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A review by inkdrinkers
Husband Material by Alexis Hall
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
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Vomit
Minor: Eating disorder