3.5 Star
Eleven years ago, Sophie and Greg couldn’t get enough of each other. A pair of full-time jobs and two kids later, they’re in therapy asking themselves where all the sexy times went. Sophie thinks she knows: They’re buried under Greg’s mess. And even though her slob of a husband tries to make up for his shortcomings by cooking the occasional meal, Sophie is left to clean umpteen dirty dishes.
The last straw is when Greg uses some inheritance money to buy a World War II Sherman tank, which starts World War III in their marriage.
Kathryn - 3.5 Star
My first impression of Sophie was of a tough, focused mother with a desire to get her life in order. Husband Greg just seems to be making her life more difficult, from his lack of cleanliness to his inability to remain on task- he’s definitely not helping to keep their family life on track. I wasn’t really expecting what happened to their marriage though, and I liked Margolis’ take on a domestic life gone haywire really affecting the intimacies of marriage.
Coming Clean started with lots of emotion, quite a lot of humour, and a realistic relationship, and I loved the honesty that came out during their therapy sessions. Once Greg and Sophie made a decision about their marriage I found I lost a bit of the tug that drew me to them initially. Greg’s new love-life was both bizarre and unrealistic - to be married to Sophie and then immediately choose someone polar opposite (who apparently made him clean up his act in a matter of weeks?) was just too sudden for me. And although Sophie’s reaction to her new state was more realistically emotional, I did have a hard time accepting her new love interest- it just didn’t feel natural a pairing. Despite my misgivings about the new partners I was still interested in both Sophie and Greg and saw the glimmers of their previous life and how they interacted with each other before the disintegration began. I hope they would find their way back to each other and was invested in reading about their children and their family unit.
I think my own interest was piqued mostly by Margolis’ simple and well written story of a marriage that collapsed - purely from the tedium and pressures of normal family life, which was a unique take for me on a common story-line.
Thank you to NAL Trade for our review copy. All opinions are our own.
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