★★★★★ 3
Slightly Interesting
Format: Kindle
First, I think Belle is a great writer. There was a lot of effort put into making this a very readable book. I also think that what happened to her really was terrible. Her husband 100% was wrong in what he did to her with the affair and his disappearance. Ultimately, her marriage prior to the betrayal seemed very superficial. She acknowledges that she chose the comforts of wealth over a close relationship. She had a part time husband/father and honestly it's not surprising that he left. He was barely there to begin.
Her absolute terror in imagining that she would drop down from the top 0.1% down to around the top 1% was not the compelling tragedy that she seems to think it is. Her bemoaning of the loss of ultra luxuries tended to diminish the emotional toll of her plight.
The book is laced through with the eventual end that her husband is going to take his assets and half of hers, but it never happens. I think she wants to relate the uncertainty and fear that she had, but it comes off as fake panic.
In the end, it's a sad story, but it was very predictable. It's a story about a woman who outsourced her responsibilities, who doesn't know how to operate without extreme wealth, and who shudders at the prospect of having to work a job. It was a short book, but 3 times longer than necessary.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2026
