How fun! I thoroughly enjoyed this sweet and short story about a woman finding husbands in her attic. It’s cute, cheeky, and honestly kept me guessing at every page — I had no idea how her journey would end (nor did I want it to). (Thanks, Doubleday Books and NetGalley, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.)

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

3.5 📚 I typically only read domestic thrillers, psychological thrillers, and some graphic novels; however, I decided to give this read a try as a “palate cleanser.” The premise of the book was so interesting, but I think in that interesting premise the characters were lost at times. I loved the idea of Lauren, a serial dater (haven’t we all either been one or known one?) arriving home one evening to a husband… only to have him disappear into the attic and out pops a different husband! It just felt a bit chaotic at times. I may give it another read later on to see if I can make heads or tails of it. I will try this author again in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley for this advance reader copy of The Husbands in exchange for a fair review which will appear on Goodreads.
Something is going on with the attic - whenever Lauren sends her husband up, down comes a different husband. The idea of this book could go horribly wrong, or it could be funny and intriguing. I found it to be a fun, palate cleansing book from historical fictions or thrillers, as the husbands are like a box of chocolates.
Early on, going through 100 husbands was like a whirlwind and I prayed that pace didn't hold. Its hard to latch on to a character when he gets a page or less. But then I quickly realized that this book is more about Lauren then the husbands.
It's not the book club book for my group (which reads historical fiction) but I really enjoyed this as a diversion. This could be recommended to patrons who are looking for the same.
3.5* which I will round to 4 for the purpose of this pre-pub.

I liked this so much I immediately texted several friends and urged them to add it to their to-read lists.

Lauren Strickland comes home from her best friend’s bachelorette party one night and makes a scary discovery: there’s a man in her apartment. But the man doesn’t threaten or hurt her. Instead he urges her to come inside, and soon Lauren learn the man’s name is Michael and he’s her husband. There’s just one problem: Lauren’s never been married. She has no memories of a wedding, never mind what the pictures in her apartment show her.

Before Lauren can figure out where Michael came from or what to do with him, he climbs into the attic to change a lightbulb that’s burned out. When her “husband” climbs back down, he’s a completely different man who believes he’s Lauren’s husband now. Suddenly Lauren realizes that her attic has turned into a magic portal: she can send the men—the husbands—who come down back into the attic and reset her entire world and personal circumstances.

At times it’s a perplexing set of circumstances, and Lauren doesn’t understand why she’s going through them. She does know, however, that before Elena’s bachelorette party, she’d been smarting from the end of her relationship with her long-term boyfriend, Amos. When Amos comes down from the attic as one of the husbands, Lauren gets a sample of what life would have been like as his wife.

As the husbands come and go and the months pass, Lauren starts to zero in on what a lifelong commitment would look like. The husbands offer their own quirks and preferences, their own experiences and views on relationships. Through every “marriage,” Lauren will have to decide whether she’ll ever want to stop one of the men from going up to the attic and become a wife for real.

Author Holly Gramazio’s debut offers readers a lot to ponder about what it means to stay with one person forever. Setting her book in her adopted city of London, she uses the sensibility of a dry British wit to great effect. Gramazio balances humor and insight, making for a book that will leave readers amused but also thinking about their own long-term commitments.

The novel doesn’t answer every question it poses, which might leave some readers a little puzzled. Also, while Lauren spends most of her time with the husbands in her apartment, she does follow a few of them on various adventures in other parts of the country (and, in one case, the world.) The adventures aren’t always as successful in execution as they might have sounded in the plotting stage. However, Lauren is a likeable protagonist and will most like induce sympathy in readers who will also find themselves wondering what they would do in her place.

I didn't know what to expect from this book but I thought the premise was fun so I had to try it. I am glad that I did! It actually went in a completely different direction than I imagined it would and I'm always pleased to be taken by surprise. I think my brain is just a bit too wired to a "House Hunters" type format so I wasn't prepared for this ride but it was very fun and entertaining ride. I highly recommend for anyone looking for a fun, contemporary adult fiction read. Thank you to Netgalley and Doubleday for an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

3.5 Stars

This story revolves around Lauren, and the seemingly endless parade of men who, one at a time, descend from her attic and appear as if conjured by magic. Fortunately, at least for her, she is able to ‘return’ them by sending them back up to the attic on some mission to find something. But once one has been ‘returned’ another follows shortly after, and with each new husband, it seems her home is magically redecorated, as well, and not always in a way that pleases her.

