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Mein Mann
Sie führt ein perfektes Leben mit dem perfekten Mann. Doch liebt er sie genau so sehr, wie sie ihn liebt? Sie muss es herausfinden. Und dazu ist ihr jedes Mittel recht.
Sie ist eine Frau, die alles hat: eine Karriere, ein schönes Haus, zwei wunderbare Kinder und den perfekten Ehemann, den sie nach 15 Ehejahren liebt wie am ersten Tag. Alles ist zu schön, um wahr zu sein. Und vielleicht ist es das auch gar nicht: Liebt auch ihr Mann sie so wie am ersten Tag? Und wird er sie immer lieben? Wie sicher kann sie sich sein? Sie will es wissen – und beginnt, ihren Mann auf die Probe zu stellen. Erst nur ein bisschen. Dann immer mehr. Und dann geht sie zu weit.
Sie ist eine Frau, die alles hat: eine Karriere, ein schönes Haus, zwei wunderbare Kinder und den perfekten Ehemann, den sie nach 15 Ehejahren liebt wie am ersten Tag. Alles ist zu schön, um wahr zu sein. Und vielleicht ist es das auch gar nicht: Liebt auch ihr Mann sie so wie am ersten Tag? Und wird er sie immer lieben? Wie sicher kann sie sich sein? Sie will es wissen – und beginnt, ihren Mann auf die Probe zu stellen. Erst nur ein bisschen. Dann immer mehr. Und dann geht sie zu weit.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2021
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May 27, 2025
Give me all the unhinged narrators. I love a novel that spirals in on its own intensity and insights, that’s my happy zone of books even if there is nary a plot to be found. French author Maud Ventura’s debut, My Husband, is an unnerving psychological whirlwind of overthinking, manipulation and dark comedy that examines a woman’s obsession with her husband over the course of a week and it is such a gripping cacophony of chaos. I loved this so much and found myself fixated on this novel as much as she was on the minute details of her interpersonal interactions. A translator and high school literature teacher by day, the narrator’s acutely insightful mind latches onto every minute detail and assesses them the way one would a novel with Ventura brilliantly capturing the ways anxious overanalysis can culminate towards catastrophizing and reckless behavior. As the distress rises towards a fever pitch and all the screws begin to rattle loose, what is revealed are the harsh reactions to a patriarchal society and the tensions between conformity or resistance in a mental chess match to assert control. The prose, wonderfully translate by Emma Ramadan, really helps keeps the intensity going and this book just pulls you along. A disquieting and intensely introspective examination of marriage, manipulation or the fragile and faulty sense of self when constructing oneself for the gaze of others, My Husband is a dark delight that crackles with social criticisms and suspense and builds towards an impressive surprise punch of an ending.
‘When it comes to love, I’ve learned nothing: I love too intensely and I’m consumed by my own love (analysis, jealousy, doubt)—so much that when I’m in love, I always end up slightly extinguished and saddened. When I love, I become harsh, serious, intolerant. A heavy shadow settles over my relationships. 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 unhealthy kind of love.’
This book is wild, yet it remains playfully ponderous and engaging as the narrator’s mental state swirls like a stormcloud. It’s an addictive book that captures the idea of an addictive and overthinking personality and couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I’d like to extend a massive thank you to Luh for recommending this and discussing it with me for days. I even bought clementines because of the incredible scene where, in a party game where they are all assigned different fruits, she is utterly appalled that her husband picks a clementine for her and a pineapple for his friend’s wife.
This segment is indicative of the spiraling, anxious thoughts she has and how outraged she can become over perceived insults. She does not let the clementine slight go and I giggled every time it came back up. The novel does well to draw the reader into seeing the narrator as unhinged though will ultimately ask big questions on why this is our perception.
‘I don’t have to tell him everything: the couples that last are the ones that keep the mystery alive.’
‘I was very much in love with my boyfriend. So I kept wondering, why am I so passionate, so very intense?’ Ventura admits in an interview with The Bookseller on her inspirations for the story, ‘I was very sad too because a honeymoon phase doesn’t last. But that kind of intense love changes over time and I wanted to explore that in fiction. Can it ever last? But then I thought: ‘Would it be worse if it didn’t go away?’’ Ventura captures the feeling of overwhelming emotional intensity, showing a woman who—despite 15 years of marriage—is still caught in the uncertainty and insecurity of the crush stage and will do anything to keep that intensity alive. Her actions are all highly calculated and manipulative, secretly recording conversations to analyze them later, keeping a notebook of observations and a double-entry of perceived slights from her husband and the punishments she’ll dole out to balance it out. Her punishments and then grief are discussed in her feeling of affininity with Phaedra of Greek Mythology.
‘No one can see my neuroses except me. The way I see myself is not how other people see me. Everything is okay. I belong here.’
Control is a major part of this story and our only perspective on the events are from the rather claustrophobic vantage points of the narrator’s disquieted inner monologue ‘which center on my husband to a worrying degree—it’s difficult to quantify, but I’d say approximately 65 percent.’ She lives her life trying to present a calm and collected exterior to hide the maelstrom of emotions inside her and this lends itself to every aspect of her life being highly calculated and organzied, even assigning different colors to each day of the week in a rather self-fulfilling prophecy on how that day will play out. This works well into the narrative tension:
What we see, however, is a sense of identity that is merely self-mythologizing in order to feel control over her own interiority. We are aware, however, that this is likely incongruous with the self as seen by others. It is reminiscent of ‘being a sovereign and unique subject amidst a universe of objects,’ while also ‘an object for others…nothing more than an individual in the collectivity on which [she] depends,’ as Simone de Beauvoir discusses in The Ethics of Ambiguity. Ventura excels at having the narrator manipulating the reader and keeping us on a very short leash to guide us through her week only as she wishes us to see it.
‘Their grammar is inclusive: if one of the two of them is the main character of the story, the other is never erased because of it—the other’s point of view is always included in the narrative.’
