Look to Your Wife

Look to Your Wife is a sharp and comic novel about social media and social position. Lisa Blaize’s high-flying husband gets a job as the head at a minor public school and she has to leave her Liverpudlian home for the countryside. Both married previously, their lives are already complicated, but Lisa’s newfound love of Twitter adds a whole new level as she navigates the public and private whilst dealing with an anonymous stalker.

The novel tells the story of Lisa and her husband Edward from meeting as teachers married to other people, then the focus moves to when they transport their family to a boarding school where Edward becomes headteacher. It is written in a light style, intercut with tweets and messages to show Lisa’s interactions and how easily she becomes caught up in the world of social media. The large number of characters serve as potential mystery stalkers and weave together the people who might want to bring down Lisa and her husband. The ending lacked a bit of satisfaction, but this is a light, fun read that casts a witty look at the juxtaposition between modern social media and the archaisms of class structure and public schools.

A story for the modern age and the obsessions with how many people follow your online presence, whether it is Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
So just what happens when post your life online? Well, for some people you obtain followers that are nasty - ones that ‘troll’. In some ways this is not a new concept - we had other books that tell us how bad our lives can get when get ‘trolled’, but tis book has some nice elements and tells the story well.
Our ‘heroine’ is a fashionista. She researches and tweets about what’s new and hot in the fashion world wearing the top ‘brands’ herself and often posting pictures of herself - of course she has a great figure and is rather lovely - in them, including bikini shots.
And she discovers private messaging on Twitter which serves her well for when she doesn’t want her conversations to be known.
But her twitter feeds get her into trouble with a troll and yet she is so addicted that she cannot stop posting. And this is of course where the moral of the story comes in. Addiction to telling the internet world about every little thing that is happening to you - what your coffee cup has as its foam design, what you ate for breakfast, what you are wearing and of course which brands etc etc. And how difficult it is to wean yourself of the ‘adulation’ from your followers as you post up those photos.
I thought it a good readable style and found the characters believable.

Paula Byrne’s debut novel Look to Your Wife should be read by all Twitter virgins (here I mean anyone who hasn’t yet dabbled in this form of social media). Lisa Blaize the second wife of Edward (a high flying Headmaster) finds her new life at a lesser public school to be in need of social intercourse. She signs up for a Twitter account and it isn’t long before an altogether different form of intercourse is proposed. Her best friends try to dissuade her and it isn’t until her husband finds out that she reconsiders. On Twitter she suffers from Trolls and an anonymous snail mail hate campaign, even a bogus website purported to be written by her, where her shallow life is exposed. Lisa isn’t shallow though, she’s witty, knowledgeable and fun to be around. However, she needs to get to the bottom of who is behind the hate campaign and there are quite a few possible contenders. Personally, I found her friend and fellow book lover Bee to give the most accurate assessment of Twitter life, “It’s a substitute world for real friendships, real people, real communities. Twitter’s just as full of fake friends as it is of fake news.”

Lisa Blaize seems to have it all. She is beautiful, she was a teacher, published a book on fashion, married with a daughter, Emma. She is married to Edward, a high-flyer who goes from strength to strength in his career – teaching. Until he reaches the dizzy heights of headmaster in a public school; and then he is knighted and Lisa becomes, Lady C. There was one blip when Emma was seriously ill as a baby and they feared for her life but fear not, because the handsome and gifted surgeon, Sean, saves the day, and Emma.

Set against this background we witness Lisa firstly based in Liverpool who is finally supplanted to a country town where the public school is based and where she is subject to the rigours of her status as headmaster’s wife which she feels crushes her spirit. That is until she discovers Twitter. It is through this medium that she conducts an affair; where she abandons all caution; where she is uninhibited and where she ignores the advice of her lifelong friend, the priest. Lisa is caught in an addiction.

I can see where Lisa is coming from, I really can. She clearly loves her husband, but boy is he busy. And he is so nice. What a gent! I could have shaken Lisa. Despite all the advice, she just steamed on. ‘No harm in this – I will show them’ was her attitude. But, boy could I see the harm, it came with flashing lights and cymbals. Lisa, Lisa, Lisa! So, don’t ask me if I like her, because I really do not know. There is something endearing about her, but really!

I enjoyed the book, especially the tweets (even if I don’t really get Twitter, and I don’t always understand the acronyms). An enjoyable, easy read; quite amusing. I am sure there will be many who will love it. I liked it, just didn’t love it.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

An exceptional fictional debut with innovative narrative:
A fast-paced debut thriller which explores the obsessional nature of social media, in particular twitter, and how the virtual world in which such media operate can impact on reality.
Ambitious Head-Teacher Edward Chamberlain meets and marries Lisa, an Arts and Design teacher and small-time author, whilst turning around a struggling Liverpool School. Edward is of a Public School background, Lisa believes in speaking her mind and is unpredictable. It is her very unpredictability that Edward falls for. He returns to the Public School sector as Head master of a Boys-Only Public School, Blagsford. Lisa struggles to fit in and, despite adoring her ever so cool-headed husband and two young children, takes to social media, twitter in particular, where she has a virtual affair with a surgeon. Much of Lisa's twitter comments are visible to all and trigger a series of anonymous critical letters. Initially both Edward and Lisa don't take the letters too seriously but as the novel progresses they do come to suspect that someone has it in for them. Who is the mysterious stalker and will he or she be caught before they cause real harm to the Chamberlain family?
This is an ambitious book which covers ground not to my knowledge tried elsewhere: a lot of the dialogue is in tweets. And Lisa is a fanatic. She becomes a compulsive tweeter. The pace of the narrative is so very fast, achieved in the main through tweet delivery. And very intelligent ones too. Ms Byrne shows commendable talent with her poetic tweets. An original and highly readable debut with a message for social media addicts. I really enjoyed this novel and am sure readers looking for a novel which is just that little bit different will too.

This is a really enjoyable read. Both witty and humorous, it looks candidly at Twitter and Facebook, which are fervently used by sections of our population and totally ignored by others. The comparisons between pubic and state schools together with the attitudes of both parents and teachers at these schools was accurate.
I enjoyed the different characters introduced by Paula, their quirky ways and their antics. The bookshop, with its cafe and old china was a delight.
OK there was an element of whodunit, but it more important were the conversations and interactions between characters. I loved the frequent references to fashion idols and their clothes.
Well done Paula. What's next?