Book Review: The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve

How well can you really know a person?

This theme is addressed time and time again in this book and as I read further on into the book this question kept flashing, like a neon sign, in my head. In the book The Pilot's Wife, a woman by the name of Kathryn Lyons finds out that her husband, a pilot, had just died in a plane crash. As she tries to uncover exactly what happened to her husband and to the plane, she begins to discover things about her husband that she wasn't prepared for or that she did not see coming.

As cliché as it seems the story was very interesting to the point where I did not want to put the book down. I tried to read as fast as I could because I was anxious to see what was going to happen next. But unfortunately what I was disappointed to find in the first part of the story were chapters of some flashbacks to the past that were unnecessary.

Some of the flashbacks, I think, worked well to show how great life WAS for Kathryn and her family before the accident, but others just seemed out of place and somewhat ruined some of the moments of suspense. Anita Shreve painted great pictures of the characters and the different settings in the story as she described each of these things very well.

As a result of the many rumors that were floating around about her husband, Kathryn decides to get to the bottom of everything and tries to find out who her husband really was. What she finds at the end of story was a bit predictable, but the twist in the plot made me question the relationships in my life and how well I knew each of the people I consider myself very close to.

This story makes a person think, and for that reason I recommend the book.