Oh, this book. I really really wanted to love it (women who rediscover themselves and their voices after the unexpected end of a relationship is one of my fave tropes!) but the flimsy main character and uneven story didn't make that possible. Let me explain...

Nadia Abassi is devastated to find text messages and more at her home that make it seem like her husband cheated on her. As she spirals and starts looking for more clues, she reaches out to her estranged sister, Zeba for support. The two sisters have had a tense relationship since Zeba took care of Nadia's ailing mother, while Nadia kept her distance (due to her mother not approving of Nadia's husband). Nadia becomes convinced the her husband is cheating with a gorgeous yoga instructor, so she goes on a yoga retreat to try and get proof.

Nadia spends a large portion of the book obsessing over if her husband is cheating. At least three times she has the chance to flat-out ask him and she doesn't or, worse, things interrupt them just as a talk is about to happen. This manipulation to drive the plot seemed disingenuous at best and annoying at worst.

I wasn't sure if the point of the story was for the sisters to work through their issues or to have Nadia "find herself" or both. In either case, these moments happen at the very end of the novel and feel unearned--especially since most of the novel is Nadia trying to either "find" the answer to a question she can easily ask or making derogatory comments about almost everyone she meets. Her commentary isn't mean, but it is absolutely judgmental and doesn't make her relatable. I appreciate fully fleshed out, flawed-but-human characters, but Nadia's snark and cluelessness about her marriage, her husband, and her sister's concerns make her more off-putting than relatable.

All in all, I felt like this book relegated the "big" emotional growth to the last bit of the novel and spent too much time on Nadia's fumbling around for a truth she could have gotten easily. I wanted more of Zeba, too. The image on the cover makes it seem like she attends the retreat with Nadia, but she doesn't. I wanted more sister-to-sister interaction...I feel like that would have made the reconnection and Nadia's growth more believable.

I will never give any novel less than three stars (you wrote a whole darn book, BRAVO!), but this one just didn't wow me. I loved The Marriage Clock, so I'm hoping Zara's next book is similarly in character and plotting to that one.