The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve

I've found myself a new hobby. Well...actually, it's more of a co-hobby with Collin. We have discovered the fun of thrift stores. You know, Goodwill, Youth Ranch, DI (Deseret Industries for those of you not familiar with the Mormon version).

We started going to thrift stores on a whim a few months ago. It's now become one of our favorite things to do as part of a date. Collin loves that he can get awesome coffee mugs and bar glasses for $0.25 each and I am totally in love with buying books for under $1. In fact, yesterday I bought a best seller paperback for $0.13! Score!

You've now probably figured out where I'm going with this. I had heard about Anita Shreve before (I have no idea where from), but I am really cheap and hate to buy books unless I know I'm going to like them. Yes, I have a Nook and yes I have a pile of books on it, but there's just something about being able to have the real deal in your hand. Plus, I get a certain satisfaction from filling up the bookshelves in our home library.

I happened upon The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve in pretty dang good condition at one of our very first thrift store shops. I'm now glad that I picked it up. $0.65 well spent. I enjoyed this nice, easy read. Funny enough, it gets some pretty harsh reviews over at Goodreads, where many found the story trite and boring. Whatever. I disagree. To me, it's kind of one of those lazy afternoon reads. You know, the ones where you just sit down and let your mind relax and absorb everything coming at it.

In The Pilot's Wife, Kathryn's husband Jack is killed when the plane he is flying explodes over the coast of Ireland. She is obviously distraught over this development and becomes even more unhinged when news stories begin to paint her husband in an unfavorable light. Many of them insinuate that his death was in fact a suicide that resulted in the deaths of many others. Kathryn refuses to believe this, but after discovering some odd items around the house, she decides to look into the circumstances of his death on her own. What she finds, (dun, dun, dun...) will change everything.

Okay, so let me be up front in saying that this wasn't the absolute best book I've ever read. It is somewhat predictable. But the writing is really good and the character of Kathryn is really well developed. It's a quick read that doesn't require a whole lot of deep attention. In other words, this is totally Chick Lit. Sometimes I just need that. So in the end, I gave The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve 4 out of 5 stars.