Thank you to netgalley for providing an e-galley for review. I'm Single Because I Hate My Friends' Husbands is a humorous look at what happens when people get into long term relationships. People change, obviously, and sometimes not for the better. These women lost themselves and their identities and that's what this author responds to in this collection of essays.

Was hoping for funny and didn't find it.
Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.
While I got the book for free, it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

This ARC was provided by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

The title of this book had me hooked before I even opened it. This book was funny in a not trying to hard way. It was like having a conversation with a friend. I enjoyed the way the author was very honest with everything and the content is something not talked about honestly enough.

I truly enjoyed this book and I definitely recommend this book to anyone wanting a laugh.

Thank you to Xpresso Book Tours, Netgalley and Ms Jones for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I requested this book because I thought the title of this book was hilarious, and I would say that there are parts of it that are also genuinely funny, but overall it didn’t quite deliver.

I’ll start with what I really liked,
1) Her definition and defense of her “spinster” title, that was funny and I like that she wore it like an honor, almost.
2) “Why can’t we accept that some people just aren’t relationship people? That some people do in fact feel happier being alone.” (p.172)

That I agree with, I’ve never been much of a relationship person and I’m more fine with that than people around me have ever been. My problem here, after reading this book, is that while she says she is happier, it just doesn’t read that way.

Firstly, I completely understand why she isn’t using her real name, but the utter vagueness of the situations and the husbands from the title gets kind of underwhelming. Like she underlines that these aren’t abusive men or terrible people, but then speaks of how these friends of hers were amazing women that are now “faded” or dimmed somehow. That they give and give of themselves, but never get anything in return, and that it grinds them down. But it is all really vague and feels unclear.

I’ll look at some of my friends’ husbands and I’m just like “nope, no way”, partly why I was drawn to the title, but it is generally that I don’t really like the kind of people they are, but they’re not some strange oppressive force that are ruining my friends bit by bit. I can see the good in them as well, or my friends will tell me about it, but I just couldn’t live with someone like that myself. Which I’m sure everyone has thought about other peoples’ partners at times, we’re not compatible with everyone for a reason.

I just really couldn’t connect to the way she was describing these men or their relationships, and I thought there would be more levity here, like some simple pettiness I guess, that’s not so serious just a bit of a laugh. This was more serious than I had expected.

She mentions that a friend of hers has a “cab light theory of romance” (p.44) but I’m pretty sure that’s from Sex and the City. I’ve definitely heard that theory before.

There is also a pretty terrible story about how she was going to have sex with a terminally ill friend, but that the sex didn’t end up that great, and that also it was a failure because he ended up not dying… and she ends it off with “And, just to be clear, I am actually very grateful he is still alive because he has been a huge source of emotional support in my life…” (p.90)

This was where she started to lose me. You’re grateful this man is alive because of what he has GIVEN YOU in YOUR life. It’s so… self-involved. She’s not happy he is alive for his own sake, but for what that means to her. It gave me a bad taste in my mouth. If it was an attempt at humor it didn’t work for me, it just made her look like a bad person. Actually, it made her look like the husbands she criticizes.

It got worse when she was talking about friendships, and while I agree that friendships change and you lose some over the years for a variety of reasons, and that especially after school it can be difficult to maintain friendships where you are no longer connected by something in common (like classes), I thought she gave really strange and bitter examples here. She talks about how it is natural to fall out after college because suddenly you live with roommates but your college friend got “gifted” a “half-million dollar home”, has a short commute and money to travel and buy fancy stuff… or that you’re drowning in a corporate job but oh, “your friend is flying high at the law school job their lawyer father got them” (p.166)

Ok… oddly specific and strangely petty. Yet not funny petty, it seemed bitter.

