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booksthatburn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I especially like how this deals with grief, and the complex emotions of losing someone who has been a major force in one's life, especially when they've mostly been a negative influence. Someone can be terrible and important, and that's often hard to deal with. The shape of their absence can leave an enormous wound, even if their presence was slow suffering.
HUSBAND MATERIAL could kind of make sense for someone who hadn't read BOYFRIEND MATERIAL, but the emotional roller coaster of the first book means that a lot of processing and establishing of various relationship dynamics took place in BOYFRIEND MATERIAL, with the characters moving forward here after a time jump and a new status quo to be disrupted by all these weddings.
I like the ending, it fits Oliver and Luc as individuals and as a couple. They are figuring out their relationship, not anyone else's, but it takes a while for them to understand what they actually want from the socially proscribed steps and ceremonies on the relationship escalator.
Graphic: Classism
Moderate: Cursing, Death, Homophobia, Infidelity, Grief, Death of parent, and Abandonment
Minor: Body horror, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, and Excrement
pinetree_reads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Death, Homophobia, and Death of parent
Moderate: Vomit
jadehusdanhicks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Although arguing is part of even then healthiest relationships, the amount in this book was downright unhealthy. It really put a downer on where live and made this a drag for me to finish. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this duology to anyone wanting a well written realistic queer romance reccomendations.
Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Mental illness, Grief, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Classism
headinthepages's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Moderate: Cancer, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Alcohol
Minor: Suicide
kriti's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Death, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Eating disorder
bzliz's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
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.
Moderate: Death, Homophobia, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Eating disorder
lisa_m's review against another edition
- 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 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
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.
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.
Moderate: Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Classism
includes complicated, toxic relationship with parents / familyinkdrinkers's review against another edition
- 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
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
Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Vomit
Minor: Eating disorder
annahamburger's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Cursing, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Grief, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Body shaming, Death, Eating disorder, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Dysphoria
Minor: Infidelity
thebookpaiges's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Homophobia, and Sexual content
Moderate: Vomit