In Love of Books and Friendship

I received this novel by Jill Alexander Essbaum as an Early Reviewer via LibraryThing and Random House. 

Anna Benz is an ex-pat living a comfortable life in Switzerland as a housewife with her successful banker husband Bruno and their three children.  When we meet Anna she has been in Zurich for more than ten years, without any close friends or interests nor knowledge of the German language. She finally decides to take a German class and it is there she meets Archie and begins an affair.  What we find out as we sit in on her therapist sessions is that this affair is not her first nor her last.  Anna is not happy nor does she seem to know how to be happy.

While most would think this a very depressing and heartbreaking book, and yes in some ways it was, what I found interesting was being inside Anna's head and her thought process if you'd call it that. Anna lives isolated inside her head and not outside of it. I thought the author did a superb job describing the logic and rationale of this character. Because of this I enjoyed the book regardless of the distressing theme. I put this book in the Thelma & Louise category which I define as bad decision after bad decision continues until there is no going back.  A modern day Anna Karenina if you will. 

Recommended for readers who can appreciate a well-written story.

How I acquired this book:  Complimentary copyvia LibraryThing Early Reviewers and Random House

Shelf life: One month