She also goes on about beauty standards and states that the “system set us up for failure” (women).
“We spend the early parts of our lives destroying our bodies trying to fit into this narrow little space most of us can’t fit into in the first place, to please men who will just move on to the younger model when we inevitable age out and fail, only to have often done permanent damage to ourselves that we then have to live with for the rest of our lives.” (133)

I’m just sitting here shaking my head.
Ok, yes, there are ridiculous beauty standards. I spent most of my teens and twenties obsessed with being slimmer, trying to make my body into something perfect. However, with some introspection, I will argue that most women do this… for OTHER WOMEN. We want to look good, or better, in comparison to other women in our lives and to emulate the beauty standards media gives us. You could argue it is to APPEAL to men, but to please men? That’s a different story. And I’m sorry, but to me that’s the argument of someone who doesn’t really know men. I would say it’s the men in my life who’ve taught me to be comfortable with my body and looks, that they’ve never been the driving force urging me towards perfection. That’s been a 100% girl thing, it just took some time to realize. That the majority of men that I’ve ever met are perfectly happy with “women as they are” and are not expecting some Victoria’s Secret model by their side. Basically, that most men have a much wider range of what they consider attractive, compared to the range women have for what they consider attractive (as is also evident by this book).

Basically, can we stop blaming men for all the beauty standards? I’m not saying they don’t have a part in women’s motivations, but a lot of it is just us doing it to ourselves. Telling ourselves that this is what men want or expect. But if you actually talk to any average dude, you’ll find that his expectations or desires are really not that crazy.

While she grants that there are some men who are out there “perfectly happy to take women as they are” she adds that “but we also get conditioned away from finding them attractive by all the messages we’ve bombarded with every day about what makes a man a man.” (p.133)

What the heck is she talking about? I would say that it is the most stereotypically manliest men-men that are the most accepting of women as they are. That want women as they are. I feel like it is an inexperienced minority + the occasional asshole who she is speaking about as the norm.

I don’t know, maybe we’ve just encountered very different types of men, but I genuinely felt like this section on looks was pretty shallow and lacked genuine introspection. I’m glad she stopped dieting and all that, but I still don’t think it is entirely fair to blame men on her journey with her looks and attempting to reach the beauty standard. But I will grant that we live in different cultures, and maybe it is different here.

Finally, she asks, “How much energy and time am I supposed to spend trying to find a unicorn?” (p.185).

…I think the point is that you’re not… if you do, you’ll never find one. Everyone settles cause there are no unicorns. Maybe they appear like that at first, but at the end of the day they’re just people, as annoying as the next one at times. She lists a variation of types of wives and couples throughout the book, but no one – in reality – even within those couples is a unicorn. They’re just people who’ve decided to settle for a person because they like the entirety of them more than they dislike the petty annoyances of them.

And that’s what this book is about, that she won’t settle because she is happier in contented solitude than compromising with the dudes that have been available to her. But the whole impression, for me, is that she isn’t really that happy. I mean I can’t say that because I don’t know her, but there is an undercurrent of bitterness here that I don’t know how to react to.

I wanted to read this perspective, but ultimately it wasn’t what I thought it would be. It left me feeling rather sad and I truly hope that Ms Jones is much happier in her daily life than she appears to be between these pages.

All that said, I did laugh a few times and thought it was pretty entertaining, all in all. Just not what I expected. I love the cover, but it made it look more light and humorous than it actually was.

A book about being a spinster, so says the author. The title is hilarious, the book itself is not a humor book, but it certainly has humor. It is a book about the deliberate choice of remaining single. As such, the book is clear, honest, fun, and thoughtful and has a likeable attitude. Me? I'm glad that I am married and see marriage as a much better choice than being single. But she makes her case, and her writing sparkles and it is a fun read. Again, great title, but the book is a bit more of a serious analysis of the ups and downs of being a spinster. Her word, not mine. But true enough.

This was quick and easy to get through, and the author is definitely a funny writer. Some of her claims about how people see her fell flat because she is writing under a pseudonym and she doesn't reveal super-specific details about her life, but I get that this is also part of the fun.

I'm Single Because I Hate My Friends' Husbands by Sarah Amy Jennifer Jones (not her real name) details the highs and lows of living life as a middle-aged spinster. I must admit that I almost passed this one by based on its questionable title, but I am so glad that I took a chance as many of Jones' essays resonated quick strongly. Being single by choice in middle-age is not something that one should ever feel the need to justify nor apologize for, and Ms Jones hits the nail squarely on the head with her sharp and witty takes on everything from fading female friendships as we move in different directions, to the value of enjoying the freedom to pursue our own passions, all while being your true and authentic self.

I will be sure to recommend this book to all of my badass spinster friends.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Sarah Amy Jennifer Jones for an ARC.