An aspect that really had this book sink under my skin was how the narrative follows through rather quotidian life but incisively analyzed down to the detail with her picking apart even the most mundane events as if it were a novel to be decoded. ‘He says “I,” referring only to himself, and it embarrasses me,’ she observes at a party, ‘I’ve analyzed enough literary texts in my life to know that it’s not innocuous.’ She also interprets her life in context to the books she reads, with The Lover by Marguerite Duras adding texture to her thoughts, such as fixating on the line ‘I’ve never done anything but wait outside the closed door’ as a premonition of her future married life where she feels ‘like furniture’ always awaiting her husband. The aspects of her job as translation are quite interesting as well, with her obsession over words and how the language we use might inform our thinking and expressions of love/
When translating from an English novel it distresses her that their expressions could corrupt her marriage. ‘Will “let you go” one day seep into my marriage?’ she stresses, ‘how can we protect ourselves from this English blight?’ In terms of language too, its poignant that her husband is never named, ‘My husband has no name; he is my husband, he belongs to me,’ she quips which is part of a larger subversive attitude towards gendered objectification where her husband is more an object for her to control through her manipulations. The idea of him existing outside her gaze—or before she knew him—‘ is surreal, even revolting.’ Its why his acting out of character, at least how she expects, triggers a panic in her. Her husband orders lasagna when he never does, her husband has a work nickname not belonging to her, or even her husband being overly friendly with a waitress are all cause for alarm to her. The latter especially as the waitress seems inferior to the abilities she has cultivated: ‘There’s an English expression for this: wife material.’
‘I read somewhere that there are three kinds of women: the woman in love, the mistress, and the mother. That seems right to me. I spent my childhood and adolescence being the woman in love…when I had children, I never moved to the next stage. I never changed categories to become a mother.’
At the heart of the story is a rather blistering critique on gender normative roles under patriarchy and how she feels constricted by them. She purchases a book of etiquette to ‘learn all of these rules by heart’ in order to present as proper “ladylike” by standards of society, she obsesses over her appearance to satisfy the male gaze, but she also resents a lot of the expectations. She observes that husbands get to be the “fun” parent while she deals in the mundane and labor aspects, or that questions about the family and kids are always addressed to her instead of the husband. In her belief that there are three types of women–those in love, the mistress or the mother–she finds only love to be a worthy role. Which has lead her to resent her children because ‘most of the time I’m too busy being in love to be a good mother’ and controlling the intensity of her marriage occupies all her thoughts and is never enough.
As Glennon Doyle once wrote, ‘a very effective way to control women is to convince women to control themselves,’ and we see how the narrator has fallen under this sort of control and self-sabotage by putting her entire identity into the intensity of her marriage. As Ventura discusses ‘what she has done in living for her man is making her miserable.’ It is a false self entirely constructed in the reflection of a man. ‘So with these two opposites—independent or dependent characters—you end with the same point: women should live for themselves.’ Otherwise we see her controting her own logic to justify anything and, without spoiling anything, there are some shocking revelations that are rather humorously rationalized.
The book ends on a real knockout moment that perfectly encapsulates Ventura’s messages and themes. My Husband rides a frenetic energy that spirals on its own anxieties and builds towards a nearly maddening tension. Though we also much wonder who is the truly unhinged person here, the narrator or the society that imposes the stresses that lead her to believe her actions are justified in order to perform her role for the sake of society and love. A twisted but darkly comic novel and one where I found myself just as obsessed with reading it as the narrator’s obsession with her husband, My Husband is a startling and satisfying little book.
4.5/5
‘When it comes to love, I’ve learned nothing: I love too intensely and I’m consumed by my own love (analysis, jealousy, doubt)—so much that when I’m in love, I always end up slightly extinguished and saddened. When I love, I become harsh, serious, intolerant. A heavy shadow settles over my relationships. 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 unhealthy kind of love.’
This book is wild, yet it remains playfully ponderous and engaging as the narrator’s mental state swirls like a stormcloud. It’s an addictive book that captures the idea of an addictive and overthinking personality and couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I’d like to extend a massive thank you to Luh for recommending this and discussing it with me for days. I even bought clementines because of the incredible scene where, in a party game where they are all assigned different fruits, she is utterly appalled that her husband picks a clementine for her and a pineapple for his friend’s wife.
‘he associates his best friend’s wife with a summery, exotic fruit, acidic and ample…he married a clementine. He lives with a winter fruit, a banal and cheap fruit, a supermarket fruit. A small, ordinary fruit that has none of the indulgence of the orange nor the originality of the grapefruit. A fruit organized into segments, practical and easy to eat, precut, ready for use, proffered in its casing.’
This segment is indicative of the spiraling, anxious thoughts she has and how outraged she can become over perceived insults. She does not let the clementine slight go and I giggled every time it came back up. The novel does well to draw the reader into seeing the narrator as unhinged though will ultimately ask big questions on why this is our perception.
‘I don’t have to tell him everything: the couples that last are the ones that keep the mystery alive.’
‘I was very much in love with my boyfriend. So I kept wondering, why am I so passionate, so very intense?’ Ventura admits in an interview with The Bookseller on her inspirations for the story, ‘I was very sad too because a honeymoon phase doesn’t last. But that kind of intense love changes over time and I wanted to explore that in fiction. Can it ever last? But then I thought: ‘Would it be worse if it didn’t go away?’’ Ventura captures the feeling of overwhelming emotional intensity, showing a woman who—despite 15 years of marriage—is still caught in the uncertainty and insecurity of the crush stage and will do anything to keep that intensity alive. Her actions are all highly calculated and manipulative, secretly recording conversations to analyze them later, keeping a notebook of observations and a double-entry of perceived slights from her husband and the punishments she’ll dole out to balance it out. Her punishments and then grief are discussed in her feeling of affininity with Phaedra of Greek Mythology.
