I commented on this book saying, "How did you even get together in the first place?" Joan and Richard are certainly a pair together and it was an obvious mismatch from the beginning. This obviously makes for a great story.

John Updike wrote these characters wonderfully. Perhaps it's because of his first hand knowledge from his own failed marriage. But Joan and Richard know each other so well but they do not use it to better the relationship, in fact, they do the opposite.

The thing I loved the most about this is at the end, they end up marrying different people. The people they marry are not perfect. Updike still shows how human the newly chosen spouses are (maybe he even exaggerated). You would think after such a terrible marriage, they would search for something more than just better. But there is no such thing as a perfect person.