🥒 reviewed The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
Pretty Good
4 stars
Content warning spoiler near end of review
This was a very cute, very fun read. I found myself very invested in Lauren's ups and downs and I love that Gramazio doesn't bother to try and make sense of how the attic works. I agree, though, the ending was a little weak, it felt a little sudden and rushed yet, still, I got into it enough to not stop thinking about---
[spoiler]
--the husband with the chickens, Kyle or Calvin or Clyde, or whatever his name was I remember not liking his name, but feeling uplifted by their effortless romance and devastated once he disappears along with the protagonist. Cleverly, the book seems to explore a number of possibilities without being too exaggerated or silly like the possibility that a husband refuses to or is incapable of climbing the ladder, even introducing us to a character in a similar, complimentary loop who like Lauren feels he has to pretend to know what's going on and had to previously leave his husband in order to save him only to marry a random person he met without the loop.
PS I do have to wonder if this character (Hobai? Hobei?? Hotei???? Bohuai?)'s ability affect the time loop by moving in and out himself while Lauren has to wait for the husbands to move into the attic is some kind of subtle metaphor about gender? Am I overthinking? Regardless, that's clearly not the main point of the novel!
edit: carter (no offense to anyone named carter)
