Magpie
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3.6 • 56 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
For fans of The Last Mrs. Parrish comes a twisty psychological suspense novel about motherhood, obsession, and just how far some will go for the perfect family. “Great, plain and simple” (Stanley Tucci).
Marisa and Jake are a perfect couple. And Kate, their new lodger, is the perfect roommate—and not just because her rent payments will give them the income they need to start trying for the baby of their dreams.
Except—no one is truly perfect. Sure, Kate doesn’t seem to care much about personal boundaries and can occasionally seem overly familiar with Jake. But Marisa doesn’t let it concern her, knowing that soon Kate will be gone, and it will just be her, Jake, and their future baby.
Conceiving a baby is easier said than done, though, and Jake and Marisa’s perfect relationship is put to the test through months of fertility treatments and false starts. To make matters worse, Kate’s boundary-pushing turns into an all-out obsession—with Jake, with Marisa, and with their future child. Who is this woman? Why does she seem to know everything about Marisa and Jake?
In her quest to find out who Kate really is, Marisa might destroy everything she’s worked so hard to create—her perfect romance, her perfect family, and her perfect self.
Jake doesn’t know the half of what Marisa has created—and what she stands to lose.
For fans of Gone Girl and The Perfect Nanny, Magpie is a “tense” (The Guardian), “gorgeous” (Lisa Taddeo, bestselling author of Three Women), “completely, terrifyingly brilliant” (Marian Keyes, author of Grown Ups) novel about mothers and children, envy and possession, and the dangers of getting everything you’ve ever dreamed of.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Day's clever latest (after The Party) delves into the shaky life of a pregnant woman who is further disrupted once a lodger moves into her home. Having survived a rough childhood and sexual assault, Marisa finally finds peace when she moves in with her boyfriend, Jake. But she's only known him for three months, and there's a red flag: his frosty mother, Annabelle, constantly dotes on him and touts their closeness while making clear her dislike for Marisa. Still, Marisa relishes the feeling of safety Jake gives her and chooses not to rock the boat. When money gets tight, the couple agree to lease a room in their house to Kate, who immediately makes herself at home and acts very familiar and affectionate with Jake. Marisa begins to suspect that Jake and Kate are having an affair, possibly with Annabelle's blessing. Day successfully turns the narrative on its head in the second half, which tells the whole story very differently from Kate's point of view. She also cannily subverts a few tired tropes to create a convincing final act, with a twist rooted in clues that were there all along. Readers will thoroughly enjoy this.
Customer Reviews
Magpie
Very tedious.
Strong start, weak finish
I felt like this book started out really strong, but finished really weak. Part I is told from Marisa’s perspective, who we believe to be the pregnant partner of Jake. Their relationship appears to take a hit when they must take on a lodger to help cover bills. Kate is difficult to like & appears to be an interloper in the lives of the couple.
It is only as Part I segues into Part II that it became obvious to me Marisa had been lying all along. She had in fact been impersonating herself as Jake’s girlfriend, when we find out she is actually the couple’s surrogate. The story takes an even more disturbing turn when we discover she is suffering from manic depression & attempts to hurt Kate.
From this point, I continued to wait for something to happen-some plot twist or mind-blowing occurrence, as it seemed unlikely the story would peak so early. I found it very far-fetched that Jake’s mom became an antagonist & tried to spin Marisa’s mental health issue against Kate. Then all of a sudden Marisa was coming to Kate’s defense against Annabelle after all of the awful things that had happened amongst the trio. Tying up the story with a neat little bow & the couple taking a stroll with their newborn son was such a weak way to end the story. Marisa went traveling the world & Jake’s parents weren’t heard from any more. Bland and with no real point-much like Annabelle’s cooking.
So much potential, just needed a stronger ending.