Review of Hedge Fund Wives

If you want a good basic understanding of the economic collapse, skip Wikipedia and read Tatiana Boncompagni’s  Hedge Fund Wives, where the novel is weak on emotional heft, it’s strong on research.

Boncompagni has worked as a journalist, and it shows. Hedge Fund Wives, her second published novel, is at times heavy on the “telling” and light on the “showing.” Often, her writing resorts to a “this happened, then that happened, and then this happened” approach. Boncompagni doesn’t always trust that her readers will remember plot points and character relationships, and resorts to using the same language and anecdotes in subsequent chapters to describe a relationship. I’ve noticed this tendency to “prompt” the reader in other Avon books, and I am wondering if this is just an imprint style issue. Maybe they assume that women readers are busy and go long periods of time between reading sessions.

Minor issues aside, I found Hedge Fund Wives thoroughly engrossing. Though Marcy and her friends didn’t really win my empathy, I found myself interested in their marital and financial troubles, and I take Boncompagni’s point to heart: women need their own money and their own lives. And what’s not to love about a heroine who loves cheese and loses her underwear?