Review of Why They Stay

[Tanya Hayes]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Why They Stay" by Anne Michaud.]

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3 out of 5 stars

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I would give this book a 3 out of 5.

Why They Stay was informative in diving into the reasons why a wronged woman in the political world would continue to stay by her husband’s side after a scandal. I somewhat liked the author’s rating system of ‘White Queen’ based on a wife’s response and how she carried on afterwards. The chapters were structured in a style of ‘This is the story…this is how they compare…this is their past…this is what happened to their kids.’ For a reader like me who isn’t all about American politics and the drama, this did make it easier for me to keep track of who’s story I was reading, and which scandal caused certain consequences. But, the rating system did also seem inconsistent, and this is why I chose to rate this book as a 3. It broke my flow of reading.

In the first story with Eleanor Roosevelt, I was thrown off when it started to break down in different title headers. While the author broke down the rating system in the beginning of the book, once that rating system is reached in a political wife’s story the subject title is always changed. It does stay relevant to the wife, but when I read it I’m wondering ‘Is this where this should go? Why is it structured like that?’ as opposed to actually using the trait system subjects, like One: Submitting to Tradition or Two: Longing for Security. I had to remind myself that the new subject headers were part of the rating system because each one said something different.

Because the author wrote about high profile scandals, there is sexual content. However, it’s written in a manner of reporting and not intended as crude reading. Of the eight couples focused on in this book, the author chose two of them to elaborate only slightly as a means to show what exactly type of consequences the wife was facing. The other stories focus on the disconnect of marriages based on mentioning husbands' philandering's and womanizing, with little elude to the actual acts.

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Why They Stay
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