Really enjoyed this book - great debut, and great concept. I think she wrapped it up in the only way that made sense, really, as we're stuck in this endless loop. I didn't love the friend character, but I did really enjoy getting these mini versions of what life could have been, and I REALLY enjoyed when she hunted down former husbands and saw that the grass wasn't always greener. Looking forward to more from Gramazio!

I really enjoyed this book but I wish we had more closure at the end. It was abrupt and I wish there was an epilogue! Otherwise, I thought it was charming, funny and a quick read. I gave it 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3.

What an interesting idea for a book - so many husbands. Without giving it away, know that it's a commentary on the relationship one has with a partner. I thought the book was well-written and funny at times and kept me guessing as to what would happen next - which is always a plus for me in a novel. I think this one would be good for a book discussion group because it would be interesting to hear everyone's thoughts on what we would change or what we would want or if we would want this situation. Loved the originality of the concept - so glad I read this one. Thanks to the publisher for the advanced copy!

I was very into the concept of this book in the beginning, but as it continued, it just became mundane. It failed to answer all of the questions I had, and the ending wasn’t satisfying for me. I would recommend this book to those who are interested in all types of marital relationships.
I want to give a big thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for an advanced reader’s copy of this book.

This was a lot of fun to read. It could have easily gotten monotonous but the author managed to keep the storyline interesting as the husbands cycled through. The narrator was quirky and interesting, although not always likeable. I prefer dynamic characters like that. She was way too calm about this scenario at times 😂


SPOILERS AHEAD







I have seen a few reviews that criticize the ending, but I enjoy it. I would have been turned off if a husband came down and they had an instalove moment. This ending was realistic (in a very non-realistic scenario).

Lauren's life is okay. Four years after a break up and she is still single while her closest friends are either married or coupled up. After a night out for her best friends Hen party, she finds a strange man in her house. He says he is her husband, everything in their home says he is her husband, yet she has no memory of him. When he makes a trip into the attic for, he suddenly disappears and in his place, a new husband. Does Lauren now have an endless supply of spouses, and would she be the one to disappear if she went into the attic?

I haven't read very many magical realism books, but the ones I have, I have enjoyed immensely. Especially when they have some sort of sci-fi element to them like The Husbands. Huge thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for an advanced copy for me to read.

There is no time travel in this book. Time doesn't stand still while Lauren shuffles through the many attic husbands. Life around her continues, but with each husband there are bits and pieces of her life that changes. She is no longer friends with this or that person, maybe she has had a promotion at work or she doesn't work at all. She could even wind up with a pet raccoon for all she knows, but she still forges on trading one husband for the next.

At first I thought this book was about feeling the need to conform to societal norms. Feeling like you have to settle down just because all of those around you are. That isn't the case though. Yes it does have some of those elements but it is more about acceptance. Accepting the life you have, and the realization that not everything will be perfect all the time.

The Husbands is a delightful read. Are we given a peek into every single moment of life with each trade in? No. Thank goodness because that would be a bit tedious. Gramazio's prose seamlessly blends emotion with amusement, offering a delightful combination of heartfelt sincerity and witty humor. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for Holly Gramazio's debut The Husbands.

This premise sounded SO interesting, and it was in the beginning. But about halfway through I got bored and started wondering what the point of it was – was she going to find a husband she wanted to keep? Why were husbands coming out of the attic? And I just no longer cared. I'm trying to put books down that aren't holding my attention or that I'm not eager to pick up, so I set this down at 50% and had a friend who'd read it fill me in. It sounds like it does get more interesting, but that it could have been about 100 pages shorter.

This book was so much fun, I didn’t even realize that there would be a touch of magic in here, and I really appreciated it. Lauren comes back from a bachelorette night, celebrating her friend, and she comes home to a man that she never met, and who she is married to, wait what??????..... That was crazy, so clearly when they go to the attic to fix something or look for something, a new MAN/HUSBAND comes out. This woman goes through over 100 of these men, some she sent back for her own vain reasons and some for better reasons. The book kept getting repetitive and I couldn’t settle for getting to know the characters at all because she kept switching the men up. Less is more and after 50% I was getting a little bored, it does pick up, but it was not what I expected at all. I know this book would be for someone out there but it was not for me.

Thank you Netgalley and the Publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

A woman returns home one night and is greeted by her husband, Michael... the problem is she's never seen this man before in her life. And before she can even begin to figure things out another man emerges in his place, and so on.

The premise is wonderfully unique. But sometimes less is more.
The book sounded like so much fun. But in the end, I didn't care for the execution of it. By the halfway point, she met upwards of 130 husbands...
even I was bewildered.
No need to keep track, because we don't get a chance to meet them all.