‘No one can see my neuroses except me. The way I see myself is not how other people see me. Everything is okay. I belong here.’
Control is a major part of this story and our only perspective on the events are from the rather claustrophobic vantage points of the narrator’s disquieted inner monologue ‘which center on my husband to a worrying degree—it’s difficult to quantify, but I’d say approximately 65 percent.’ She lives her life trying to present a calm and collected exterior to hide the maelstrom of emotions inside her and this lends itself to every aspect of her life being highly calculated and organzied, even assigning different colors to each day of the week in a rather self-fulfilling prophecy on how that day will play out. This works well into the narrative tension:
‘the white of Sunday is not as simple as it seems. Optics teaches us that white is the result of a combination of every color (and not the absence of color, as I once thought). It’s not the purity of the bride or the emptiness of the blank page: Sunday is neither neutral nor naive. White is the synthesis of every color, just as Sunday is the synthesis of every day of the week. It’s the final result, the last chapter, the solution.’
What we see, however, is a sense of identity that is merely self-mythologizing in order to feel control over her own interiority. We are aware, however, that this is likely incongruous with the self as seen by others. It is reminiscent of ‘being a sovereign and unique subject amidst a universe of objects,’ while also ‘an object for others…nothing more than an individual in the collectivity on which [she] depends,’ as Simone de Beauvoir discusses in The Ethics of Ambiguity. Ventura excels at having the narrator manipulating the reader and keeping us on a very short leash to guide us through her week only as she wishes us to see it.
‘Their grammar is inclusive: if one of the two of them is the main character of the story, the other is never erased because of it—the other’s point of view is always included in the narrative.’
An aspect that really had this book sink under my skin was how the narrative follows through rather quotidian life but incisively analyzed down to the detail with her picking apart even the most mundane events as if it were a novel to be decoded. ‘He says “I,” referring only to himself, and it embarrasses me,’ she observes at a party, ‘I’ve analyzed enough literary texts in my life to know that it’s not innocuous.’ She also interprets her life in context to the books she reads, with The Lover by Marguerite Duras adding texture to her thoughts, such as fixating on the line ‘I’ve never done anything but wait outside the closed door’ as a premonition of her future married life where she feels ‘like furniture’ always awaiting her husband. The aspects of her job as translation are quite interesting as well, with her obsession over words and how the language we use might inform our thinking and expressions of love/
‘Absorbed in my translation, I wonder if that expression, so difficult to translate into French, testifies to the fact that English-speakers love differently than us. Do they make more effort? For them, is it possible to make love last? To reignite a desire that’s been extinguished? How do they do it? ’
When translating from an English novel it distresses her that their expressions could corrupt her marriage. ‘Will “let you go” one day seep into my marriage?’ she stresses, ‘how can we protect ourselves from this English blight?’ In terms of language too, its poignant that her husband is never named, ‘My husband has no name; he is my husband, he belongs to me,’ she quips which is part of a larger subversive attitude towards gendered objectification where her husband is more an object for her to control through her manipulations. The idea of him existing outside her gaze—or before she knew him—‘ is surreal, even revolting.’ Its why his acting out of character, at least how she expects, triggers a panic in her. Her husband orders lasagna when he never does, her husband has a work nickname not belonging to her, or even her husband being overly friendly with a waitress are all cause for alarm to her. The latter especially as the waitress seems inferior to the abilities she has cultivated: ‘There’s an English expression for this: wife material.’
‘I read somewhere that there are three kinds of women: the woman in love, the mistress, and the mother. That seems right to me. I spent my childhood and adolescence being the woman in love…when I had children, I never moved to the next stage. I never changed categories to become a mother.’
At the heart of the story is a rather blistering critique on gender normative roles under patriarchy and how she feels constricted by them. She purchases a book of etiquette to ‘learn all of these rules by heart’ in order to present as proper “ladylike” by standards of society, she obsesses over her appearance to satisfy the male gaze, but she also resents a lot of the expectations. She observes that husbands get to be the “fun” parent while she deals in the mundane and labor aspects, or that questions about the family and kids are always addressed to her instead of the husband. In her belief that there are three types of women–those in love, the mistress or the mother–she finds only love to be a worthy role. Which has lead her to resent her children because ‘most of the time I’m too busy being in love to be a good mother’ and controlling the intensity of her marriage occupies all her thoughts and is never enough.
‘In reality, marriage didn’t calm me down. I realized at the very moment we said “I do” that my husband could still divorce me…I was constantly awaiting the next step. I discovered a world of proofs of love, with commitment everywhere and love nowhere. And fifteen years after our first date, I still sleep just as poorly.’
As Glennon Doyle once wrote, ‘a very effective way to control women is to convince women to control themselves,’ and we see how the narrator has fallen under this sort of control and self-sabotage by putting her entire identity into the intensity of her marriage. As Ventura discusses ‘what she has done in living for her man is making her miserable.’ It is a false self entirely constructed in the reflection of a man. ‘So with these two opposites—independent or dependent characters—you end with the same point: women should live for themselves.’ Otherwise we see her controting her own logic to justify anything and, without spoiling anything, there are some shocking revelations that are rather humorously rationalized.
The book ends on a real knockout moment that perfectly encapsulates Ventura’s messages and themes. My Husband rides a frenetic energy that spirals on its own anxieties and builds towards a nearly maddening tension. Though we also much wonder who is the truly unhinged person here, the narrator or the society that imposes the stresses that lead her to believe her actions are justified in order to perform her role for the sake of society and love. A twisted but darkly comic novel and one where I found myself just as obsessed with reading it as the narrator’s obsession with her husband, My Husband is a startling and satisfying little book.
