Reviews with content warning for Grief - Husband Material

It’s not as fun as its predecessor and it kind of feels like Luc and Oliver haven’t grown at all since they got together. They still have frustrating fights because they don’t see eye to eye on some topics and readers get told how much they’ve grown without seeing the evidence. We find out that Oliver has been to therapy to deal with his eating disorder but honestly both of them should be in therapy so they can work through their insecurities and feelings of inadequacy.

My favorite section was Oliver working through some of issues with his family. Maybe its the American in me but sometimes you just gotta fight it out with your sibling so you can understand the other’s point of view on your awful parents. If you’ve seen The Good Place, it reminds me of Tahani and Kamilah.

Overall I’m not mad that I read it but it doesn’t live up to the first one so I’m a little disappointed.

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cheye13's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I put off reading this for quite a long time, believing Boyfriend Material didn't need a sequel (or a series). And it really doesn't. It's a book that stands alone just fine.

But that doesn't also mean that this book didn't have anything to do or anywhere to go. It is also a wonderful story that stands alone just as well. Yet it has the added bonus of being a wholly faithful continuation of the characters and their trajectories from the previous story.

So often I finish a book and had such a good time that I wished it simply kept going and this sequel is the closest I will ever see to providing that for its predecessor. My new fear is that this book spoke to me so well because I'm in a very similar life stage; I hope my affection for this series doesn't fade in time.

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lisa_m's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I really wanted to love this. And I do still very much love the writing style of Alexis Hall. I don't think Boyfriend Material needed a sequels though.
I loved Boyfriend Material. It's so funny and charming and real. That is still true for Husband Material but the story is just.. not that great. It's basically just a series of weddings

and a funeral

.

I was really excited for this book and now I'm unsure what to think of it. Was is funny? Yes, absolutely! Alexis Hall is one of the few authors that can actually make me laugh out loud. I really enjoy this books humour. Still the plot just kind of fell flat to me. After all the turmoil of the first book it felt like a bit of a betrayal to have the characters struggle again.

I do appreciate the realness of the book. Especially the ending was amazing and I really loved to read about this conclusion. BUT even though I loved the plot of the ending it felt really abrupt and sudden.

Also Luc is such a hypocrite. I get that you need it for the drama of the big conclusion but it still annoyed me. Honestly the whole book was just soo full of misunderstandings and fights I started to doubt whether Luc and Oliver are actually good together. I like that it shows how in real relationships you do fight and have disagreements but sometimes it just felt too personal.

All in all I loved some parts of this book, enjoyed others. Sometimes I was really bored and thought about dnfing the book. Sometimes I was just ambivalent and sometimes I gut really angry at the book. It was okay and did the best it could I guess but also I don't think anything could really live up to the expectations I had just because of how much I loved Boyfriend Material.

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readwithria's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Husband Material is the first direct-line sequel to a romcom I've read, and it didn't disappoint! I was so happy to have more of Oliver and Luc, and the shenanigans of their friends.

Healthy communication, check
Sexy banter, check
Romantic as fuck, check
Explorations of community and self-expression, check

I relate to Oliver so much in his identity crisis. I'm demisexual, but I'm also straight and cis, and my demisexuality has never impacted my relationships or how I'm perceived by the world. It makes me feel like I'm not queer enough to be queer, and honestly, after this book, I'm saying f**k it I will express myself however feels authentic to me. So thanks, Oliver (and Alexis Hall), for giving me the courage to do that.

Back to the book, I really loved it. It didn't quite give me the five-star ~vibes~ but I honestly couldn't tell you why. I loved this book, I love this series, and I can't wait to read more from Alexis Hall. I'd highly recommend the London Calling series to anyone who enjoyed Red, White & Royal Blue, or who likes their romcoms to have a side of intense character growth through big struggles. 4.5 stars.

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inkdrinkers's review against another edition

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emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Well... this was disappointing.

Off the heels of Boyfriend Material, Husband Material picks up with Luc and Oliver's relationship years later, decidedly both in their phase of adulthood where everyone around them is getting married, having babies, and moving on with their lives. But for both Luc and Oliver, they're not quite sure where they stand in the timeline of expectations versus what they actually want for their futures.

I won't lie, I've been in a slump this entire month of February, but I was really, really hopeful that this audiobook would get me out of it. Instead, I quickly realized it was only making it worse. I loved the beginning of this, setting up multiple weddings and multiple moments of proving Luc and Oliver's relationship had grown were great - until it very much wasn't for me. When they began to seem to have the same arguments over and over again that were cornerstones of the first book, I began to get really irritated because even though this was set years later, I felt like neither of them had grown at all.

This is also on me, but I had no idea this was a Four Weddings and a Funeral type of story, so the funeral aspect really threw me and upset me. For a multitude of personal reasons it hit way too close to home and at a moment I didn't really want to be reading about funerals and the messy aspects of grief and the ways people who are dead are loved, but not absolved of their bad behaviour. It was just a bit much for me and heavily, heavily impacted my reading experience and rating.

I wished I had liked this more. I wish that the ending had the "it's us against the world" feeling that it seemed to be going for. But it just didn't for me. This wasn't the happily ever after I wanted to read about, and being bogged down with too many other, hard topics made this a really unpleasant listening experience towards the end.

Content warnings: death of a parent (major plot point, with funeral), grief, homophobia, vomit, mentions to eating disorders

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