{"product_id":"wife-22-melanie-gideon","title":"Wife 22 - Melanie Gideon","description":"\u003cp\u003eMedium paperback, front cover has creasing, message written first page, sides starting to yellow - see photos\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFor fans of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It comes an irresistible novel of a woman losing herself . . . and finding herself again . . . in the middle of her life.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMaybe it was those extra five pounds I’d gained. Maybe it was because I was about to turn the same age my mother was when I lost her. Maybe it was because after almost twenty years of marriage my husband and I seemed to be running out of things to say to each other.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut when the anonymous online study called “Marriage in the 21st Century” showed up in my inbox, I had no idea how profoundly it would change my life. It wasn’t long before I was assigned both a pseudonym (Wife 22) and a caseworker (Researcher 101).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd, just like that, I found myself answering questions.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e7. Sometimes I tell him he’s snoring when he’s not snoring so he’ll sleep in the guest room and I can have the bed all to myself.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e61. Chet Baker on the tape player. He was cutting peppers for the salad. I looked at those hands and thought, I am going to have this man’s children.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e67. To not want what you don’t have. What you can’t have. What you shouldn’t have.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e32. That if we weren’t careful, it was possible to forget one another.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBefore the study, my life was an endless blur of school lunches and doctor’s appointments, family dinners, budgets, and trying to discern the fastest-moving line at the grocery store. I was Alice spouse of William and mother to Zoe and Peter, drama teacher and Facebook chatter, downloader of memories and Googler of solutions.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut these days, I’m also Wife 22. And somehow, my anonymous correspondence with Researcher 101 has taken an unexpectedly personal turn. Soon, I’ll have to make a decision—one that will affect my family, my marriage, my whole life. But at the moment, I’m too busy answering questions.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs it turns out, confession can be a very powerful aphrodisiac.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Belle's Books secondhand books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51533352796440,"sku":"GIDEONM001","price":35.0,"currency_code":"ZAR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0808\/7574\/9656\/files\/Wife22-MelanieGideon.png?v=1768211644","url":"https:\/\/bellesbookssa.com\/products\/wife-22-melanie-gideon","provider":"Belle's Books Online Secondhand Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}