Her friends and family seem to not react as each new husband descends from the attic, as though they are always her first and only husband, the former one having magically been forgotten.

Each new husband stays until she requests they go up to the attic for something that she creates a reason for, but only so they will disappear once they are there, at least from her life, as well as apparently from her family and friends memories.

There are so many husbands, over 200, in this novel, and none of them stay for very long, but since they aren’t really there for long, they are never memorable, and thus the story felt very repetitive after a while, even though each man was different, in some ways, from another.

While I felt that this was very different from any other novel that I’ve read, the repetitive nature of the story took away from some of my enjoyment of this story, but I’d be interested in what she writes next, as I did appreciate how different this story was from anything else I’ve read.



Pub Date: 02 Apr 2024


Many thanks for the ARC provided by Doubleday Books, Doubleday

wow what an interesting book and a different guy comes out of the attic. this book was okay and I really didn't like of of the husband's per say. they felt very cardboard.

Lauren goes out with her best friend for her "hen do" and comes home to her husband. But she didn't HAVE a husband before she left. And here he is, coming down the attic stairs, acting like he's always been there. When he goes back up, and comes down a different person entirely, Lauren's home and life change around her in a blink. In a matter of minutes, she trades one husband after another until she finds one that might work for her. But there's always something that makes her want to trade in for a new husband. One chews too loudly. One is an evil millionaire. One is a cocaine addict. But where do you stop when you have easy access to change your life in an instant?

I could not put this book down. The crazy antics that happen as she's switching are fun and funny. Once she was into a marriage for more than a few sentences' worth of her time, I couldn't wait to see what she would find wrong with the new guy. Near the end, when this burden of constant new husbands was weighing on her, she clearly started losing it, and her lives with the husband turned worse and worse, and I couldn't help feeling for her, though some of the lengths she went to... Geez. The ending was so good, and I loved the way she resolved the whole situation.

I'm leaving out a major spoiler, because I don't want to spoil, but suffice to say, I appreciate Bohai and his purpose. A lot.

This book was so much fun. I look forward to recommending it to the patrons at my library. What a ride.

I received an Advanced Reader Copy via NetGalley in return for sharing my thoughts on this book. Thanks to the author and publisher for this opportunity!

The Husbands by Holly Garamazio was witty and heartfelt look at life and all the choices and possibilities we are faced with daily. I thought it was a great debut novel. The Husbands was funny, and thought provoking. It had me captivated and chuckling the whole way through. Lauren’s dilemma made me contemplate my marriage and life in all its phases. If my younger self was just plunked here out of nowhere, would I be happy? I chose this book because it was featured on Anne Bogel’s list of 2024 spring releases.
Thank you Net Galley for an ARC of this book..

I was so intrigued by the premise of this story. It is unique and charming.

The book is paced perfectly. It pulls you straight in and keeps you turning pages throughout.

I loved the humor and crazy differences between characters in each “world”.

I very much enjoyed the majority of this book. The premise was interesting, and I kept coming back to see what would happen. Unfortunately, I didn’t love the ending, and the jumping between husbands got a little tedious. Some good life lessons in the book, but was a little let down at the end.

Entertaining romantic comedy set in current times. A single woman returns home from a freind's hen party to find a man in her hom e- and her life altered to include this husband. She soon discovers that sending him to the attic turns him into a different man. . . again and again. As she works through the husbands, she questions her choices and what she really wants in her life and in relationships.

Lauren arrives home one night to a husband everyone seems to remember she married but her. Even her phone and picture frames agree with such. We quickly realize that the stranger/husband climbed down from her (recently magical) attic and said attic produces a new husband every time the current husband goes in. Comedy and hard decisions ensue!