4.5/5
May 16, 2025
i only want to read lit fic about women being unwell.
this is definitely that: a book about how a woman is so obsessed with her totally average husband that it controls every moment of her day, leading to weird interactions with her kids, pretty intense journaling, and general manipulation and malfeasance.
i wish it were a little more lit fic-y, actually, dwelling on the character herself instead of indulging in kind of a thriller-y ending, but this was still a "what the hell is going on" meets "no plot just vibes" read of the kind i enjoy.
bottom line: i love insane women.
3.5
this is definitely that: a book about how a woman is so obsessed with her totally average husband that it controls every moment of her day, leading to weird interactions with her kids, pretty intense journaling, and general manipulation and malfeasance.
i wish it were a little more lit fic-y, actually, dwelling on the character herself instead of indulging in kind of a thriller-y ending, but this was still a "what the hell is going on" meets "no plot just vibes" read of the kind i enjoy.
bottom line: i love insane women.
3.5
December 11, 2023
this is what all of my straight friends sound like when they talk about their mediocre boyfriends
August 21, 2023
And I thought I was an over thinker
October 24, 2023
Phew! I’m glad that’s over! This book was absolutely painful to read. I kept waiting for it to get better, but it kept getting progressively worse. And for this being a short book at only 272 pages, it felt like 572 pages. I did not enjoy this book at all.
In this story we have a wife who is totally obsessed and consumed with her husband. The wife records their conversations, checks his emails, his phone messages, the mailbox, etc…
She is obsessed with what he says and how he says it.
She even obsesses over what fruit he calls her. How dare he call her a clementine!
The wife cannot even love her own children, because she loves and obsesses over her own husband too much. And this is all happening after 15 years of marriage.
This book is called My Husband, but let me tell you, the wife is nuttier than a fruitcake! After reading so many pages of the wife’s obsessiveness, and her only hobby of stalking her husband, I grew very tired of the repetitiveness and redundancy. I could not wait for this book to be over! Many have stated that the Epilogue made this book worth reading, well for me it didn’t. It was just as lame as the rest of the book.
This book was translated from French to English, so maybe their way of writing (and their humor) is different from mine- but I just didn’t get this book. Many others have loved this book, so please read their reviews before deciding on whether to read this book or not. Because obviously, this was not my cup of tea.
In this story we have a wife who is totally obsessed and consumed with her husband. The wife records their conversations, checks his emails, his phone messages, the mailbox, etc…
She is obsessed with what he says and how he says it.
She even obsesses over what fruit he calls her. How dare he call her a clementine!
The wife cannot even love her own children, because she loves and obsesses over her own husband too much. And this is all happening after 15 years of marriage.
This book is called My Husband, but let me tell you, the wife is nuttier than a fruitcake! After reading so many pages of the wife’s obsessiveness, and her only hobby of stalking her husband, I grew very tired of the repetitiveness and redundancy. I could not wait for this book to be over! Many have stated that the Epilogue made this book worth reading, well for me it didn’t. It was just as lame as the rest of the book.
This book was translated from French to English, so maybe their way of writing (and their humor) is different from mine- but I just didn’t get this book. Many others have loved this book, so please read their reviews before deciding on whether to read this book or not. Because obviously, this was not my cup of tea.
August 30, 2024
“My husband has no name; he is my husband, he belongs to me.”
If you enjoy dissolving into fits of giggles, purchase this book and immediately implement all the rules!
Even after 15 years, the main character, a 40-year-old French wife and mother is passionately obsessed with her husband. She has a plethora of secret rules for her and her husband, and she surreptitiously punishes her husband for his shortcomings.
Let’s look at a few of her rules:
“Anything less than two seconds is not the kiss of someone in love.”
“Like Louise, I started a photo album when I met my husband, with the places and years written in pen. I never kept albums of photos of my trips or with my friends before him. My husband marks the start of when my life was worth being archived.”
“So tonight, I speak to him while he’s asleep. I lean close to his ear and whisper to him that he could never live without me.”
What gifts did this book provide?
1) A weird photo album with some photos taken from a high power lens
2) When you whisper “you could never live without me” in the dark, it comes across less cute subliminal message and more creepy threat
3) Being asked, “Is that My Husband?” after every over-the-top action/declaration
Reviewers said that this book was weird, and it certainly delivered!
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Hardcover Text – $14.68 through Amazon
Audiobook – Free through Libby
2025 Reading Schedule
Jan A Town Like Alice
Feb Birdsong
Mar Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
Apr War and Peace
May The Woman in White
Jun Atonement
Jul The Shadow of the Wind
Aug Jude the Obscure
Sep Ulysses
Oct Vanity Fair
Nov A Fine Balance
Dec Germinal
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Insta My Bookstore at Pango
If you enjoy dissolving into fits of giggles, purchase this book and immediately implement all the rules!
Even after 15 years, the main character, a 40-year-old French wife and mother is passionately obsessed with her husband. She has a plethora of secret rules for her and her husband, and she surreptitiously punishes her husband for his shortcomings.
Let’s look at a few of her rules:
“Anything less than two seconds is not the kiss of someone in love.”
“Like Louise, I started a photo album when I met my husband, with the places and years written in pen. I never kept albums of photos of my trips or with my friends before him. My husband marks the start of when my life was worth being archived.”
“So tonight, I speak to him while he’s asleep. I lean close to his ear and whisper to him that he could never live without me.”
What gifts did this book provide?
1) A weird photo album with some photos taken from a high power lens
2) When you whisper “you could never live without me” in the dark, it comes across less cute subliminal message and more creepy threat
3) Being asked, “Is that My Husband?” after every over-the-top action/declaration
Reviewers said that this book was weird, and it certainly delivered!
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Hardcover Text – $14.68 through Amazon
Audiobook – Free through Libby
2025 Reading Schedule
Jan A Town Like Alice
Feb Birdsong
Mar Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
Apr War and Peace
May The Woman in White
Jun Atonement
Jul The Shadow of the Wind
Aug Jude the Obscure
Sep Ulysses
Oct Vanity Fair
Nov A Fine Balance
Dec Germinal
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Insta My Bookstore at Pango
November 5, 2024
This French feminist debut novel is a very smart romp, as it illustrates what would happen if someone lived 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.
