Hausfrau, Jill Esbaum - Ciska's Book Chest

Author: Jill Esbaum
Publisher: Random House
Pages: 324
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0812997530
ISBN-13: 9780812997538
Publisher: various formats

Anna Benz, an American in her late thirties, lives with her Swiss husband, Bruno—a banker—and their three young children in a postcard-perfect suburb of Zürich. Though she leads a comfortable, well-appointed life, Anna is falling apart inside. Adrift and increasingly unable to connect with the emotionally unavailable Bruno or even with her own thoughts and feelings, Anna tries to rouse herself with new experiences: German language classes, Jungian analysis, and a series of sexual affairs she enters with an ease that surprises even her.
But Anna can’t easily extract herself from these affairs. When she wants to end them, she finds it’s difficult. Tensions escalate, and her lies start to spin out of control. Having crossed a moral threshold, Anna will discover where a woman goes when there is no going back.

This book was for my book group but it was on my list for a while already. A lot of people have been raving about this book and with the pretty cover I was intrigued.
This book is very well written. The story has a great flow and there are a lot of interesting views in the book. There are parts where Anna is discussing her life with her psychiatrist and the discussion with her friends and her family. Her personality and struggles are well developed. BUT.... I hated her. I hated her so much. It was clear where she was heading from page 20 and even though there are parts where you could feel sorry for her at some points I still felt she was hurting herself so much and did not do anything to change.
Discussing this book in book group it was pretty much the same expression. It was funny to see that some people in the group said that they would give it 5 stars because of that and it annoyed me so much that I cannot give the book more than 2 stars.