As I watched the hype grow for Strangers by Belle Burden, I resisted it, thinking it was yet another divorce memoir by a privileged woman. What more could it add to this subgenre that I hadn’t read before? As it turns out, I really enjoyed it. Belle Burden was living in New York City with her banker husband and three children at the start of the pandemic. They immediately relocated to their house in Martha’s Vineyard once lockdown started, where they planned to wait it out. Two weeks later, Burden received a call from a man who said that his wife was having an affair with her husband, rocking Burden to the core and making her question everything she knew about her spouse of 25 years. When confronted, he simply stated that he wasn’t happy, and he left. What follows is Burden’s chronicle of the next few years, when he completely withdrew from his family’s lives, ceding custody entirely to Burden and leaving her on her own. Burden writes about feeling ostracized from her community and facing the loss of her homes as she negotiated their divorce settlement. This book worked for me for a few reasons: her writing draws you in and makes you feel like you’re going through the upheaval and betrayal with her; despite her privilege, her experiences and emotions are relatable (who hasn’t felt that switch go off in a partner’s heart?); and I felt the fury invoked by the misogyny she experienced (and the fact that he got away with everything). Pick this one up; you won’t be disappointed.