Our heroine has been an English teacher for fifteen years. She works for a publishing house as a translator of English and French. She is the mother of two children, and she has been married for thirteen years, and she loves her husband. She has a cleaning lady named Rosa. The story is not very engaging. I think the main character is selfish and self-centred. She thinks that what she has is better than what others have. She internally criticizes everyone. Externally, she behaves perfectly. She is obsessed with her husband. This scared me a lot. She describes each day of her week. You'll never guess what she does on Thursday. I was shocked by her behaviour. Honestly, I didn't like this debut. The girl is obsessed with her husband, and yet she does what she does. Strongly feminist book. I wondered if her husband adored her as much. If you want to know what the main character is going through internally, be sure to read the book "My Husband". I hope the author's next work will be better. If you're looking for a strong thriller, you won't get it here. You can only be terrified by the actions of the main character and her thoughts. I recommend it only to adults. I was bored with this book. Something didn't click between us. Just because I didn't like it doesn't mean you won't like it.

My Husband is a thrilling rollercoaster ride that will leave thriller enthusiasts thoroughly satisfied. The characters are compelling and flawed, adding depth to the narrative. With its fast pace and atmospheric setting, My Husband is an unsettling rollercoaster ride that will leave thriller enthusiasts thoroughly satisfied. Ventura proves her skill as a storyteller in this captivating page-turner.

This was such a fun read! I couldn’t really tell where it was going but the protagonist was one of the most interestingly written characters I’ve come across in quite some time. The little twist in the epilogue was also such a satisfying ending-I’m a fan!

This was chaotic, a bit of a mess but fun. I do think perhaps this book suffered slightly with the translation. Not that it wasn't a great translation but I feel like there were a few things that were communicated slightly differently that may have been more impactful in the original version. I felt like towards the end of the book it was getting very repetitive, however the ending then took me by surprise and made me re-evaluate everything I had read. Of course I had suspected that the husband knew what he was doing but to see it confirmed set a great tone.

I can hardly say I enjoyed it: this was one of the most uncomfortable reads I can remember. My eyes kept trying to skip down the page to avoid reading! Which is a compliment, though it doesn't feel like one. I think this is a great accomplishment.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Wow! This book was unexpected and intriguing. The wife has some serious issues and the levels to which she goes to track and act on perceived sleights is amazing! The epilogue at the end was very revealing and put a spin on the entire book!

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for my free digital ARC in exchange for a review!

My Husband by Maud Ventura was twisted, tense, messed up and I had a grand old time reading it!
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Right from the get go, you notice something is a little off with the narrator - she creates new personas to get her hair done, the smallest faux pas will send her into a dizzying spiral of intense inner monologue, she spends her days meticulously creating a perfect scene for her husband to come home to each night. This unnamed woman is completely, head-over-heels obsessed with her husband, but her problem is that her cup is already full. They’re married, have two children, the perfect house, but she doesn’t want the comforting quotidian - she wants pure, unadulterated passion, and she had some unusual ways of clawing back some of it from their marriage 👀
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I love books that explore love and passion and relationships, because everyone is so different. In one of the most recent books I read, the MC said he loved his boyfriend a little more than yesterday and a little less than tomorrow (adorable), but when the husband of THIS MC expresses a similar sentiment, she’s devastated. Why is he not giving her the fullest version of his love right now? The translation here by Emma Ramadan is absolutely flawless, so smooth that you’re sucked right into her head - her fixations become your fixations, it’s overwhelming at times but I was here for it.
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At one point the narrator is thrown for a loop because she sees her husband with his work colleagues and he seems different. It made me think about the various roles we all play according to who we’re with. What happens to those facets of your identity when they’re put together? Which one is the ‘real’ you? Are they both? Neither? I can’t say too much about the ending but I was torn about it. I liked the idea I’d built up in my head - but at the same time, I do think it’s an accurate representation of gender roles.
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Overall this book is an extremely snappy exploration of obsession, marriage, and the roles we all play - if you’re looking for a quick, intense read this summer, I’d more than recommend it! Out 27th July in the UK 🦀

'Today, I've learned to hide it, to pretend, but deep down there is still only one thing capable of getting me out of bed at any hour of the day or night: love. I've never managed to get any other habits.'