You can listen to our podcast gang feat. Maud herself discuss the German translation, Mein Mann, here: https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...
And here's my radio piece: https://www.sr.de/sr/mediathek/audio/...
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.
You can listen to our podcast gang feat. Maud herself discuss the German translation, Mein Mann, here: https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...
And here's my radio piece: https://www.sr.de/sr/mediathek/audio/...
January 5, 2025
My friend, Tatiana, called this "delightfully deranged" so... how could I resist?
And it is. The narrator is absolutely batshit and .
I blasted through it. The first person narrator is OBSESSED with her husband, with everything he does and says. If they are sat together and he moves his hand away, she files it away to obsess over later. What does it mean? Does he not love her any more? He's cheating on her, right? That has to be it!
Unsurprisingly, there is a dark side to her loving obsession that is revealed over the course of the novel.
I found it compulsively readable. Something about the frantic way the narrator was caught up in her nutty thoughts kept the pacing up also. And the author clearly has a fun sense of humour. I can't decide which I liked best-- the whole clementine thing or the closed shutters --but this quote made me actually laugh out loud:
And it is. The narrator is absolutely batshit and .
I blasted through it. The first person narrator is OBSESSED with her husband, with everything he does and says. If they are sat together and he moves his hand away, she files it away to obsess over later. What does it mean? Does he not love her any more? He's cheating on her, right? That has to be it!
Unsurprisingly, there is a dark side to her loving obsession that is revealed over the course of the novel.
I found it compulsively readable. Something about the frantic way the narrator was caught up in her nutty thoughts kept the pacing up also. And the author clearly has a fun sense of humour. I can't decide which I liked best-- the whole clementine thing or the closed shutters --but this quote made me actually laugh out loud:
If I had to explain to a passerby why I’m crying, what could I possibly tell them? That I’m devastated because my husband thinks I’m a clementine?
July 23, 2023
HUSBAND: “We need to find a moment to talk. It’s important”
WIFE (rendered speechless) thinking…”Is the marriage over?”
Rewind a week…and the story begins, told in the first person POV of the WIFE, over the course of one week, one COLORFUL day at a time…
⚠️ You will hear the words “MY HUSBAND” so many times throughout this book that you will have already lost track of the number of times you have heard it, before MONDAY is even over.
That is by design, because she is in fact, OBSESSED with her husband.
Monday: “I’m in love with my husband or should I say, I’m still in love with my husband. I love my husband as much as the first day I met him.”
And, OBSESSED about wanting to be sexually desired by her husband.
But is her love and passion reciprocated?
She will TEST her husband often.
She doesn’t feel the need to spend time with friends, her parents or her CHILDREN-she only needs to spend time with her husband.
She will in fact, forget to kiss her children goodbye when she leaves the house, and be angry when her husband only gives her a peck on the cheek in greeting.
And, so help him, if he dares to try to discuss the weather!
She can JUSTIFY everything that SHE does.
Over analyzing everything that HE says and does, she will punish him in both passive aggressive ways when appropriate, and in ways more unforgivable and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was like this when the two married, or if had perhaps been a slow descent into madness over the fifteen years of their union.
YOU WILL LEARN THE TRUTH IN THE EPILOGUE
LIKE A CAR WRECK that you can’t help but peek at as you drive by-I couldn’t stop listening to this crazy AUDIBLE, narrated brilliantly by Kiiri Sandy.
This dark, entertaining, character study written by Maud Ventura and translated from French by Emma Ramadan runs for only 5h 33 minutes and I listened to it in one sitting.
It’s an impressive DEBUT, and the winner of France’s First Novel Prize.
I loved the glimpses into the culture of France-the exquisite descriptions of food, and family life, and of course, I was captivated by this MARRIAGE and our VERY unlikable WIFE.
Clearly, it’s not for everyone with a current average rating on Goodreads of 3.74 but, it is UNIQUE and QUITE UNFORGETTABLE so it’s earning 5 stars from me!
Positive reviews on the same day by both Michelle H and Brandice, caught my attention and I am so glad they put this one on my radar!
AVAILABLE NOW
Thank you to the Chandler Public Library for the AUDIBLE loan of this title.
WIFE (rendered speechless) thinking…”Is the marriage over?”
Rewind a week…and the story begins, told in the first person POV of the WIFE, over the course of one week, one COLORFUL day at a time…
⚠️ You will hear the words “MY HUSBAND” so many times throughout this book that you will have already lost track of the number of times you have heard it, before MONDAY is even over.
That is by design, because she is in fact, OBSESSED with her husband.
Monday: “I’m in love with my husband or should I say, I’m still in love with my husband. I love my husband as much as the first day I met him.”
And, OBSESSED about wanting to be sexually desired by her husband.
But is her love and passion reciprocated?
She will TEST her husband often.
She doesn’t feel the need to spend time with friends, her parents or her CHILDREN-she only needs to spend time with her husband.
She will in fact, forget to kiss her children goodbye when she leaves the house, and be angry when her husband only gives her a peck on the cheek in greeting.
And, so help him, if he dares to try to discuss the weather!
She can JUSTIFY everything that SHE does.
Over analyzing everything that HE says and does, she will punish him in both passive aggressive ways when appropriate, and in ways more unforgivable and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was like this when the two married, or if had perhaps been a slow descent into madness over the fifteen years of their union.
YOU WILL LEARN THE TRUTH IN THE EPILOGUE
LIKE A CAR WRECK that you can’t help but peek at as you drive by-I couldn’t stop listening to this crazy AUDIBLE, narrated brilliantly by Kiiri Sandy.
This dark, entertaining, character study written by Maud Ventura and translated from French by Emma Ramadan runs for only 5h 33 minutes and I listened to it in one sitting.
