I've been a fan of Emily Giffin's books for several years now, and for the most part I've always loved her books or at the very least enjoyed them. However, I haven't been enjoying her most recent book Heart of the Matter very much at all. I started reading it in May when I got it as a gift from my mom for my 23rd birthday, and I'm currently only on page 96. When it comes to Emily Giffin's other books, Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Baby Proof, and Love the One You're With, they all got my interest right away, but with Heart of the Matter I still haven't been able to get truly into it even after having read 96 pages of the book.
My biggest problem with the book is that I don't like the two main characters of the book, Tessa and Valerie, very much at all. To me, Tessa comes across a boring housewife who doesn't seem to really have any interesting qualities as a character. She also doesn’t seem to love her husband, Nick, on a very passionate level. Tessa loves Nick, but it's clear that she's not madly in love with him. She also comes across as being very jealous of Nick's ability to get their oldest child, Ruby, to do what Tessa wants her to do when Tessa can't convince Ruby herself, which has already gotten really old with me a long time ago.
What bothers me about the character Valerie is that after being dealt countless disappointments in her lifetime she's become very cynical and unwilling to trust pretty much everyone in her life. I get that she’s had some unfortunate things that happened to her in the past, but I don’t think what happened to her in the past is bad enough for it to be a realistic enough of a reason to make her as cynical as she’s being portrayed. Part of the information is known about Valerie at this point in the book is that after having a falling out with some friends' in college she had a fling with a guy, which resulted in her getting pregnant. Her son, Charlie's, father is described as basically being a deadbeat slacker so when Valerie discovered that she was pregnant with Charlie she chose to raise Charlie on her own with her brother, Jason, serving as a father figure to Charlie. She also has a major self-loathing streak, which had already gotten really old with me by the end of the first chapter of the book that she was featured in. If her whole life had consisted of one bad thing happening to her after another, then I would think the explanation of why Valerie is so cynical was realistic. I think that Giffin’s writing of that aspect of Valerie was handled poorly, and she’s exaggerating the “tragic” nature of Valerie’s past way too much.
While I do not like Heart of the Matter very much so far, I have to give Emily Giffin credit for trying a new storytelling technique with this book, which allows the reader to examine the story from all angles. Each chapter alternates the point of view that the story is told from. (Chapter one is told from Tessa's point of view, chapter two is told from Valerie's point of view.) All of her other books have only been told from one character's point of few. The problem with using this technique for this book is that neither Tessa nor Valerie are very interesting characters. Tessa is just a very boring character, so each chapter told from her point of view is a complete and total snooze fest. I practically need to drink a bottle of 5 Hour Energy every time I read one of Tessa’s chapters just to get through it. Valerie's cynical view of the world has made each chapter told from her point of view so far one big, huge never-ending pity party. As for Valerie, I might as well have someone playing the violin every time I read one of Valerie’s chapters.
