A very different kind of fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Shannon Hale.
What if you were to meet the number-one person on your laminated list—you know, that list you joke about with your significant other about which five celebrities you’d be allowed to run off with if ever given the chance? And of course since it’ll never happen it doesn’t matter… Mormon housewife Becky Jack is seven months pregnant with her fourth child when she meets celebrity hearththrob Felix Callahan. Twelve hours, one elevator ride, and one alcohol-free dinner later, something has happened…though nothing has happened. It isn’t sexual. It isn’t even quite love. But a month later Felix shows up in Salt Lake City to visit and before they know what’s hit them, Felix and Becky are best friends. Really. Becky’s husband is pretty cool about it. H er children roll their eyes. Her neighbors gossip endlessly. But Felix and Becky have something special…something unusual, something completely impossible to sustain. Or is it? A magical story, The Actor and the Housewife explores what could happen when your not-so-secret celebrity crush walks right into real life and changes everything.
I really wanted to like this more than I did. I have often fantasized about romances and friendships with famous actors and imagined how they would come about and how it would work out with my ordinary life in South Carolina. In addition, I have had a long, but perplexing friendship with a male superstar in another area, though we are both married to others (me happily). So I eagerly dove into this novel about an improbable friendship between a Colin Firth clone movie star who is happily married to a French model, and a Mormon housewife who is happily married and has three, going- on-four, children. Alas, the book bogs down in a dilemma that kills the fizz created by the wonderful light-hearted wise-cracking repartee between the two friends (just as I would imagine I would have with my secret crush): is it wrong for a godly Mormon wife to even have a friendship with a married man?
You may find this deeply moving, spiritually uplifting, or otherwise inspirational or entertaining. I found it tedious. I wanted more scenes of the witty friendship and little to no scenes of the undying (literally, since they are Mormons who do not marry just until death they do part, but for all eternity) love between the housewife and her husband. Barf. Buzzkill.
I recommend this only to deeply religious readers who will be moved by one woman's abiding morality, yet enjoy the wit.
For me, this was just an average read from Hale. It lacked the dark magic of The Goose Girl and the easy flow of Austenland: A Novel. This adult novel was like an uphill climb with a sharp, disappointing drop at the end. The dialog has that charming rhythm we can expect from Hale, but it was really the only bright note as I slogged through this book. The author states in the preface that she was a Mormon and had written Becky one as well - and boy did she. The multitude of references to the protagonist's faith become rather tiresome and annoying after only a few pages, rather like the author is more interested in spreading knowledge of her faith than telling a story. And while Becky shares our shock at her family and friends insistence that a woman cannot have a male friend, she does nothing to inform their minds about such an archaic notion.
The Actor and The Housewife is somewhat fanciful, definitely romantic and at times, well the only word that comes to mind is perky.
The thing that intrigued me the most was the fact that Becky was a Mormon. I wondered how the author would portray her and what I would learn about the Mormon faith. Shannon describes Becky's faith to the reader as seamlessly as she describes her personality, right away you know that this is who Becky is, her faith is not just something that she does once a week, it is as much a part of her as her quirky humor and her absolute love for her husband, Mike.
The premise of the story is that yet to be answered question; can a man and a woman be friends?Shannon takes it a step further begging the question, can two people who are married but not to each other be not only friends but best friends. And suggests that this is a kind of 'best friends at first sight'; a first meeting of kindred spirits.
If it wasn't for Becky's sweet nature that is 100% pure and for the complete trust and love that her husband Mike has in her, this story would not be believable at all. There are times when the dialogue between Becky and heartthrob, turned best friend Felix, gets down right punchy. But half way through the book there is an unexpected turn of events and what happens next felt very real to me and saved the story.
