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The Third Wife


A riveting family drama with a dark mystery at its core.
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What impact do you think the e-mails had on Maya? How might you have responded?

Created: 06/21/15

Replies: 8

Posted Jun. 21, 2015 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
davinamw

Join Date: 10/15/10

Posts: 3442

What impact do you think the e-mails had on Maya? How might you have responded?

What impact do you think the e-mails had on Maya and her relationship with Adrian? How might you have responded to those emails?


Posted Jun. 22, 2015 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
alisonf

Join Date: 01/31/13

Posts: 110

RE: What impact do you think the e-mails had on Maya? How might you have responded?

They disturbed her enough that she couldn't put them out of her mind but were not threatening enough that they scared her. It put her radar up and realized all of them could despise her, she really couldn't trust anyone and maybe this situation wasn't that good for her anyway.


Posted Jun. 22, 2015 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
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dianaw

Join Date: 08/04/11

Posts: 2

RE: What impact do you think the e-mails had on Maya? How might you have responded?

They made her seriously question the surface "harmony" that seemed to exist. She realized what she likely had already suspected--that such a disparate, "family" resulting from 2 failed marriages with children, with a widely known effort to add another child--was unlikely to be so welcoming to the 3rd wife as the participants' comments tried to indicate. They increasingly to disturb her and take over a larger part of her consciousness as the weeks passed and more e-mails arrived, which seems reasonable. As for my likely reaction- I expect I would have been even more disturbed and disoriented than she was. But I hope I wouldn't have found myself in her situation to begin with: it is hard to see how a woman with a reasonable degree of emotional maturity could have expected not only joining that bunch, but adding anothr child to it, could have worked out well.


Posted Jun. 22, 2015 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
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Miznanner

Join Date: 01/19/13

Posts: 20

RE: What impact do you think the e-mails had on Maya? How might you have responded?

I struggled with that- she seemed to be disturbed by them but not disturbed enough to actually tell another of the 3 adults that she was getting them. I would have freaked out after the second one! She was so afraid of rocking the boat that she neglected her own mental health.


Posted Jun. 22, 2015 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
dhw1115

Join Date: 07/23/14

Posts: 3

RE: What impact do you think the e-mails had on Maya? How might you have responded?

The emails must have struck a nerve and made her more insecure in an otherwise already difficult third marriage. If she had felt happy and secure she would have dismissed them or told someone else about them, especially her own husband.
She clearly entered "dangerous territory" and sort of set herself up for failure being involved in a marriage with a man who was clearly clueless and not very insightful to his own shortcomings as a husband.


Posted Jun. 22, 2015 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
dlpiano

Join Date: 08/14/11

Posts: 27

RE: What impact do you think the e-mails had on Maya? How might you have responded?

I think the emails had a devastating effect on Maya. She already seemed like a self conscious person who was struggling with where she fit in with this family, and they just highlighted her biggest fears.

It blew my mind that Maya didn't tell her husband about the emails. Or ask either of the other ex wives if they had sent them or had any ideas about them. Here they are, a 4 adult family, and none of them communicated like adults. I just cannot imagine letting yourself be bullied in such a manner and never raising a concern, asking questions, telling somebody, or reporting it. It made the reader realize how complacent she had become in her own life. To me it was a very door-mat kind of response, one that I never would have taken.


Posted Jun. 26, 2015 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
sherria

Join Date: 04/16/13

Posts: 16

RE: What impact do you think the e-mails had on Maya? How might you have responded?

I spent half of the novel wondering if Maya was sending those emails to herself, especially from what we know about her teen years and bullying. I guess I found it odd that she was cutting and pasting the emails instead of saving them in their entirety--but then we would have found out way too soon who was the sender, wouldn't we?


Posted Jun. 28, 2015 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
joang

Join Date: 05/17/12

Posts: 94

RE: What impact do you think the e-mails had on Maya? How might you have responded?

I think those emails were incredibly disturbing. They certainly disturbed me! I thought they were more distressing to her than she let on...why would she "bury" them so deeply into her computer. Was she trying to "bury" them deep into her subconscious? So deep as to not have to deal with them. It seemed to take quite a while for her to become more consciously responsive to them. I was provoked into the mystery of finding who the writer was after the first or second email...
It was a very effective way to keep me very involved in the novel. I was looking at the characters more closely, their personalities and potential motives, before Maya was! Initially I thought it was Jane then Charlotte!!
I am not sure how I would have responded if I was the recipient. I think I would have shared them sooner and started my quest to find the writer earlier than Maya.


Posted Jun. 30, 2015 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
dorinned

Join Date: 10/13/14

Posts: 176

RE: What impact do you think the e-mails had on Maya? How might you have responded?

I found it difficult to understand why Maya did not tell Adrian about the emails. They were certainly threatening, and they disturbed her terribly. They undermined her self-confidence to the extent that she became a different person. Adrian attributed this to her wishing for a baby. Because of the personal information in the emails, I think would have suspected that it had to be a family member and asked my husband to get to the bottom of the situation.


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