I was recommended this book by an enthusiastic culture blogger and requested it from NetGalley straight away, but I was left thoroughly disappointed with its execution - to the point where I really resented it by the time I'd finished.

The premise is that Lauren returns to her flat to find a strange man there. He claims to be her husband, and after a bit of investigating, she discovers this is correct. This starts a chain of events where Lauren's attic produces a constant stream of husbands for her. Not happy with the current one? Simply send him up to the loft and he will be replaced.

This book started off quite fun, but quickly got on my nerves. The character of Lauren was never really sufficiently fleshed out, and felt slightly robotic - there was a real lack of emotion as she rattled through the husbands. Some chapters became a literal list of several contenders, with a random fact about each of them thrown in. There was some attachment to the husband that got away and wasn't intentionally sent back to the attic, but soon after, I lost interest and couldn't wait for the book to end. It really dragged on.

Supporting characters were just names really, I never got a sense of who they really were.

The rules around the system seemed quite flimsy too - Lauren is able to keep in touch with one of her past husbands via text, but everything else in her world resets each time a new one arrives?

I was also left thinking - what was the point? Was there a bigger picture? Was this meant to be a cutting satire riffing on today's app based dating scene? But the book (finally) ended, and I'm none the wiser.

In short, can't recommend.

I haven't even FINISHED this yet but I had to come and say how much I am ABSOLUTELY LOVING it. I am a total sucker for anything time travel, alternative reality, body swap etc - and this one not only delivers this through a fantastic, thought provoking concept, but does it with a knowing 'meta' perspective (e.g. the lead spends an afternoon binge watching time travel films), bags of humour (one of my favourite moments was when she rejected a husband because she couldn't be bothered to get to grips with the menstrual cup that version of herself used) and - to my surprise and delight - artfully observed, multi-dimensional characters who feel REAL. They have nuanced, interesting flaws that made me think, rather than just being caricatures. And when you're generating hundreds of husbands, it would have been easy to slip into caricatures or stereotypes. Finally, although as I say I haven't finished, I'm really appreciating that the narrative doesn't always do what I expect it to - sometimes I think I know what's coming and it doesn't, so a nice fresh approach.
UPDATE - I have now finished and the ending was perfect. I was quite worried how she was going to end it and trying to predict (a repeat husband? A new perfect husband? Happy with singledom?) but it was ideal - left me feeling uplifted, and I thought the change of speaker was a wonderful touch. Finally reflecting back, I like how the 'life lesson' didn't hit you over the head - the moral was done in a light touch way, nothing saccharine. Overall an immensely witty, intelligent, modern, fun and thought-provoking book.
I can't recommend this enough - am raving about it to all my friends.

Really enjoyed this book, so different to my usual reads.

Lauren has what at first glance, seems to be the perfect problem, an endless supply of husbands created by her magic loft, each time a hubby goes up there he is replaced by a brand new man. What could be better? Huh, well aside from the fact that she doesn’t know the first thing about each new guy, how they met, where he works, what his name is!! Oh and how will she know if the perfect man is here now, already back in the loft or maybe the next one to come down. Hmm, now you mention it I suppose i’ll just be grateful for my run of the mill non magic loft.

Wry, thoughtful and witty, I’ve never read anything quite like it.

‘the best and most hygienic way to clear up a husband’s vomit is to adjust the universe so that it was never there in the first place.’

Imagine you come home, a bit drunk, and there’s a strange man in your house claiming to be your husband. Your phone, your friends, your bills also claims he’s your husband. There’s only one problem, you don’t have a husband. This is Lauren’s new reality when her attic magically starts generating one after another. Some she keeps for weeks, some for minutes, some are new faces and other blasts from the past; but with seemingly infinite choice how do you ever know you’ve got the one?

This is not a romantic comedy. Actually, there’s very little romance at all. Lauren, the protagonist, is married to these men with no memory of their shared history which (although it becomes normal throughout the book) is deeply uncomfortable. To me it’s not a story about love, it’s about self discovery.

I really liked the way you learn about the main character through her numerous husbands. It’s very cleverly done and I commend the author’s imagination and observational skills in creating So. Many. Husbands. With so many specific and often disgusting details.

Although this book is very witty I don’t think it’s funny. There are times where Lauren falls into nihilistic holes and times where she goes borderline insane and has to reset the situation or else: both of which are understandable, but I also increasingly felt sad and lonely for her. It made me glad that I don’t have a reset button on life.

I really enjoyed this and it really made me think, looking forward to more of Holly Gramazio’s stories!

Thank you Netgalley and Vintage for my review copy.

I was so intrigued by the premise for this one: Lauren comes home to find a stranger - who claims to be her husband - in her house. He provides all the proof he would need to confirm that she is, in fact, married to this man she has never he disappears while changing a lightbulb in the loft and another man returns, and then another, and then another, and another and so on until Lauren realises that her loft is creating an endless supply of husbands. She must decide who is the best fit in her life.

I could not put this book down once I started, I couldn't help but enjoy the wildly hilarious story. I did, however, feel it could have been shorter or the pacing could have been better at the end as I felt I was rushing to finish just to be done.

