Just the Two of Us by Jo Wilde (Review)

Title: Just the Two of Us
Author: Jo Wilde
Type: Fiction
Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Forever
Date published: April 12, 2022

A complimentary physical copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

A couple on the brink of divorce after 35 years of marriage gets a second chance to rediscover their love now that a pandemic lockdown has forced them to spend more time together.

Julie and Michael Marshall have stayed together through thick and thin, through better and worse — and, for the last few years, it has mostly been worse. As their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary approaches, Julie realizes something: she doesn’t want to pretend anymore.

Divorce papers at the ready, she’s just about to have The Talk with Michael when everything changes. Lockdown begins and Julie and Michael face the greatest terror they can imagine: uninterrupted time with each other. But, when stripped of all distraction and forced to meet eyes across the dinner table, could it be that Julie and Michael might find a way back to where they first began?

⤖ My Review ⬻

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t too sure whether I would jive or relate to the main characters in Just the Two of Us due to our age difference as well as their being further along in their relationship that I’ve ever been (married, kids, an empty nest). I know that one doesn’t always have to relate with characters on every level to enjoy a book, and I’m definitely not claiming that’s the case, I just worried that a lot of what they would be facing would kind of go over my head.

I’m happy to say that I needn’t have worried though! Julie and Michael’s story pulled me right in. This was the first book I read that included the pandemic into its plotline, and I was very intrigued to see how I’d feel about it. On one hand, I like reading because it takes me out of reality…on the other hand, before things started opening back up again, I found that I kept getting pulled out of contemporary fiction when the characters would do things that we in the real world hadn’t been doing for a while i.e. hugging, shaking hands, having parties.

What I found the most interesting about Just the Two of Us was that it actually gave me a bit of a peek onto what it must have been like for my parents. They were not on the brink of divorce when the pandemic hit, but what really clicked for me was how the must have felt when my sister and I couldn’t visit for months at a time. This book, in this sense, helped me understand my parents a little better, and for that I am grateful.

As for the story itself, I found it interesting how we switched between present time and years earlier because it explained bit by bit how Julie and Michael ended up where they were. As for Julie and Michael themselves, as well as the supporting cast, I found that they all felt real. I could very easily imagine them all to be neighbours of ours! While I couldn’t relate to the majority of Julie and Michael’s relationship and the stage in their life, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were other aspects of Just the Two of Us I could relate to or at least learn from.

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Jo Wilde considers herself a proud Midlander (despite being told by a university friend that ‘the Midlands’ doesn’t exist) and loves living in her Derbyshire village with her two children, two stepchildren, two hamsters, two dogs and – thankfully – one husband. To be fair, with the children now largely grown up, they only live with her intermittently when their own money and their supply of booze runs out. Upon retirement, Jo and her husband plan to take off in a mobile home (or, in her mind, a mobile writing office) to see the world. In the meantime, Jo’s very happy with imaginary worlds and has now published a range of fiction, including historical novels as Joanna Courtney and contemporary fiction as Anna Stuart.