In the end, I feel like the book could have been better if there were fewer husbands and more of a chance to get to know them.
That way there's a "husband" or Two to " root for".

As I said; this one sounded great. But it just seemed like there was too much going on. I felt a bit overwhelmed while reading.

I loved this book so much and I haven't stopped raving about it. I knew it would be one of my favorites of the year when I was only about halfway through. First, there's the amazing premise, and the hilarious opening of the novel, with Lauren coming home to the husband she doesn't know, but who everyone around her does.
A premise this good is hard to do justice by over the course of a few hundred pages, but Holly Gramazio knew how to raise the stakes to great comedic effects. I devoured this novel in the course of a few days because I couldn't wait to find out how it would all pan out, and continued to be surprised every step of the way. It kept me guessing--and entertained--until the very last page. So. Much. Fun.

[I share short reviews and books I love on my Instagram account, @asjouhanneau]

4.5⭐️

The Husbands begins when single woman Lauren suddenly finds that her attic is providing her with an endless series of husbands- every time one goes back up in the attic, another comes back out. While Lauren struggles to figure out how and why this is happening, and what to do about it, we’re treated to more and more hilarity. Some of the characters we meet are just too funny.

With each new husband, Lauren’s life also shifts in some form, all byproducts of a different path taken. Lauren is left to decide again and again whether to keep searching, or to be happy where she is.

This was delightful. I loved the original take on something similar to yet different from a time loop, and while it had depth, it also had so much light.

Thank you Holly Gramazio, Doubleday Books, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

So you have to buy the premise: Lauren's attic has started issuing her husbands, one right after the other. If she doesn’t like one of them, she simply sends him to the attic and a new one comes down.
It all started one evening after a late night out with friends. She returned home to discover a man in her apartment—one she'd never seen before—and that she was apparently married to. Photographs, friends, and social media posts confirmed it. But after he makes a trip to the attic, Lauren's life gets re-set, and another husband appears.
Once she even starts to fall in love with one of the husbands, Carter, but when one day he goes to the attic to look for something, he, too, is gone
After trying out over 200 husbands, Lauren is ready to do something drastic, if only to get her life back to how it used to be.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received a free advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest, thoughtful review.
With that being said, let's dig into The Husbands by Holly Gramazio:

Are you a "what-iffer"? Do you constantly daydream or find yourself wondering how your life would be if certain things hadn't worked out? If so, this book is must-read, a satisfying answer to one of the biggest, most private "what-ifs" people might have in life: "What if I had ended up with someone else?"

The Husbands begins with Lauren returning from a night out, only to discover that her husband - who she DID NOT have when she left earlier that day - is home waiting up for her. We get to join in on the mental rollercoaster of Lauren's adjustment phase, only to have her husband disappear after walking up into the attic - and be immediately replaced with a new, different man. As these exchanges happen again and again throughout the book, readers may find themselves, as I did, thrilled at the idea of a revolving door of potential partners, like a sci-fi take on Tinder where you get a real taste of what it would be like to settle down with someone, instead of only imagining it before swiping left or right. The big questions, which Lauren also explores for herself, are: how do you know you've picked the right person? Could there be someone better behind door number 2? or door 3? or door 561? What do you do when there's always an opportunity to find a life you like more?

Despite being a debut novel, this is very clearly written by a talented professional. Gramazio does a wonderful job of fully fleshing out characters, sometimes more than once; as the universe shifts around Lauren to accommodate each new husband, the ripples of reality make little waves of change in the lives of the people close to her. I found myself identifying with Lauren throughout the book, as well as her friends, husbands, and neighbors, as they are all so complicatedly, perfectly human. From the very beginning all the way to the perfect ending, Gramazio never makes the scenario of the story feel unapproachable or impossible. Everything is just as strange and yet just as normal as it should be if it were to happen to someone in real life, which is something I particularly appreciated. Everything is just the right amount of funny and reflective, like all good, comedies, and kept me laughing as I read it and thinking about it long after I had finished. This is a book I truly had fun reading from cover to cover, and found myself reprioritizing my schedule to fit in more time to sit and read it

And oh, the ending! I won't spoil, of course not, but goodness, you couldn't have asked for a better way to wrap things up. I was so satisfied with the ending that I found myself disappointed when the book disappeared from my digital database due to being finished - I wanted to go right back to the start and read it all over again.

This book is perfect for all the people who spend their time sorting other people on dating apps, all the people who check their exes' social feeds and think about what they did or didn't miss out on, and all of the what-iffers out there. Don't skip this book, so you don't have to wonder what it would've been like if you had read it after all.