It’s an impressive DEBUT, and the winner of France’s First Novel Prize.
I loved the glimpses into the culture of France-the exquisite descriptions of food, and family life, and of course, I was captivated by this MARRIAGE and our VERY unlikable WIFE.
Clearly, it’s not for everyone with a current average rating on Goodreads of 3.74 but, it is UNIQUE and QUITE UNFORGETTABLE so it’s earning 5 stars from me!
Positive reviews on the same day by both Michelle H and Brandice, caught my attention and I am so glad they put this one on my radar!
AVAILABLE NOW
Thank you to the Chandler Public Library for the AUDIBLE loan of this title.
September 5, 2023
….wow…if you like characters who are cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, this is the book for you!
I loved it!
Taking place over one week, we have a front row seat to the unnamed MC’slove obsession with her husband.
On the outside, she is a loving wife, mother, teacher, and translator, but inside….well, she’s something far different.
In her world, everything must be perfect and she obsesses and over-analyzes every little thing people say, do, or look, most especially her husband.
He forgot to say goodnight? He didn’t hold her hand when watching a movie? What does it mean???
During a party game, he says if his wife was a fruit, she’d be a clementine.
WHAT? Reduced to a clementine? How dare he? Clearly she is a peach or a cherry. Obviously, he needs punished. And it’s completely justified because it’s coming from a place of LOVE.
He must be tested. He must follow her (unspoken) rules or there will be (extreme passive-aggressive) consequences.
On motherhood:
“….I’m too busy being in love to be a good mother.”
She only has eyes and time for HER HUSBAND.
This is a strange little book that had me completely enthralled from beginning to end.
There’s something about being inside a deeply flawed character’s mind that I find darkly humorous and entertaining. As the week progresses we discover just how cuckoo she is!
Things come to a head when The Husband tells her they need to talk. This sends her into a downward spiral.
The ending? I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. It was brilliant!
This book is refreshingly different than the same old, same old that we read over and over until they all blend together. This is one you will be unlikely to forget. But, be warned, if you require likable characters and a plot, then avoid!
* Expertly narrated by Kirri Sandy, at 5 hrs 33 min this is an easy one day listen.
* translated from French by Emma Ramadan
* Winner of France’s First Novel
I loved it!
Taking place over one week, we have a front row seat to the unnamed MC’s
On the outside, she is a loving wife, mother, teacher, and translator, but inside….well, she’s something far different.
In her world, everything must be perfect and she obsesses and over-analyzes every little thing people say, do, or look, most especially her husband.
He forgot to say goodnight? He didn’t hold her hand when watching a movie? What does it mean???
During a party game, he says if his wife was a fruit, she’d be a clementine.
WHAT? Reduced to a clementine? How dare he? Clearly she is a peach or a cherry. Obviously, he needs punished. And it’s completely justified because it’s coming from a place of LOVE.
He must be tested. He must follow her (unspoken) rules or there will be (extreme passive-aggressive) consequences.
On motherhood:
“….I’m too busy being in love to be a good mother.”
She only has eyes and time for HER HUSBAND.
This is a strange little book that had me completely enthralled from beginning to end.
There’s something about being inside a deeply flawed character’s mind that I find darkly humorous and entertaining. As the week progresses we discover just how cuckoo she is!
Things come to a head when The Husband tells her they need to talk. This sends her into a downward spiral.
The ending? I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. It was brilliant!
This book is refreshingly different than the same old, same old that we read over and over until they all blend together. This is one you will be unlikely to forget. But, be warned, if you require likable characters and a plot, then avoid!
* Expertly narrated by Kirri Sandy, at 5 hrs 33 min this is an easy one day listen.
* translated from French by Emma Ramadan
* Winner of France’s First Novel
July 22, 2023
I don’t mean to be dramatic but I think this book just became my new personality trait
June 1, 2023
a woman spiraling is my favorite type of woman
December 18, 2024
4.5* What’s not to love?
August 27, 2023
the last time i was this mad at an epilogue it was 2008 and i’d just found out about draco malfoy’s receding hairline
September 20, 2024
This book is hard to describe and even harder to explain your passion for (if you have it).
In short, it's about a woman who is obsessed with her husband. And I mean obsessed to the point of having almost no other thoughts besides what he's doing, how he'll react, and what his actions, words, or tilt of his head mean (or don’t mean).
She calculates situations to test his love for her because it's the only way she can feel any sort of clarity in their relationship. These tests range from mundane to downright insane, with a rollercoaster of highs and lows on a day-to-day basis.
That being said, it's very one-note. The narrative is entirely in the head of a single-minded woman who repeats herself a lot. She's unhinged to the nth degree. Her reasoning behind her actions is baffling at best and disturbingly understandable at its most frightening.
And yet, I was obsessed. There was something so intriguing and engaging about it. I found myself, at times, almost understanding where she was coming from—which was terrifying, honestly. Because, no... just no. Like, Katie, seek help. This woman is certifiably unstable.
The epilogue flipped everything on its head for me. It's the kind of epilogue that made me want to go back to page one and read the whole thing again. So, if you're someone who usually skips epilogues, I suggest reading this one.
I believe this is a book you will either rate 2 stars or 5 stars. You'll either find it repetitive and infuriating, or you'll be enamored by these very qualities and become obsessed with a character you'd despise in real life.
*P.S. It's translated from French. Assuming a thing or two was lost in translation, I can't imagine how much better the original French version must be.
In short, it's about a woman who is obsessed with her husband. And I mean obsessed to the point of having almost no other thoughts besides what he's doing, how he'll react, and what his actions, words, or tilt of his head mean (or don’t mean).
She calculates situations to test his love for her because it's the only way she can feel any sort of clarity in their relationship. These tests range from mundane to downright insane, with a rollercoaster of highs and lows on a day-to-day basis.
