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A review by romanceschmomance
Husband Material by Alexis Hall

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

3.0

Definitely want to start this review off by saying that I didn’t quite love Boyfriend Material as many others have, but I really wanted to give this story another go in their sequel, Husband Material. From beginning to end, all the thoughts were just stacking on top of each other and not in the best way, so here we go. I’ll do my best to keep this spoiler-free.

I think the biggest advice I’d share for this one is that if you were completely happy with the way things were in Boyfriend Material, I’d skip out on this one. The tone in Husband Material is not an all-around happy one and sadly, there wasn’t a lot of focus on the romance. The focus, to me, seemed to be on outside parties instead of their own.

When you start this one, Oliver and Luc have been together for over two years and maybe it was a bad assumption on my part, but I figured their relationship would be more solid. But instead, we get what felt like they’ve taken major steps backward and struggled to communicate. And it’s persistent throughout most of the book.

Around halfway through, there were some heavier topics that I didn’t quite seem coming and that threw things off a bit for me, and couldn’t recover from it.

And then there’s the ending, usually when I read a romance I tend to have a happier feeling and we’re usually left in a good place about the couple we’re reading about. But I felt like they would have been better off apart. Wasn’t the ending I hoped for and wished we got a different story overall.

My favorite parts were when Oliver and Luc could just BE together, in their own moments. It was really sweet and I was eager for more of that.

Listening to the audiobook really helped me get through this one, I loved the narration and was so happy they kept Joe Jameson on from Boyfriend Material. I’ll definitely be going to their backlist and listening to more.

This didn’t quite hit the mark with me, but you definitely might have a different experience. 
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