Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - The Husbands

Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

The Husbands by Chandler Baker

9 reviews

smreads24's review

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mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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frogglin's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

The topic of mental load on women is one that is currently in constant discussion, and this novel takes a detailed and gritty look at that as Nora, mum to one and expecting a second child, grapples with parenting and a high pressure job. Trying to balance the two while also managing her husband as so many women do leads her to feel torn between her family and her job, and resentful of her husband.

Meanwhile, a small community of happy families has a house available for sale should someone meet the high requirements of the HOA to purchase it. Nora is drawn in not just by the promise of a perfect suburban life in a beautiful home, but by a recent death in the community. As a lawyer, she finds herself promising to uncover the truth of what happened to Richard, and how he could have died in the housefire that left his wife grieving and living in a pool house.

The high powered community includes women working in medicine, psychology, real estate, charity - each one of them married to a doting and adoring husband and each husband more than taking on his fair share of the house hold chores and mental load.

It sounds like a dream, but there's a deep river of discomfort running through this novel.

Much like the Stepford Wives, the men of this community are under manipulation and mind control, orchestrated by the wives who each dabble in an area that may help. Each husband has been turned into the perfect man, at the cost of their personality and humanity, with the ending being a nasty tangle of horrors. It's sad and horrifying in equal parts.

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martieliz's review

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mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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sarah984's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

Very boring book with a ridiculously stupid main character and mostly bland side characters. Very early on you can guess the entire plot including how reveals are going to be handled and you're exactly correct - no surprises. Strange social media themed interludes between chapters that basically just list the book's themes (this is so common and I don't get it - authors of the world I PROMISE that women are capable of understanding themes without interludes or footnotes or characters just listing them). There's also a secret that hangs over the main character for a lot of the book that turns out to be boring and revealed in a really anti climactic way.

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binreads's review

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mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

this book actually made me wanna scream and fling it across the ROOOOOOOM!!!!!! That ending?!?!?

Get Out vibes for SUUUURE. The whole time I was thinking NORA GIRL COME ON YOU ARE SMART GET OUUUUUT OF THIS

the book didn’t really pick up until halfway through and i thought we could’ve gotten to the resolution a bit sooner so we could see the aftermath.

The last line HAUNTED ME.

The amount of red flags Nora ignored from this group of women was ASTOUNDING. Just blissfully ignorant while it’s all right there in front of her! Mama you are a lawyer!!!

I also feel like it dragged on the “accident” situation that happened to Liv. I don’t believe it really added anything to the narrative.

It was crazy to slowly uncover what was happening as a reader. When they were at therapy, and Cornelia kept clicking her pen: Click, Click, Click i was immediately like Didn’t Richard claim he was hearing clicking??? Are they brainwashing them?? AND I WAS RIGHT

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megj23's review

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mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

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lannies's review

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mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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alisonp's review

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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babayagaofficial's review

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funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Girlboss, Gatekeep, Gaslight: The Book.

Kind of painfully white and hetero and upper-middle-class, but enjoyable in spite of it.

The few women of color felt really tokenistic to me — one Black, one East Asian, one South Asian, check, check, check! Does that have any effect on their lives or personalities at all? Nope!

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