That being said, it's very one-note. The narrative is entirely in the head of a single-minded woman who repeats herself a lot. She's unhinged to the nth degree. Her reasoning behind her actions is baffling at best and disturbingly understandable at its most frightening.
And yet, I was obsessed. There was something so intriguing and engaging about it. I found myself, at times, almost understanding where she was coming from—which was terrifying, honestly. Because, no... just no. Like, Katie, seek help. This woman is certifiably unstable.
The epilogue flipped everything on its head for me. It's the kind of epilogue that made me want to go back to page one and read the whole thing again. So, if you're someone who usually skips epilogues, I suggest reading this one.
I believe this is a book you will either rate 2 stars or 5 stars. You'll either find it repetitive and infuriating, or you'll be enamored by these very qualities and become obsessed with a character you'd despise in real life.
*P.S. It's translated from French. Assuming a thing or two was lost in translation, I can't imagine how much better the original French version must be.
July 17, 2023
This is an odd little book with an even odder narrator.
Our unnamed Parisian housewife is madly in love with her husband. She even resents the children from taking his attention away from her. She will do anything for him. She orbits him like the earth orbits the sun. She thinks he is the most charismatic and charming man. With vigor and zest she proudly worships the ground he walks on. Yet, she's filled with anxiety that he will leave her someday and that thought is utterly dreadful to her.
Any little slight from her husband results in her version of punishment. If he didn't say goodnight to her then no cuddles for him in the morning. If he didn't hold her hand while watching a movie then she'll misplace his wallet or keys somewhere causing him to run late. If she suspects he's flirting with someone then she'll sleep with some unsuspecting man in retaliation. She does all these things from a place of love.
At a recent party the guests are asked to describe their spouse as a fruit and her husband mistakenly called her a clementine. The horror!!! She is most obviously a black berry, a cherry, or a peach. Her reaction to this:
"I am both exhausted and unable to sleep. During this time my husband continues to revel in his egotistical sleep. In this moment I detest him. There is no other solution: I scream as though I'm having a nightmare. He wakes up with a jump. I stammer in a falsely sleepy voice that I'm sorry, just a bad dream, and turn back to my side of the bed. I hope my husband can't fall asleep and that his insomnia will leave him with the time necessary to reflect on his betrayal. It's important he ask himself: How could he have reduced his own wife to the rank of a vulgar clementine?"
Her take on snooping on her husband:
"Sometimes I ask myself whether I should feel guilty about going through my husband's things. But I always come to the conclusion that I should not, for one simple reason: I wish he would do the same. I would finally have the proof of his jealousy and the confirmation of his commitment. Unfortunately, I know he doesn't. Unfortunately, my husband trusts me."
On motherhood:
"I do my best, but most of the time I'm too busy being in love to be a good mother."
On her infidelities:
"That's why I never feel guilty for being unfaithful: How could I when I do it out of love for my husband? Plus, I know how to set limits: I've never cheated on my husband on any day other than Thursday."
Told you she was odd! 🤪
I found this book to be both humorous and horrifying in equal measure and the epilogue was really quite clever. I turned the final page with a smile. 4 stars!
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for my complimentary copy.
Our unnamed Parisian housewife is madly in love with her husband. She even resents the children from taking his attention away from her. She will do anything for him. She orbits him like the earth orbits the sun. She thinks he is the most charismatic and charming man. With vigor and zest she proudly worships the ground he walks on. Yet, she's filled with anxiety that he will leave her someday and that thought is utterly dreadful to her.
Any little slight from her husband results in her version of punishment. If he didn't say goodnight to her then no cuddles for him in the morning. If he didn't hold her hand while watching a movie then she'll misplace his wallet or keys somewhere causing him to run late. If she suspects he's flirting with someone then she'll sleep with some unsuspecting man in retaliation. She does all these things from a place of love.
At a recent party the guests are asked to describe their spouse as a fruit and her husband mistakenly called her a clementine. The horror!!! She is most obviously a black berry, a cherry, or a peach. Her reaction to this:
"I am both exhausted and unable to sleep. During this time my husband continues to revel in his egotistical sleep. In this moment I detest him. There is no other solution: I scream as though I'm having a nightmare. He wakes up with a jump. I stammer in a falsely sleepy voice that I'm sorry, just a bad dream, and turn back to my side of the bed. I hope my husband can't fall asleep and that his insomnia will leave him with the time necessary to reflect on his betrayal. It's important he ask himself: How could he have reduced his own wife to the rank of a vulgar clementine?"
Her take on snooping on her husband:
"Sometimes I ask myself whether I should feel guilty about going through my husband's things. But I always come to the conclusion that I should not, for one simple reason: I wish he would do the same. I would finally have the proof of his jealousy and the confirmation of his commitment. Unfortunately, I know he doesn't. Unfortunately, my husband trusts me."
On motherhood:
"I do my best, but most of the time I'm too busy being in love to be a good mother."
On her infidelities:
"That's why I never feel guilty for being unfaithful: How could I when I do it out of love for my husband? Plus, I know how to set limits: I've never cheated on my husband on any day other than Thursday."
Told you she was odd! 🤪
I found this book to be both humorous and horrifying in equal measure and the epilogue was really quite clever. I turned the final page with a smile. 4 stars!
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for my complimentary copy.
September 4, 2023
My, my, my............
My goodness!
"My Husband" was NOT "my" kind of book.
Surprisingly, I almost always adore books about deeply flawed, troubled, obsessive, quirky, and mentally ill protagonists.
Usually, the more "off the wall" and emotionally unhinged, the better.
OUTLIER ALERT:
"My Husband" lacked the well-orchestrated plotline and depth that I was seeking.
Even the book's jarring epilogue didn't up my star rating.
I listened to the audiobook read by Kiiri Sandy, who did an outstanding job with the narration.
Other than this audiobook's narration and stunning book cover, the only other thing I liked about this book was that it was short. (5 hours, 33 minutes).
1 star, rounded up.
My goodness!