Over the course of one week in the narrator's life, we witness her obsessive, oppressive, and jealous love of her husband, 'My husband has no name; he is my husband, he belongs to me'. Over the course of their marriage, she has constantly strived to perfect her relationship by being perfect, 'Otherwise, I will only have myself to blame if my husband stops wanting to come home.' But she is no cowering walk-over. In fact, she keeps a journal citing all of her husband's infractions and their resulting punishments. As the book progresses through the week, you begin to question just what's going on. Is she the predator or the prey? Is she unhinged or simply neurotic? Does her husband love her or is she trying to force him to love her? Every day offers a new perspective.

The protagonist's constant stream of conscious narration opens the door to her psyche: quirks, flaws, and introversion. The book explores the concepts and ideals around love; how we perceive, give, and receive love. Is there such a thing as too much love? I'm not sure how such a strange book can be so enveloping. You continue to want more, 'But what could possibly fill what is already full'? Indeed, this short book is a unique exploration of our relationships and how they shape us. 'I'm not in love with love! That would mean I love the idea of being in love more than you, which isn't true'! I enjoyed this introspective, thought-provoking book.

You know that anxious spiral, the bottomless pit in your stomach that’s triggered by the words “we need to talk”? My Husband is an unravelling through just that. An intense and claustrophobic character study of a woman infatuated with… her husband. Though the timeline spans a mere week, the layers of this seemingly perfect marriage that are uncovered are countless. To what lengths would you go to hold on to the ‘dream life’?

This is objectively one of the best books I’ve ever read and I think, as we approach the halfway point, that I might already have my top 3 of the year.

This book gives you an unsettling and eery feeling, reminiscent of reading Patricia Highsmith’s Talented Mr Ripley. The Reader spends an uncomfortable week in the head of a nameless young women who has numerous obsessions in her life, the biggest being her husband.

With these obsessional blinkers she does not need anyone else as each new person who enters into their lives she experiences as a dilution of his attention and thus a dilution of him. Such intense emotions unhinge her, she overthinks everything, becomes increasingly insecure and ultimately fears she will never be enough for him.

Such behaviour inflicts a huge pressure on the one she loves. She even takes lovers to ease the romantic pressure that weighs on him. She knows that her love is of the smothering, needy kind: ‘I love and want to be loved with so much gravitas that it quickly becomes exhausting (for me, for the other person). It’s always an unhappy kind of love.’

The nature and dynamic of this relationship empowers her husband to the extent that the reader is left wondering who the victim really is. The mind games they play are mirrored in most love relationships, but these two take them to depth of volatile unchartered waters which made me glad to be able to leave them to their own devices.

I am grateful to NetGalley and Hutchinson Heinemann for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a very intriguing and suspenseful read for me. Right from the start I was invested and captivated by the plot and the writing.
The main character is completely fascinating. A woman that is clearly spiralling and so all consuming in love with her husband. At times I did start to find her irritating but the intrigue in the plot kept me reading.
This is like a lot of literary fiction where not much happens and it is more of a character study than anything else.
I have seen reviews comparing this to You, The Talented Mr Ripley and Gone Girl. I didn't find it like any of these, it definitely stands out by itself. It was more intimate and psychologically complex than those.
And that ending? It completely surprised me and left me wanting more!
I would definitely read from this author again.

the last 5% of the book kept me on the edge. for the first 95%, i was leaning into giving it a 3 ⭐ but i remember that there is still the mystery yet to be uncovered. i was baffled as to how it would turn out.
i was already convinced that i guessed what the ending would be but i was still surprised and caught of guard when the mystery was revealed
😆
4 ⭐ for this provocative, feminist mystery-thriller✨ i trully enjoyed this short but engaging read 🍊

Hard not to give much away with this book - I found it to be very clever, all vibes no plot.
I liked how you were slowly drip fed the sociopathy of the main character, I liked how I raced through the book, but have thought about it lots since. And I loved the epilogue.

Good for if you like no plot but lots of character!

My Husband by Maud Ventura

Thank you Random House, Cornerstone and @netgalley for sending me this ARC to review.

Well, what a strange and delightful little book!

It’s very French, and I love that it’s very French!

Full of angst and toxicity I can honestly say I have never read a protagonist like this. I think she could be described as many things but in old school language the first thing that springs to mind is neurotic!

She is clearly spiralling, obsessed with her husband and whether he loves her or not. She analyses his every word, action, thought, even breath and how it affects her and how he feels about her.

At 272 pages long it is amazing how much of a window I got into her psyche, not much happened but so much happened. You don’t know where the story is going, but I enjoyed the ride in an odd uncomfortable way.

