The End of Her by Shari Lapena Review: Marriage, Murder and Secrets

The End of Her by Shari Lapena Review: How Well Do You Really Know the Person You Married?

There is something Sharia Lapena does exceptionally well: she takes ordinary suburban life-marriages, neighbors, families, nice houses, seemingly respectable people-and finds the secrets hiding underneath it.

The End of Her is no exception.

At the center of this psychological thriller is a terrifyingly simple question: How well do you really know the person you married?

Stephanie and Patrick are exhausted new parents trying to adjust to life with their infant twin daughters. Their days and nights revolve around feedings, crying babies, sleep deprivation, and simply trying to make it through this overwhelming stage of parenthood.

Their marriage isn’t perfect, but Stephanie believes she knows her husband.

Then Erica Voss appears.

Erica knew Patrick before Stephanie did, and she brings with her a disturbing allegation about Patrick’s past. Years earlier, Patrick's first wife died in what was ruled an accident. Erica, however, suggests there may have been much more to the story.

Suddenly, Stephanie is forced to consider something she never thought possible:

What if the man sleeping beside her isn’t the man she thinks he is?

And from there, Shari Lapena does what Shari Lapena does best.

She makes everyone suspicious.

A Marriage Built on Trust-Until Someone Destroys It

One of the strangest elements of The End of Her is the way Lapena explores how quickly trust can unravel.

Stephanie begins the novel believing she has a relatively normal life. She has a husband, two babies, a home, and all the stresses that come with being a new parent.

Then Erica introduces doubt.

And doubt is incredibly powerful.

Once Stephanie begins questioning Patrick’s past, almost everything about him can suddenly be interpreted differently.

Things that might have once seemed insignificant become suspicious.

Questions Stephanie never thought to ask become impossible to ignore.

And Patrick’s insistence that Erica is lying doesn’t necessarily solve the problem.

Because if someone told you that your spouse might have been responsible for the death of their previous partner, could you ever completely forget hearing it?

Even if you wanted to believe them?

That’s what makes the premies so effective. The threat isn’t simply Erica herself. The real threat is the uncertainty she introduces into Stephanie and Patrick’s marriage.

Once that uncertainty exists, it becomes almost impossible to remove.

Erica Voss is the Kind of Character Who Immediately Changes the Atmosphere

Erica’s arrival is where the story really begins to tighten.

She doesn’t simply bring information about Patrick’s past. She brings disruption.

She knows things.

She understands Patrick’s history.

And perhaps more importantly, she understands exactly how damaging certain accusations can be.

There is something deeply unsettling about a person from your partner’s past suddenly appearing and claiming the version of their life you’ve been told isn’t the entire truth.

Stephanie has to decide whom she believes.

Her husband?

Or the woman who claims to know what he’s capable of?

Lapena keeps that question hanging over the story for much of the novel.

Everyone Has Something to Hide

This is one of m favorite things about Shari Lapena’s books.

There are rarely completely innocent people wandering around her fictional neighborhoods.

Everybody has secrets.

Everybody has motivations.

Everybody has made questionable choices.

And almost everyone is capable of lying when they believe they have enough reason to do it.

The End of Her fits perfectly into that formula.

Instead of presenting a simple mystery with an obvious villain and obvious victim, Lapena continually shifts our perception of the characters.

Just when you think you understand someone’s motivations, another piece of information complicates things.

That creates the paranoia that makes domestic thrillers so much fun.

You don’t necessarily know who deserves your sympathy.

You don’t now whose version of events you should believe.

And you definitely shouldn’t assume you know exactly where the story is going.

Stephanie’s Situation is Genuinely Frightening

I also thought Stephanie’s circumstances made the story especially effective.

She’s already exhausted.

She has infant twins.

She’s adjusting to motherhood.

She’s sleep deprived.

Then someone essentially drops a bomb into the middle of her marriage.

Now she isn’t simply wondering whether Patrick has lied about something relatively minor.

She’s questioning whether her husband could be dangerous.

That completely changes the emotional atmosphere of their home.

The place where Stephanie should eel safest suddenly becomes a place filled with uncertainty.

That’s one of the reasons domestic thrillers work so well when they’re done properly. The danger isn’t happening somewhere distant.

It’s inside the house.

It’s sitting across from you at dinner.

It’s sleeping beside you.

It’s the person you trusted enough to build a life with.

The Book Plays With an Interesting Question About the Past

Another theme I enjoyed is the question of how much someone’s past should matter in their present relationship.

Obviously, some secrets are much bigger than others.