This book was INCREDIBLE! So inventive, funny and different from anything out there

The Husbands is the time-bending story of Lauren, who comes back from a hen party to find a man in her flat claiming to be her husband - and everything, from bills to photos, seems to indicate that he is right. She eventually discovers that her attic is producing an endless supply of husbands, some more to her taste and some not so much.

This book was just amazing! The premise was so original and the author managed to build an incredible story around it. I loved Lauren and the friend she makes throughout her journey (I can't say too much about him, but once you read the book you'll know who I'm talking about). This book really made me consider how each and every decision we make can take us on a different path, and her husbands were a product of those different realities possible for her.

Thank you so much to Chatto & Windus/Vintage/Random House UK and NetGalley for this eARC!

Can you imagine coming home one evening and being greeted by your husband... So far so normal ... Except Lauren doesn't have a husband and never has ... And then all of a sudden there are a parade of them from her attic. If she sends one back up another one comes down. How do you know which one is the right one to keep. Reflecting how people behave in the modern online dating world, Lauren, often sends back husbands for the smallest of infractions, and then rightly for big ones, and one that she was falling for went back up before she could stop him. The concept was really interesting and the story was well written. I enjoyed seeing how Lauren evolved over the book and who she choose to spend more time with and why. I was a little disappointed with the ending but overall I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to others.

Not for me. The trope was interesting, but soon got stale. The story is each time a husband goes in the loft a different one comes out, and her life is completely different each time. There are some graphic sex scenes, and to be honest they don’t really make sense (who has sex with someone they’ve just met, whom they know nothing about, and whom they don’t even find that attractive). The story got old quick and became tiresome

A really fun read, light-hearted humour with a great concept to back that up. The pacing at times was a little sporadic, somewhat in-keeping with the constant influx of new husbands, new characters to build into the narrative, but a very solid debut overall.

I was interested in this book because of the intriguing premise, which promised a fresh and original idea. As Lauren returns home to her London flat one night, she's met at the door by a man claiming to be her husband, Michael. The catch? She's never been married to him, nor has she ever seen him before. Despite her confusion, evidence suggests they've been together for years, leaving Lauren bewildered. The narrative kicks off swiftly without much preamble, introducing the first husband right away, followed by a rapid succession of others, which, unfortunately, didn't allow for much depth in character exploration.

The abundance of characters posed a challenge as none of them felt fully developed, including the more prominent ones like Nat, Toby, and Maryam, who all seemed somewhat one-dimensional. Lauren's character also left much to be desired, appearing fickle and shallow as she effortlessly switches husbands for trivial reasons. Instead of evolving, she remains stagnant, even resisting personal growth to the extent of discarding a husband simply because he challenges her to be a better person. This lack of character development made her increasingly grating and unlikable as the story progressed.

While the book was easy to read and held some engagement, it ultimately fell short of expectations. I found myself craving answers to the intriguing mysteries posed, such as why husbands were seemingly materializing from the attic, yet these questions remained unanswered. Nonetheless, the occasional unexpected twists injected some much-needed intrigue into the narrative, preventing it from becoming monotonous. Despite my efforts to anticipate the outcome, the resolution remained elusive.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy to review.

Description:
Lauren's attic is making her new husbands. Or, not quite: it's shunting her from husband-based timeline to husband-based timeline: changing her partner, but also her decor, her friends, and her life.

Liked:
I really, really like that the change is between Lauren's established lives with her husbands, rather than just dropping a new guy into an unchanging situation. Guess that's why it's 'husbands' rather than 'dates'. Lauren and her friends are well-realised and compelling, and it's a very London novel, referencing places I know well, which is always nice. As a game designer, I loved the early focus on figuring out the 'rules' of the attic. This book is an absolute page-turner - an easy read I found hard to put down.

Disliked:
I was disappointed that the life-changing (rather than one-person-changing) element wasn't explored further - I was delighted with it at the start of the novel and hoped it was going to end up exploring something quite profound. Lauren instead makes some rules which sort of allow her to skirt any interesting interaction with this element. I'm going to try and be as vague as possible here, but if you want zero spoilers, please skip the rest of this paragraph! Towards the end of the novel I found Lauren got a lot less sympathetic. Her interpretation of what's happening is only one possible interpretation, and I found her carelessness, without any kind of long-term repercussions or even another character to take her to task, quite distancing.

Would recommend. An interesting and fun ride with a Palm Springs kind of vibe.

This was fun! Every time Lauren sends her husband up into the attic, a new one comes down. They all have a history and a past together, and her life is different with each one. A great variety of personalities and experiences, this is a very entertaining book from start to finish. I love the fact you cannot guess exactly what will happen

I requested this book from Netgalley because I thought the premise sounded fun: a single woman comes home from a hen do one night to find that she has a husband that she’s apparently been married to for 4 years. Then she discovers that every time her husband goes into the attic, he’s replaced by a totally different husband. This book was fantastic. Much of it made me laugh out loud, and I spent the rest of it knowingly smirking. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next, and I’m honestly a bit gutted that it’s finished. When this comes out in May, get it!