Highly recommend as something a little out of the ordinary and whatever you do, don’t skip the Epilogue.

Easy 4 Stars.

I really enjoyed this book!! I initially requested it because I found the idea behind it to be intriguing and interesting (which it was) but what really grabbed my attention was the writing. Ventura's writing has this fluidity to it that is perfect for this genre and it made me want to keep reading until I finished it in one sitting

This French feminist debut novel is a very smart romp, as it illustrates what would happen if someone would live by the advice given in women's magazines regarding how to please and interpret a man. The 40-year-old protagonist defines her own existence fully by being a wife, her world revolves around her obsession with her husband, whose every gesture and utterance she ponders and over-interprets, spending every waking hour catastrophizing and plotting: She is a beautiful, empty shell who married up and now aims to be a trophy wife. The effect is hilarious (why does he think that I'm a clementine and not a banana? why didn't he hold my hand when we watched tv?), but also very dark, because this is a book about control in relationships, and internalized societal control.

Although she has everything the world tells her she should want (a successful husband, two friendly children, a nice house in the suburbs), this wife is not content, but paranoid, because her husband leaving would mean her own end: There is no personality she can hold on to, because she has replaced it by the accumulation of expectations what a wife is supposed to be. Even in her job as an English teacher, she somehow manages to make the assignments relate to her husband, and as a literary translator, she sees herself as a vessel that occupies other writers' voices, thus once more obliterating her own. And at the end of the day, this is not even about loving her husband, as the text points out again and again - and the husband seems to know that, because to love somebody, you have to be somebody.

Ventura finds a captivating voice for the obsessed narrator, and I really enjoyed how the synaesthesia (the book covers one week, every day has its own color) heightens the sense of fighting for control, as the wife aims to categorize everyone and everything in order to be able to act accordingly, the perfect mirror for whatever is set in front of her. The text reads like a thriller while giving away more about the protagonist than she herself realizes, although we hear everything from a first-person perspective - and that's what makes for particularly successful psychological writing.

A great debut.

enjoyed this book about a woman who’s so single-mindedly obsessed with her husband that it truly feels like nothing else happens—which is, of course, the point. oddly tense, often funny, v compelling!

will appeal to a specific demographic (fans of desperate housewives, the show and the genre, idk) and i am interested to see what the response to this looks like. side note: great cover!!!!

My Husband by Maud Ventura, translated by Emma Ramadan is a gripping and vicious portrayal of obsession, for lovers of family thrillers, deception and character driven plots. I will start by stating that in my opinion, this book won't be for everyone, taking on a Marmite quality of 'love it or hate it.' Thankfully for me, I definitely fell into the former of those choices. I couldn't put this book down and raced through it in a day.

My Husband takes place over the short space of time of one week, told from the perspective of an adoring wife, almost Stepford in her presentation and adoration of her husband. However, from page one, it is evident that all isn't as perfect as it seems, with our narrator riddled with doubts over whether her partner truly loves her. Hyper-fixating on her concerns, she chooses to take matters into her own hands to control and maintain her perfect marriage and the life that she has built around it.

My Husband was a delicious juxtaposition of a read, in equal parts demanding all my attention, whilst also almost nauseating me with the tension which Maud Ventura whipped up through her writing style. It felt like the literary equivalent of watching a horror movie through your fingers or from behind a cushion. I loved the exploration of Impostor Syndrome and witnessing the lengths the narrator would go to in order to feel accepted and worthy of the life she found herself in. Overall, a top tier read for me.

This book is one for fans of Gillian Flynn's 'Gone Girl.'

Thank you to Netgalley, Penguin Rando House and Cornerstone for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this book.

This was a strange book but I enjoyed it. Character driven mostly and not much plot at all but I do like shitty characters so it’s all good. Something kept me wanting more and I enjoyed the thought process of the main character, it was very intriging and dark in places.
I would recommend this if you like weird and dark characters.

An odd and entirely compelling first-person narrator novel which gives the reader a voyeuristic view into marriage. the narrator is darkly obsessed with the romantic love of her husband, totting up his behaviour points on a daily basis in notebooks and dishing out punishments when his behaviour is found lacking. This is a dark and gripping read, you feel as though you are being shown something you shouldn't see through her obsessive scorekeeping. the epilogue whilst not unsurprising is shocking and made me re-evaluate the story. Really excellent.