I thought this was a lot of fun and scratched that Midnight Library itch. I love what-ifs scenarios especially when done well and do not involve time travel. I found Lauren to be pragmatic and relatable - especially how she handles being given a magic attic. The the side characters and husbands were equally interesting and overall the book was solid.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book has such an interesting premise. However, I felt that many of the questions about how the attic worked were never answered and I would have liked to see that. The story sees the main character grow and learn what is important and what is trivial. There is a lot of self-discovery and thought provoking going on in this read. However, for me, it was just an OK read. It moved too slowly for my liking and some parts felt repetitive. The premise had promise, but I hoped for more.

Holly Gramazio takes the idea of alternate realities and runs with it in a fun but thoughtful way. Lauren is a likable character. Through her husbands, she goes through the stages of what ifs that we all would given the same situation. What if I don't like this guy? What if I don't like this life? What if this is all there is?

The Husbands would be great for a weekend snuggle read.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

“The Husbands” is a fantasy tale about an attic that produces an infinite number of husbands for our protagonist, Laure, who, before the attic, was a single person who had just broken up with her boyfriend of several years. All she needs to do is decide which attic husband is the one she wants to commit to, if she wants to commit to any of them!

I found this story to be rather unique. It started out as funny, as she banishes husband after husband for little things, such as the fact that one of them chews too loudly, with his mouth open. For the first couple of husbands, she consults her family as to how they like him, how the marriage is, etc. She quickly abandons that as quickly as she lets each husband go. Also with each husband comes other sets of challenges for Lauren, such as a different job or differences within her family or friends. This makes the story a little intriguing, but the reader doesn’t get a chance to adjust either because as soon as the changes are introduced into the story, Lauren sends the husband back, like a reset of sorts with her life and those around her. The story takes another turn when one of Lauren’s husbands voluntarily tries to go to the attic to get away from her. What’s going on here? You’ll have to finish the novel to find out.

As I mentioned earlier, I found the story to be unique and at times funny. However, it also got a bit annoying with the constant banishing of husbands. At one point in the novel, it’s mentioned that Lauren has gone through over 200 husbands in the span of the year the novel appears to take place. That is a lot of husbands! And it also says a lot about Lauren. Does she have a commitment phobia? Is there something down deep in her subconscious that says she unhappy with her life? Is she trying to find that perfect life, with that perfect person? She seems to find fault with every husband that comes along, not willing to accept the person for who he is, and not willing to make changes to herself to make any of them last longer than a few hours or days. Considering that she was single at the beginning of the novel, returning from a bachelorette (or hen) party for her best friend, perhaps there was some underlying resentment with her friend getting married and she still being single, and Lauren somehow willed a way to dip her feet into marriage without the messiness of an actual real commitment? Unfortunately, the novel doesn’t really delve into any of these thoughts and certainly doesn’t address how an ordinary attic one day suddenly starts spitting out husbands the next, seemingly without end. There were a lot of questions that I wished the author had at least tried to give resolutions to, but it never happened.

So I’m giving this debut novel three stars and suggesting it as a beach read, recommending a lot of suspension of belief. Don’t try to read too much into it; just go along for the ride.

Not quite like anything else as this novel creates a unique situation. How unexpected to suddenly have a husband descend the stairs from the attic. And then every time he goes into the attic, a different husband appears. What to do? Where are they coming from? Is one of them actually Mr. Right?

We've all heard the song "It's Raining Men" and thought how much fun that would be to have unlimited choices for our life partner. Well, as it happens, its not so much fun in this mind bending novel. Lauren comes home from a hen do and finds a stranger in her flat who says he's her husband. When he goes up in the attic to change a light bulb, a new husband comes down. After the initial shock wears off, Lauren samples them all. With the new husbands comes new jobs, new lifestyles and changes in her friends and families lives. It finally gets to be too much and Lauren figures out a drastic way to settle on just one man.

Love, love, loved!! A never ending supply of husbands sounds so perfect, but life and people rarely are perfect! This is a great book club pick, where only one question needs to be asked-“What would you do?”