that kind of it doesn't water down the confusion, but it the confusion is not the main thing that's slapping you in the face. Whereas I think if this were told from Adam's point of view only, never hearing Sarah's input, it would be less strategy and just leaning heavily into where did what happened? How did this go wrong? Where do I go from here? What is going on? Like that's that's just how I felt Adam felt the whole time, right? Like, what's happening to me? How did I end up here? Also, though, like, how did he not realize that his girlfriend or like mistress? How did he not realize she was dead? Like he wakes up, leaves her a note. How do you not realize she's covered in blood? And I get he was drugged, but that seems like a massive oversight, or just like not oversight, but that just feels like, dude, are you that stupid and absorbed with yourself that you don't realize the woman sleeping next to you in the bed is literally dead? That that feels like a big that feels like a big character flaw for Adam. Like, yes, he's the golden retriever husband, yes, he's kind of stupid, but come on, dude, like have a little more situational awareness that you know when people are alive or dead. So then I kind of want to move on to the perfect divorce, right? So it's a follow-up. And for those of you that don't know and you're listening to this without having read it, so Sarah and Adam are married. They have this perfect marriage, and when the book starts, Adam is having an affair with this woman. Very shortly after that woman is murdered. Adam is the main suspect, and Sarah is his lawyer. So she's defending him allegedly, but he ends up getting a guilty verdict and gets the death sentence. Turns out, and there's lots of twists and turns that we don't have time to get into. It's really good though. Go read it if you have it. It turns out that Sarah actually is the one that killed him. Not killed him, killed his mistress. Sarah killed his mistress and had like a friend who also knew the mistress. That we'll get into in the second book. But basically, she has her husband killed for a murder that she committed. So then we have the book. Oh, and it ends with Sarah getting married to and having a daughter with the man that helped her commit this murder. He's the man that told her about the affair. And it turns out this woman, Adam's mistress, her name is Jenna. Well, her name is actually her name is Kelly, but her name is actually Jenna. She's moved to this town and changed her name because she, her previous husband was murdered. She was on trial for it, but suspiciously evidence went missing in trial prep, so she got off the hook for it. So the brother of her first husband works with Sarah, and the two of them scheme to kill her. So at the end of the perfect marriage, Sarah and Bob, who's the brother of Kelly Jenna's first husband, are now a couple and they share a daughter's summer. If that's not confusing to you, I did an amazing job. But that is a little bit confusing if you haven't read the book, okay? But if you have, you're following me, you know where we're at. All right. So my apologies, read it and figure all out those details, and then we can then you'll understand more of what I'm saying, okay? So then at the end of that book, it's like, okay, she's moved on, whatever. Well, then there's a second book, and this book is called The Perfect Divorce. So, do we feel like this sequel deepens the characters or just escalates the drama? I feel like it just escalates the drama. Whether it deepens, that's kind of debatable. I mean, you get more insight into motivations, but it's still it it prioritizes plot twist over emotional depth. But that's okay because it's the style of these books. If you've read the first one and you're reading the second one, you know that that's coming. So you're not super bad about it. I feel like the idea of freedom shows up a little differently in this one than the first one. In the perfect marriage, it's all about control, right? We talked about that. But the perfect divorce, it's about escape. It's about breaking away from consequences, it's about breaking away from identities or even past choices. And I feel like you feel a little more sympathy for Sarah in this book than you did the first one. It's complicated, but I just feel like you understand more without rooting for her. I mean, it's it's uncomfortable because she's like killing people and manipulating people and doing horrible, horrible things. But you're like, oh, I can see why. I mean, I don't know. I I felt she was more relatable in the second book than the first book, to be honest. Okay, so I guess I should back up a little bit before we get too far into the discussion about the perfect divorce, because I feel like you need to understand what's going on here if you haven't read it. Okay, so in the second book, it picks up right after the first book. Not right after there's been some time elapsed, but you see that she successfully avoided legal consequences and is thriving professionally. She's remarried, she's this carefully curated new life that distances her from her past, at least publicly. And privately she remains her same highly controlled, highly calculated 18-step dad. I think I said eight the last time, but this time she's 18-step, okay? Her new husband becomes central to the story when their relationship begins to show cracks. They are filing for divorce, but while that happens, a dead body comes, appears, or a missing person, or you know what I'm saying? Like it's just bad. And this one has a lot of twists and turns. So much like her first marriage, there are issues of trust, control, hidden agendas. And when a woman connected to her husband ends up dead, suspicion again quickly circles back to Sarah and her inner circle, putting her once again dangerously close to a murder investigation, which is not where she wants to be. So instead of being a distant attorney, she's now, again, personally entangled. As evidence builds, it becomes really clear her husband's not entirely innocent. I mean, he's got