And One Last Thing... by Molly Harper

And One Last Thing ... by Molly Harper

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One botched florist delivery leads Lacey Terwillger to the discovery that she's become a cliché. Her husband, Mike, is cheating on her with his secretary. To top it off, it seems that she's just about the last person in town to find out. Even more humiliating is that everyone seems to have assumed that she knew because it “seemed so obvious.”

Outraged, Lacey decides to leave Mike, but not before she does one last thing. Using his company's monthly newsletter, Lacey writes down the details of her husband's affair and just how much of an asshat he is. Unfortunately, her bit of revenge backfires in her face. Yes, Mike is humiliated but he's also suing her for defamation. To make problems even worse, the newsletter has become an internet sensation making Lacey the most infamous woman in town.

In light of all the media attention and the negative reactions from the locals, Lacey slips off to her grandma's lake house. There she finds the quiet that she needs to recover from the 8 years of her life that she wasted trying to be the perfect corporate wife.

This was an interesting departure from Harper's paranormal romances. It has Harper’s usual humorous and light tone, but carries a more chick-lit vibe than romance. Yes, there is a romance between Lacey and her neighbor, Monroe, but it’s really a side plot to Lacey trying to navigate her life as she goes through the divorce.

Lacey was a strong narrator and I'm glad she didn't succumb to the urge to mope or bemoan her life. She was active in getting herself back on her feet and didn’t rely on others to pull her out of the divorce. I also liked that she didn’t immediately fall head over heels for her neighbor. It was a slow process that had them becoming friends first and even after that Lacey was hesitant about getting into another relationship. I also loved that Monroe was understanding and respectful of Lacey's decisions concerning their relationship.

What I really didn't like is how Lacey's husband was handled in the story. In the beginning, Mike was portrayed as a neglectful and cheating husband more concerned with his status in the community than his relationships with people. This was fine and more than enough reason for me to understand Lacey’s decision to leave him. But as the story progresses, Lacey has several flashback memories of Mike and recalls certain facts that paints him as a control freak and potential emotional abuser. A couple of examples: he monitors who she can and cannot be friends with, tries to cut her off from family members he deems unsuitable, and tells her that she can't get a job because it would "send the wrong impression" despite the fact that she clearly wanted to work. Yet, all this is brushed off by Lacey rationalizing it away which basically consists of her mostly blaming herself. Seriously? Not cool. This put a serious damper on the book for me. Yes, Lacey is happy at the end, but I really did not like her mental process while coming to terms with her relationship in contrast to these memories. I think Harper was trying to make it clear that Mike was a jerk, but she went a little too overboard for me. I would've much preferred it if she had just stuck with Mike just being a cheating status climber.


View all my reviews