PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewThe first half of the novel is eventful and atmospheric. J.B. describes the circumstances of her life...with what feels like an eerie calm. Yet this narration turns deliciously complex when the known facts are reshaped as J.B. returns to them with increasing honesty and nuance. In its latter half, The Anniversary grows into a feminist commentary on the nature of mysteries and marriages ... In a virtuosic move, Bishop allows her narrator to recall the early days of their relationship in a romantic way only briefly before revealing the grotesqueness of the power imbalance between the lovers ... The insights throughout the novel, especially the second half, are astute and affecting...but the reader might feel wearied by their volume. The meta-conversation in the book is smart...but it also swamps the action and leaves the novel a little unbalanced and unsatisfying ... Similar to contemporary books like Meg Wolitzer’s The Wife and Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies in the ways it tackles gender and power, but it offers the pleasures of the Gothic novel too.
