Review by gracer - The Husbands

gracer 's review for:

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

5.0

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

If you know me, you know I don't give five stars easily. I am super stingy with my stars; I save the 5-star reviews for the best of the best. But this so far exceeded my expectations I think it is only fair to reward it with all of the stars.

When I picked up this book, I was looking for something light and fun to get me through a busy workweek. Now, it's likely that if I had gone into this expecting anything beyond a solid romcom, I would have been disappointed. But I was expecting maybe even a little less than that. An okay romcom would have been fine to get my brain to relax on the way to and from work.

Instead I got a highly entertaining and engaging read that kept me guessing and wondering until the penultimate chapter. The blurb on the back makes it sound entertaining and potentially interesting:

One night Lauren finds a strange man in her flat who claims to be her husband. All the evidence - from photos to electricity bills - suggests he's right.

Lauren's attic, she slowly realises, is creating an endless supply of husbands for her.

But when you can change husbands as easily as changing a lightbulb, how do you know whether the one you have now is the good-enough one, or the wrong one, or the best one?

And I think this book accomplished more, quite possibly, then it set out to do.

First, let me lay out some of the little things I liked about this:

It was well written. Lauren is a normal girl. She doesn't have a cutesy hobby or interest, like loving cinnamon rolls, or teddy bears, or the color orange. She has faults but they are not constant focus; she doesn't make terrible decisions. She has likes: she likes to read, but it's not her whole personality; she likes plants, but it's something she realizes throughout the book. Neither of these "character traits" are ever spelled out for us; they are just some of the constants that follow her into most of her lives. Lauren is neither horribly miserable about being single at the start of this book, nor a "I will never get married" type who has sworn off of romance forever just because her one ex turned out to be a loser. She's also not miserable about her best friend getting married while she is single. She is a reasonable and likable character, and there is no annoying attempt to make her quirky.

The Husbands dodges another pet peeve of mine: the text itself does not rely on gimmicks. There aren't weirdly specific phrases repeated throughout the text. There aren't over-the-top sex scenes trying too hard to be descriptive in an original way. There is sex, but it is briefly described, not glossed over but to the point, and not erotic.

I had no idea what was going to happen in this book. I got halfway through the book and realized I had no idea how it was going to end. This is not a question of will they get together? (Let's face it, we know they will.) This is a question of, who is she going to end up with? Wait, will she end up with any of them? Maybe she'll end up alone? Once I realized I didn't know what was going to happen, I paid more attention. At 94% I still didn't know what was going to happen. But I was not disappointed!

I love Bohai. I love how not perfect he is while still being... kind of perfect!

I really like that there is so little in the way of plot holes in what is a sort of complicated premise.

And I loved the last chapter, with I thought was a very nice touch.

But there is room to go beyond the plot and story details that I liked. I don't want to assign this book more value that it deserves, but I think it accomplished perhaps more than it set out to do.

I don't think I have read a book that really captures the pulse of the dating world since the advent of online dating quite like this one does. It's interesting, because there is very little online dating in the book itself. But I wouldn't be surprised if this was where Gramazio found her inspiration, and I found it very successful. Because what is the greatest disadvantage of online dating? The perpetual opportunity to choose again. To throw a "good" date back out there because maybe you can find a "better" one.

What better way to explore that than by swiping through husbands?!

Lauren is not finicky or unreasonable. If anything, I would say she has had a little bit of bad luck. But she certainly doesn't know what she wants, and at the start of the book, doesn't seem to have even thought about it. Cycling through husbands, though - some who last a week or two while others don't even make it halfway down the ladder before she sends them away again - makes her face some things. She is forced to think about potential partners head-on rather than leaving it up to fate, or the attic. She has to understand not only what she wants, but what works for her. And the conclusion of this just made me happy.

I'm not single anymore, but I would have loved this if I was. I love the way the book shows how Mr Right might only be Mr Right for a given moment. The way it shows that we can have many Mr Rights and they can all be right in different ways. That it's okay for a relationship to change who you are, as long as it doesn't change you too much. That so much of it really is a crapshoot and you never really know.

But mostly I just loved being so consumed in a book, not knowing what was going to happen, and having so much fun along the way.

Content Warnings