Book Review: "Husband Material" Reveals the Unfortunate Limits of Happy Ever After

The sequel to Alexis Hall's "Boyfriend Material" tarnishes and undercuts everything that made the first book such a resonant delight.

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Warning: Spoilers for Husband Material are contained herein.

I want to start out by saying that I absolutely adored Alexis Hall’s Boyfriend Material. It was everything that I want in a queer rom-com, with misunderstandings and bickering and some lovely sexy moments. Moreover, it was incredibly funny even if, at times both the narrator, Lucien (Luc for short) and his love interest, Oliver, could be a bit one-note. It was the kind of romance novel that had some moments of raw emotional truth, which helps to explain why I so often found myself tearing up.

So you can imagine how excited I was to read the sequel, Husband Material, which picks up two years later and follows Luc and Oliver as they navigate the fraught waters of their relationship and those of their friends, many of whom are getting married and settling into peaceful domesticity. When Luc accidentally proposes to Oliver all hell breaks loose, as they each have to decide who they are and what they actually want out of this relationship. 

For the most part, the things that made Boyfriend Material so infectiously charming are still in evidence here. There are still the zany antics with the friends, the same goofiness at Luc’s office, the same touching and meaningful exchanges with his mother (Odile is, I think, arguably the book’s best character). However, it must be said that some of the beats that worked so well in the first book start to wear a little thin, particularly since none of the side characters seem to grow all that much. The one exception to this might be Bridget who, despite her general flightiness and aura of ever-present crisis, does give Luc a pretty stern talking-to when he has an existential crisis the night before his wedding. 

The real problem, however, stems from the main characters. Look, I loved Luc and Oliver in Boyfriend Material. They were the quintessential romantic odd couple, each of them bringing out the best in one another. As Husband Material unfolds, though, it quickly becomes clear that, you know, maybe they’re not that great for one another after all. I don’t think this was Hall’s intention, obviously, but by suturing us so firmly into Luc’s point of view, it makes sure that we are subjected to his constant angst and self-deprecation which, while charming at first, quickly becomes tiresome. It certainly doesn’t help that Oliver is absent for long parts of the book, as Luc runs around catering to his various friends and their own equally-neurotic needs, while his boyfriend/fiance waits patiently at home.

And then there’s the ending. I suppose I should have known from the jump that there was no way that Oliver and Luc were going to through with their wedding, considering the extent to which they were at loggerheads about just about everything, from the rainbow balloon arch (a thing referenced an annoyingly large number of times throughout the book) to what marriage meant to the both of them. In the end, of course, they both decide that marriage isn’t for them–but only on the literal day of the ceremony–and they run out into the rain. I’m sure that Hall intended all of this to be some sort of queer commentary on the limitations of same-sex marriage, but for me it fell flat. After all, we’re living in an age in which the backlash against everything related to do with queerness–including gay marriage–is at a fever pitch, and to have this bait-and-switch pull the rug out from under me just felt cheap and irritating. 

More to the point, the entire marriage plot line seemed to reveal just ill-suited Oliver and Jared are for each other. They might love each other, sure, but at this point I don’t think it’s going to be enough for the two of them to be able to build a life together. The bickering over the wedding and all of its complexities revealed some very ugly things about the two of them, to such an extent that it really does make you wonder as a reader whether it’s worth pursuing this any further. Even people who love one another sometimes have to accept that a long-term relationship just isn’t for them.

Now I will say that some parts of the novel hit just the right notes. I felt that the funeral of Oliver’s asshole of a father was, strangely enough, one of the novel’s high points. It’s not that it was uplifting, of course. Instead, it was that it was a sequence of emotional authenticity and honesty, one that helped to reveal the characters and enabled them to become their better selves. It also was a reminder that sometimes we don’t get to make peace with people in our lives before they’re taken away by death. 

As a general rule I try to avoid judging a book by what it isn’t, but I can’t help but feel that Husband Material would have been made immeasurably better by the inclusion of Oliver’s point of view, even if that would have cut against the narrative pattern established in Boyfriend Material. But, because Oliver is so often off doing his own thing, we’re denied the kind of psychological insight that would make him a fully fleshed-out character. Devoid of this, and sentenced to spend many tedious chapters with Luc’s constant introspection–without, it should be noted, any real changes to behavior–it can be a bit of a chore. Even Hall’s trademark wit starts to feel a bit dull when it’s the same jokes repeated over and over again.

At the end of the day, I can’t escape the conclusion that sometimes it really is better to leave things at the happily-ever-after. At the end of Boyfriend Material it was clear that Oliver and Lucien had managed to find happiness with one another despite their differences. It was left to our imaginations to figure out how they made the rest of their relationship work (or if they did). By giving us insight into the messiness that inevitably follows after a happy ending, Hall has unfortunately robbed their previous novel of its beauty and its resonance.