I wanted to like this book as I was intrigued by the synopsis. I really struggled with their being so many husbands and not felling like there was any connection to one before we moved to the next. Some people will enjoy this one. It just wasn't for me.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for advanced copy, and I give my review freely

The Husbands had an interesting premise that could have been a little more in depth or shortened to a novella. All around an interesting "what-if" story but not necessarily one I would re-read.

What an incredible debut. "The Husbands" is unique and exciting, I can't wait for more people to get to experience this book. Gramazio has such a natural, kinetic voice. I cannot wait to read more from her.

When Lauren returns home one night after her best friend’s bachelorette party (hen party bc she’s British) , she’s greeted by her husband Michael, except she wasn’t married when she left for the party, nor has she ever met Michael before. However, how her apartment looks, photos and friends tell a different story. But then when he goes up to the attic to grab something, he’s gone and a new husband comes down, and everything changes, her apartment decor, photos, her clothes etc. She realizes rather quickly that her attic is is a husband portal and every time the current husband goes up a new one, and a slightly altered (sometimes very altered) life comes down. The men are real and exist in the world and they are all choices, good and bad, she could have made in her life, and each choice affects her life and the people in her life in very different ways.


I know this one is getting mixed reviews but once I understood what the author was trying to convey I really enjoyed it (the middle was a bit slow but I was still very engaged). Lauren’s personal choices (i.e. who she married) had far reaching effects, almost everything changed at some point with very few stable concepts (some ancillary relationships were so solid they remained so regardless of Lauren’s influence while other were married to different people depending on Lauren’s choices) - it was almost like the time travel butterfly effect but with spousal choice. I thought it was a creative book with a fun spin on how we fall in love and how we make choices in life.

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for the ARC to review

4.25 stars

I wanted to love this book, but it ended up falling a bit flat for me. I didn't really feel a connection to Lauren, the main character, so I think that was a lot of it. The beginning of the book was a bit too impersonal for my taste, since I knew very little about Lauren and the husbands were rapidly changing. We do end up getting to know Lauren a lot better as the story progresses, but I just never felt a real connection. The premise was definitely a unique and interesting investigation into "what if," with the paranormal twist of the magic attic, seeing how ending up with different spouses changed Lauren's life in different ways. I think I was secretly hoping for something that was more comedic or romantic, so this book just wasn't quite what I was expecting. It wasn't a bad read, just not quite the right book for me.

Thank you to Doubleday Books | Doubleday and NetGalley for the advance review copy of The Husbands. All opinions in my review are completely my own.

The Husbands
By Holly Gramazio
Pub Date: April 2, 2024

⭐️: 3.5/5

When Lauren comes home from a party to her flat in London, she is surprised when there is a man already there, and according to her phone pictures and updated decor, that man is her husband. While trying to come to terms with how she can have a husband that she does not recall ever meeting, much less marrying, he goes up into the attic to change a lightbulb and another, different husband appears in his place. Coming to the realization that her attic is producing an infinite supply of husbands whenever one goes up, she faces the questions of how this is happening, and how to make it stop.

A magic, husband producing attic is quite a novel idea for a book. The time/genre bending qualities of this book, and its commentary on how we make decisions about our lives given the multitude of choices we are faced with every day in the modern world is certainly interesting, but I felt that for much of the book, the execution was slightly lacking. I’m the first to admit that I find Groundhog Day themed time loop movies exhausting to watch, and that’s just watching. When books play on this time loop phenomenon, I find myself skimming to get to something that resonates, since the repetitive nature of the over-and-over-ness of the plot is just grating and quite honestly, boring. Although this concept is slightly different than a time loop, they occupy that same place of repetitiveness when it comes to reading about it, and I found the first part of this book to be a slog to get through, even if it was at times funny and entertaining. Eventually, I got more into the premise and it improved, and it was definitely a thought provoking book, even if the main character Lauren remained a little annoying and unlikable. I think it is ultimately hard to keep a book with this type of premise interesting, since it relies on being a bit circular. Ultimately, not a plot I think I’d choose to read again, but not a bad read overall either.

Thank you to @netgalley and @doubledaybooks for this free eARC!!

Lauren is a single woman dreading having to go to her best friend's wedding without a date, when suddenly a husband appears coming down her attic ladder. When he goes back up, a new husband descends, and so on. Lauren spends the next year cycling through hundreds of husbands, trying to find the perfect match. While ambitious, the main premise doesn't really work - new husbands, and new lives, but the larger world around her seldom changes. When she meets someone else in similar circumstances, her "resets" don't affect him at all and vice versa. The suspension of disbelief was a bit too difficult for me to handle. Additionally, all of the new circumstances and new husbands over the course of a few hundred pages really seemed to prevent the protagonist from experiencing any personal growth, until everything comes to a big climax at the end.