HUSBAND MATERIAL is a follow-up from the rom-com hit BOYFRIEND MATERIAL from genqueer writer Alexis Hall. This is Book #2 in the London Calling series, and hopefully, book three will be back to the joyous tomfoolery and fun of book one. Set two years after the events in BOYFRIEND MATERIAL, HUSBAND MATERIAL again follows hapless and often idiotic Luc O’Donnell and his straitlaced barrister boyfriend, Oliver Blackwell. This time, they’re off to four weddings and a funeral, a joke which I didn’t twig to until the very end of the book.
I absolutely adored book one, BOYFRIEND MATERIAL, and also the unrelated ROSALINE PALMER TAKES THE CAKE by Alexis Hall. So I happily settled in with HUSBAND MATERIAL to toodle my way through another book of silly fun and bad puns. What I got, though, felt much more forced than Hall’s previous offerings, and much of the book fell flat for me.
Reformed bad boy Luc is still a bag full of neuroses, which I found wearing. I wish he would get some therapy! What is somewhat amusing in one book becomes self-indulgent when spread into a second. Luc has managed to become a bit more self-aware, but still is insecure and self-sabotaging. Oliver is less of a fussy Felix Unger of Odd Couple fame and felt more inflexible, which was not as endearing. While I do still love the Odd Couple vibe, the two men felt more like caricatures here.
Hall still employs his typical wit and sarcasm, and I am a huge lover of snark, so this book element still worked for me. I do like the fact that when Luc and Oliver get engaged, they are grappling with true drama and angst, so it’s not all fluff and fun. This brings out a fuller feel to the story. These poor men really have some pressures applied from life tragedies that befall them.
I finished this book because I was reading it for review; otherwise, I would have set it aside. Lovers of snark and playful comedies may enjoy HUSBAND MATERIAL, but Hall is capable of better than he’s provided us here with this loose grouping of what should have been bonus stories. I look forward to the typical magic of an Alexis Hall rom-com with his next offering.
WANTED: One (very real) husband, nowhere near
perfect but desperately trying his best
In BOYFRIEND MATERIAL, Luc and Oliver met, pretended to
fall in love, fell in love for real, dealt with heartbreak
and disappointment and family and friends...and somehow
figured out a way to make it work. Now it seems like
everyone around them is getting married, and Luc's feeling
the social pressure to propose. But it'll take more than
four weddings, a funeral, and a hotly contested rainbow
balloon arch to get these two from "I don't know what I'm
doing" to "I do".
Good thing Oliver is such perfect HUSBAND MATERIAL.
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