To start with I was quite bemused about what was going on l, but as I got into the book, it slid into place and I really enjoyed the story. It is very clever and an unusual idea. I thought it was the right place to end things once I got to the end of the book, quite an extreme way of getting there.l though.

Lauren’s best friend is getting married however her own love life has flat lined. She returns from the hen party a little worse for wear to find the first (of many) men coming down the stepladder from her loft. Lauren soon discovers that if she doesn’t like the incineration she can send them back up the ladder and get a replacement - sometimes this is a lot easier than others!

So the story begins with no explanation as to why or how this is happening. Abandon any hope of getting either of these questions answered. The story continues with men of all shapes, sizes, race, religion - you get the idea - coming down the stairs to an increasingly fussy ‘wife’. Where is story going? Honestly that’s pretty much it. It really only comes to an end with the protagonist settling and the ‘magic door’ being removed from the equation.

This could have been a sliding doors style story, the protagonist could have had some redeeming features and the other characters could have been better developed. There was no arc to this storyline with no real beginning or ending, so it all just floated very slowly along - a bit like a congealing liquid. Having explained the premise to my hairdresser he pretty much summed it up, describing it as Mr Benn for grown ups.
Make of that what you will…

I was so excited to start reading this one as it just sounded so fun and interesting. The story begins with Lauren returning from her sisters hen party to find a man she had never met in her home. If that wasn’t weird enough, she then discovered she was married to this strange man she had never met before.

With each new husband descending from the attic, Lauren finds herself living a completely different life and I found this so interesting to read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book as it was such an easy and wacky read! It definitely gave romcom vibes and made me chuckle a fair few times.

3.25/5

The Husbands has a great premise - a woman comes home from a night out with friends to find a mysterious man in her house. She soon learns he's her husband. It turns out that she has a magical attic and when her husband climbs the ladder into it, a new one pops out. Each new husband brings a new life story for our main character, Lauren.

While I loved the idea for this debut novel by Holly Gramazio, I would have liked a bit more plot throughout the story. After awhile, the trope became redundant. I kept looking for something new to happen. As I got to the last third of the book, I was a bit bored. The ending was good, but felt rushed. I think I'd read more from this author, but her debut novel wasn't my favorite.

Lauren is happily single after breaking up with her long term partner Amos,until her husband comes out of the attic and another and another! I really enjoyed this take on a romcom as Lauren is a likeable lead. There are plenty of changes to the story to keep the reader engaged, it doesn't become predictable the further the story develops. Very enjoyable read,thanks to netgalley and the publishers for the ARC

Well, this book was a rollercoaster of a read. As husbands kept descending from Lauren’s magic attic, I thought it was properly nuts. And at times it did drive Lauren properly nuts, as well it might, because she was never married in the first place. But The Husbands is funny and insightful and smartly thought-out. I’m on the fence about whether I would call it a romance, but there are love stories in there, and that’s perhaps the key to this book, seeing how different the many plausible marriages look. Something different, entertaining and thought-provoking.

Lauren gets back from a hen do to find her husband in her flat, which would be perfectly normal except that she doesn't recognise him, and wasn't married when she went out. Now, though, the world is changed, and scrolling back through her 'phone she finds the message history, the photos and everything else to confirm that he is exactly who he says he is. At least until he goes up to the attic, when another husband entirely comes down, and another new history and remodelled flat with him. The mood cycles from tension to absurd comedy and back again, with ingenious variations introduced each time it threatens to stale, and of course the whole premise is already an ingenious variation on a familiar theme, running from old marriage plots to endless articles on the difficulty of settling in an age of dating apps. How do you know if you're with the right person? You can't, not really, and it turns out being parachuted in to the life you might have made with them doesn't make the decision any easier than starting at the uncertain beginnings, particularly not when Lauren has such an entirely frictionless (well, usually) way of resetting whenever a husband's habits or hair or face annoys her, or just because she's already in a bad mood after whatever happened with the previous one. It's a multiverse rom-com, an exercise in game theory, a cousin to the time loop story (but not the same thing - Lauren is uncomfortably aware that time is still passing, even if the memories she's making with friends and family are memories only she retains after each reset). The set-up is also handy for working around some endemic problems with the romance side of the equation; Lauren does make some obviously terrible decisions across the course of the book, but when you've got access to a reset button, you would, wouldn't you? And hack assumptions of qualities supposedly common to all men were never likely to survive contact with the concept (though there is one excellent running joke about something a surprising number of the husbands have in common). I won't say I liked the ending, but I can't deny it makes sense. And right to the end, I had the bonus that Lauren's flat, and her magical attic, are in Norwood Junction, not far from me, so I got to nod with recognition at the mentions, even unnamed, of various parks, pubs, and not very good takeaways - and then wince at the line, after an evening up North London way, about how "Her trip home is pretty annoying for a journey between two places that are both supposedly so convenient for the centre of town."

(Netgalley ARC)