The Hypnotist's Love Story

by Liane Moriarty

June 16th, 2018

THE HYPNOTIST’S LOVE STORY

By Liane Moriarty

*watch out for spoilers.

Today I had just finished reading my fifth Liane Moriarty novel titled The Hypnotist’s Love Story. In the beginning this book was quite a page-turner, considering I finished reading it just within two days. This was probably because I found that I could relate to one of the characters, the one where I’m pretty sure most reader would not be in favor of when reading this book- the character who’s fitting to be labeled as the “villain” of the story. I’ve had my heart broken severely before, so I could sympathize with her deranged behavior. There was definitely some mystery element in the plot, but not enough to make my heart race like My Husband’s Secret did.

In the first chapters, Ellen O’Farrell – the main character, the hypnotherapist, seemed like a very calm, cool and collected individual. She lives by the beach, which, to me correlates, to the whole “zen” vibe. She was described as the sort of person who would see the good in everyone. That is, until she became pregnant towards the second half of the book, and you’ll find that she is overflowed by emotions.

Ellen O’Farrell lived the life most people would kill for. When her grandparents died, she inherited a house by the beach where her mother grew up in. Unlike her mother who seemed to resent every corner of the house, Ellen loved it the way it is and wished to preserve its pristine state. Her office – where she practices hypnotherapy- is a part of the house and described to be a glass room with an ocean view. Her career seemed to be smooth sailing, so at the age of 35, it looked like finding the perfect man was all she needed to make her life complete.

Ellen met Patrick through an online dating website. Ellen’s feeling towards Patrick was not extraordinary. Based on how the author described it, I was under the impression that she was not very passionate about the relationship- at least at the beginning. I mean, yeah, she liked him, but was she head over heels for him? No. Did she think he’s a nice guy? Yes, but was she willing to cross oceans for him? Highly doubt so. Though she did care about making a good impression on him, because I think Ellen is the sort of person who couldn’t bear to have her reputation stained or have somebody dislike her.

We then found out that Patrick has a stalker- an ex girlfriend that has been following him and sending him texts and letters for the past 3 years. A little further in, we are then introduced to the narrative of the stalker, based on that we discovered that she was one of Ellen’s clients. In the narrative, she stated that she was going to another appointment with the hypnotist. This opened our excitement to the first mystery. Which of Ellen’s clients is the stalker? We weren’t given much hint. The only clue we had was that the stalker had visited Ellen’s bathroom – because of course, she wouldn’t pass on an opportunity to rummage through her things - and discovered her home pregnancy test stick. But then we later found out that there was more than one of her female clients that went to visit the bathroom before their sessions started. We didn’t have any physical description of what the stalker looked like, so this remained a mystery until the second half of the book.

Unlike Truly, Madly, Guilty (will be referred as TMG hereafter) the excitement of this book was successfully sustained as the identity of the stalker was soon revealed in the next few chapters. Whereas on TMG, despite the fact that we were also introduced to the ‘mystery’ since the beginning- something that happened during the notorious barbecue that changed everyone’s lives forever- we were left to wonder for a looooong time as to what actually happened. It was not until the last few chapters that we at last learned that it was something to do with the children. I mean, we did get quite a hint as to what the incident involved but we were still guessing until it was confirmed, and it was let on for too long.

In my opinion though, the degree of “shock” of what was revealed on TMG was certainly higher than that of this book. After we learned who the stalker was, and finding out the identity of the guy Saskia opened the door to when she was trespassing Ellen’s house, I felt like there wasn’t any more exciting things left to discuss. But then again, it comes down to personal preference. I like things to be quickly wrapped up after certain “mystery” is revealed. Unless there are further revelations that are equally important or even more major than the key event, I think it’s pretty useless to read more about how the characters carry on with their lives. This is why I sometimes prefer open endings because it still maintains elements of mystery through to the end.

There were definitely a lot more explanations than necessary written after the climax of the story. Only to explain that it was merely closure that Saskia needed to stop her from doing any more stalking. The break up between Patrick and Saskia was one-sided and it was selfish. Patrick didn’t even consider Jack’s feeling about it - He just assumed that Jack was unaffected because he was still a toddler when actually he was greatly affected. Saskia was the only mother figure in his life after his mom died. Aside from still having feelings for Patrick, Saskia felt a strong emotional connection to Jack, as she played an integral role in raising him, to the extent of sacrificing her working hours to be able to drop off and pick Jack up from school.

After the big incident happened and Saskia was hospitalized, she thought she would have nobody to visit her because the only family she thought she belonged to (Patrick and Jack) abandoned her. Eventually she came to realize that there are others who still care for her so it’s not really the end of the world. She then received a letter from Patrick’s mother along with Jack’s get-well-soon card, which, together, acted as her “closure”. In the letter, Patrick’s mum thanked her for being a good mother figure to Jack during his childhood. This made her feel recognized and appreciated. It was from this point on, I feel that Saskia could finally let go of her memories with Patrick and Jack.

All in all, this book was not too bad to read. It wasn’t a complete waste of your time, but if you expected a book that ends dramatically, this one’s not for you. There wasn’t enough surprising elements in the book- it just kind of highlighted all the mystery in the beginning but at the end they didn’t unravel to be quite as heart-racing as I feel they should have been written.