The Divorce makes it pretty clear that Bea and Niklas do not belong together, and the specifics of that conclusion is my one real qualm about the story. I would have preferred a less clear, and thus perhaps less clichéd, presentation of Jacob—Bea’s sibling and Niklas’ erstwhile best friend—whose suicide was the meetcute for our future divorcees. They both come with intense baggage: Bea with her unmoored loneliness and Niklas with his self-abnegating sense of duty, gloming together into a pair unsuited to support each other in any way other than through conventional familial bonds.

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