But, The End of Her takes that idea to an extreme.

If your partner had an entire chapter of their life that you didn’t truly understand, would you want to know everything?

And what happens when the answers aren’t clear?

Patrick’s past isn’t simply something that happened before Stephanie.

It becomes part of their marriage because Erica focuses it into the present.

That’s what makes secrets so dangerous in stories like this.

You can leave a place.

You can change relationships.

You can start over.

But you can’t guarantee that your past won’t eventually find you.

Shari Lapena Understands Suburban Paranoia

Lapena has practically perfected the suburban psychological thriller.

Her characters often live in comfortable homes and seemingly ordinary communities. On the surface, everything looks safe.

Underneath?

Absolutely not.

There are affairs.

Lies.

Jealousies.

Financial problems.

Manipulation.

Old grudges

And sometimes much darker secrets.

That’s part of what makes her books so addictive. She takes environments that are supposed to represent security and turns them into places where you can’t trust anyone.

The End of Her continues that tradition.

There is something particularly creepy about realizing that the greatest threat to your life might not be a stranger lurking outside your house.

It might be someone who already knows exactly how to get inside.

Is The End of Her One of Shari Lapena’s Best Books?

For me, The End of Her is another solid example of why Shari Lapena is such a reliable author when I’m in the mood for a domestic thriller.

What I enjoyed most about her novels isn’t necessarily elaborate world-building or incredibly complicated plots.

It’s the suspicion.

Lapena understands how to take one uncomfortable question and let it infect an entire group of characters.

What if your husband is lying?

What if your neighbor knows something?

What if the person accusing someone of a crime is lying?

What if they’re telling the truth?

Those questions keep the pages turning because Lapena understands that sometimes uncertainty is more frightening than knowing exactly what happened.

The Pacing Makes it Easy to Fly Through

Another thing I’ve come to expect from Lapena is readability.

Her books move.

Chapters tend to be manageable, the plot keeps progressing, and there’s usually another revelation ahead to convince you to read one more chapter.

And then another.

And suddenly you’ve read 100 pages when you were supposed to be going to sleep.

The End of Her definitely has that quality.

It’s the kind of thriller that works especially well when you want something suspenseful without having to spedn several hundred pages waiting for the plot to finally begin.

The drama arrives quickly, and once Erica enters Patrick and Stephanie’s lives, the tension keeps escalating.

SPOILER WARNING!!!!!

The remainder of this review discusses elements of the ending. Stop here if you haven’t read The End of Her yet.

That Ending

And then we have the ending.

This is where The End of Her becomes especially interesting because Lapena doesn’t simply wrap everything up neatly and send everyone home.

The novel leaves you thinking about what you’ve learned about these characters-and perhaps reconsidering some of the assumptions you made earlier.

That’s exactly the kind of ending I want from a psychological thriller.

I don’t necessarily need everything tied into a perfect little bow.

Sometimes I want the final pages to make me sit there for a minute thinking: Wait. WHAT?

The best domestic thrillers make you question not only the characters but your own judgment of them.

Who did you trust?

Why did you trust them?

What clues did you dismiss?

And were you manipulated just as easily as the characters were?

Lapena understands that experience extremely well.

Final Thoughts on The End of Her

The End of Her takes one of the most unsettling possibilities imaginable-discovering that your spouse ma have a past you know nothing about-and turns it into a fast-paced story about marriage, suspicion, manipulation, secrets, and the destructive power of doubt.

It’s another reminder of why Shari Lapena works so well for readers who love domestic thrillers.

Her fictional worlds aren’t frightening because they’re completely unfamiliar.

They’re frightening because they’re recognizable.

A married couple.

A nice neighborhood.

New parents.

Old acquaintances.

People with careers and families and ordinary routines.

And underneath all of it are secrets capable of destroying everything.

If you enjoy psychological thrillers where practically everyone seems suspicious and you’re constantly changing your mind about whom to believe, The End of Her is absolutely worth adding to your list.

Because by the time you’re finished, one question might stick with you:

How much do any of us really know about the people closest to us?

Who Should Read The End of Her?

I would recommend The End of Her to readers who enjoy:

-domestic and psychological thrillers

-suspicious spouses

-secrets from the past

-unreliable or questionable characters

-marriage-centered mysteries

-suburban suspense

-fast-paced chapters

-stories where nearly everyone has something to hide

-twists that make you reconsider what you thought you might know

If you’re already a Shari Lapena fan, this is definitely one to have on your list.

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Midnight Margians from Savannah, GA

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