secrets, he's got questionable relationships, and then motives that make him a viable suspect. At the same time, Sarah's own past behavior makes law enforcement and us as readers question this again. Is this another situation she's manipulating from behind the scenes? We don't know. It's revealed that multiple people are playing their own games in this book. I mean, Sarah begins investigating and strategizing simultaneously, working to protect herself, but also determining whether her husband's a liability, right? Their marriage essentially, again, becomes a chess match. And I've used the analogy of playing chess, but it's just so good because it really mirrors the dynamic she had with Adam in the first book. As this case develops, it's revealed that the victim had deeper connections to both Sarah and Bob that were not initially disclosed. So there's lies, there's affairs, there's betrayal, and then just calculated moves meant to gain leverage over one another. And in the first book, where Adam was just this writer, Bob is a lawyer, so he is just as tit for tat with Sarah. I mean, oh my gosh, these two trying to be in one step ahead, trying to think, okay, she's two steps ahead. How can I be three steps ahead? Okay, she's gonna think I'm thinking that. Like, you know that part in Friends where it's like they don't know, you know, I know they know, or whatever, whatever that phrase is. That's how this book is, and it's like, oh my god. And then there's a major plot twist when it's revealed that the situation is really not a straightforward single killer. The crime is a result of layers of manipulation, people acting out of self-interest, and everyone believes they are in control. But as we saw in the first book, Sarah is the boss. I mean, she ultimately uses her legal expertise and thinking and strategies to steer these outcomes, ensuring again that she is safe, that there is no suspicion on her. And then her husband, I mean, he's just I don't know, is he a casualty? Is he a sacrifice? Did she did he just get outmaneuvered? But did Sarah get outmaneuvered because that was not in her original plan? I don't think it was in her original plan. Maybe well, she didn't leave the gun down there, so maybe. But regardless, she prioritizes her own survival above anything else. Once again, proving she values control over loyalty or love. And by the end, the case is resolved up in a perfect neat bow. It could not be more perfect. It is legally pristine, but like very morally ambiguous. I don't know. I just feel like she it's a little too good to be true. So I'm curious. I don't know if the author has intentions for a third book to come out. It might be a little much if a third one comes out, but she she walks away, maintains her career, her freedom, her daughter, and once again, she has shaped and been the narrator for her own story. I feel like this book plays with the idea of what is justice? Is justice actually served? I mean, not in a traditional sense, but justice is kind of subjective here. There's legal justice, there's personal justice, and then there's emotional justice. And these are not always the same. And we see that so clearly in this book. I also feel like the first book, the first book sets you up for a strong shock, right? Like you don't know Sarah, you don't know her personality, you don't know the ending. So once you know the ending to the first book, the second book is not as surprising. You're just kind of wondering, all right, what's it gonna be? Who's it gonna be? What's happening? But the second book does really build tension through this anticipation. But I feel like a little bit too, the plot twists get a bit much in the second book. At a certain point, it feels like a competition for which character is gonna have the bigger shock, which character is gonna have the bigger twist, who are you gonna be able to figure out, but who are you not? And it's great as a high drama thriller, but it's it's just so not real anymore. The first book, it feels like it could be real, but the second one is like, okay, guys, like you can slow down the plot twist a little bit, in my opinion. And I think that as a whole, both books, I mean, it's glaring in your face, appearances are everything. Or, or actually, appearances are completely meaningless, and they are not true. Because this book, I mean, it's in the title, Perfect Marriage, Perfect Divorce. What looks perfect is the most fragile thing, and so dangerous, right? Like, two two men ended up dead, and like look at what happened to their mistresses psychological trauma and murder. Like, girl by this is not perfect. She is very Sarah is very dangerous. So the next section is would I recommend this book to my therapist? I I almost always say yes. But I think I think this is a great case study, if you will, on just lack of empathy. So psychopaths, sociopaths, right? Like no remorse, no feelings. I think that is a really well done with Sarah. I think you can kind of see that she just doesn't care, right? So it's very interesting to read from a psychological perspective. As far as this bringing up big feelings or having mental health, you know, themes or societal issues that you're struggling with or bringing up feelings in me that I should probably take a look at being introspective, it does not have those qualities. So in that way, I would say no. But I do think it's good at looking at like, oh, she's a psychopath, she's a sociopath. And if you're interested in that, which maybe a therapist is, maybe people interested in psychology are, maybe you're just a true crime junkie and want to know more about it, then I would suggest it. But as far as like therapist therapy coded, not really this book. Anyway, that's all I have for today, guys. As usual, if you like it, please feel free to leave the show a review on Spotify or Apple Podcast. We really appreciate it. Also, if you enjoy the show, please follow along for more. We're on TikTok and Instagram at AllBooksNoteCho. And as always, go read something good and send me your recommendations. Love ya. Bye.