"Shadow Tag" by Louise Erdrich

256 pages

When Irene discovers that her paranoid husband, Gil, has been secretly reading her diary, she doesn't comfront him--instead, she begins a new diary (the Blue Notebook) while continuing to write in the old one, leaving it for him to find. The Blue Notebook contains the truth about her feelings and her marriage: she feels desperately lonely and wants to leave Gil, taking their three children. She has tried to talk to Gil about it but he refuses to acknowledge their issues, so Irene uses the Red Notebook (the old diary) to try to provoke him into letting her go.

I really didn't like this book at all. The writing is beautiful and fits the tone of the book perfectly, but the whole thing is just way too depressing for me. I didn't like either of the main characters at all: Irene is vindictive, Gil is abusive, and they are both completely selfish. They're too busy playing games with each other to pay attention to their children, and neither of them seems to even consider looking at things from the other's point of view. It's really hard for me to like a book when I can't identify with any of the main characters. I did like Irene and Gil's daughter, Riel, who narrates a small part of the book, but that just made me more upset about what her parents were doing. I do like that the story ends slightly differently than I thought it would--I always like a twist at the conclusion--but it's so incredibly sad and there isn't much hope in sight. It left me with an awful feeling, and I didn't get anything out of it to make up for that.