"My Husband" was NOT "my" kind of book.
Surprisingly, I almost always adore books about deeply flawed, troubled, obsessive, quirky, and mentally ill protagonists.
Usually, the more "off the wall" and emotionally unhinged, the better.
OUTLIER ALERT:
"My Husband" lacked the well-orchestrated plotline and depth that I was seeking.
Even the book's jarring epilogue didn't up my star rating.
I listened to the audiobook read by Kiiri Sandy, who did an outstanding job with the narration.
Other than this audiobook's narration and stunning book cover, the only other thing I liked about this book was that it was short. (5 hours, 33 minutes).
1 star, rounded up.
November 30, 2024
this was absolutely ridiculous, horrifying, deranged, manipulative, batshit crazy, compulsive obsessive, devious, sharp, unhinged, evil, unsettling, but above all *so* much fun and i loved every. single. moment. my new favourite book i fear
September 11, 2023
“We need to find a moment to talk. It’s important.”
This short 258 page novel is a tour de force in the domestic suspense genre. Winner of France’s First Novel Prize in 2021, My Husband is perfectly plotted perfection.
Over the course of one week, a nameless female Parisian wife and mother psychoanalyzes her 15 year marriage to her husband. Love is her hobby of choice, as she is a desperate romantic. Or is she just neurotic, paranoid, and jealous?
What happens when you love too intensely?
Is she enough for her husband?
After all, he compared her to a vulgar clementine.
…and he sleeps with the shutters closed
…and he ordered the lasagna
As relayed by her husband, the adjectives that best describe her are very beautiful, cold, in love, and observant.
How well does he really “see” her?
This darkly humorous novel of obsession is psychological fiction at its best. I didn’t guess the answer to the original question or the phenomenal twist!
A special thank you to Jayme for putting this book on my radar. It was absolutely delicious!
5/5 stars
This short 258 page novel is a tour de force in the domestic suspense genre. Winner of France’s First Novel Prize in 2021, My Husband is perfectly plotted perfection.
Over the course of one week, a nameless female Parisian wife and mother psychoanalyzes her 15 year marriage to her husband. Love is her hobby of choice, as she is a desperate romantic. Or is she just neurotic, paranoid, and jealous?
What happens when you love too intensely?
Is she enough for her husband?
After all, he compared her to a vulgar clementine.
…and he sleeps with the shutters closed
…and he ordered the lasagna
As relayed by her husband, the adjectives that best describe her are very beautiful, cold, in love, and observant.
How well does he really “see” her?
This darkly humorous novel of obsession is psychological fiction at its best. I didn’t guess the answer to the original question or the phenomenal twist!
A special thank you to Jayme for putting this book on my radar. It was absolutely delicious!
5/5 stars
May 18, 2025
This book surprised me. “Delusional, delusional, delusional” I kept muttering during the entire read until the last chapter/the epilogue happened and it surprised me more with how much I enjoyed reading the book despite the delusional narrative I thought it was throughout.
Short and adult overthinking in all its entirety, this book played me good.
Short and adult overthinking in all its entirety, this book played me good.
July 26, 2023
This is a strange book about a 40-year old woman OBSESSED with her husband of 13 years and the lengths she goes through to keep him hers. It's described as suspenseful and darkly funny, but I found neither to be really true. However, I didn't dislike the book; it was just different than what I was expecting.
The protagonist is a maddening character and readers are trapped in her head with her troubling thoughts. I'm not sure the epilogue was a satisfying enough payoff after enduring this woman, but maybe you could take the whole thing as a cautionary tale.
I think that Maud Ventura is a talented writer, and Emma Ramadan did a beautiful job translating her words into English from the original French. Oddly enough, the protagonist in this book is also a French to English translator.
I would recommend this to fans of quiet psychological suspense novels, perhaps like Mrs. March. Borrowed from the library.
The protagonist is a maddening character and readers are trapped in her head with her troubling thoughts. I'm not sure the epilogue was a satisfying enough payoff after enduring this woman, but maybe you could take the whole thing as a cautionary tale.
I think that Maud Ventura is a talented writer, and Emma Ramadan did a beautiful job translating her words into English from the original French. Oddly enough, the protagonist in this book is also a French to English translator.
I would recommend this to fans of quiet psychological suspense novels, perhaps like Mrs. March. Borrowed from the library.
November 18, 2023
I REALLY enjoyed this. My favorite genre of book is “narrators that have something deeply wrong with their brains but are also super relatable” and this book is exactly that. The narrator is kind of like a married female Joe Goldberg. I truly loved the whole book but the ending was exceptionally brilliant. 4.5 stars not because there was anything wrong with it, it just wasn’t life altering by any means. Overall, such a good, quick read and would definitely recommend.
October 8, 2023
if marriage makes you this crazy and neurotic, then i want no part in it.
also, that ending!!!
4.5
also, that ending!!!
4.5
Read
December 19, 2021Difficile de comprendre où se situe l’humour dans ce roman que j’ai aimé lire mais que j’ai trouvé d’une profonde tristesse. Il est intense et il précipite dans les affres d’une passion qui ne s’éteint jamais, dans tout ce que ça peut avoir d’aliénant et de destructeur. Pour moi, c’est un cauchemar éveillé, à chaque page j’étais heureuse de n’être plus dans le même état d’esprit que la narratrice. Le naufrage intime de l’hétérosexualité comme système : c’est ce que raconte cette histoire et je n’ai pas ri une seule fois. Est-ce une histoire d’amour ou de domination ? (Pour moi la question est vite répondue mais je voudrais qu’on se la pose plus souvent.)
Au demeurant, comme je disais : j’ai passé un moment haletant. J’aurais pu me passer de l’épilogue qui vient apporter une lumière supplémentaire sur ce qui me fait froid dans le dos, mais l’idée est chouette et l’exécution habile.
Au demeurant, comme je disais : j’ai passé un moment haletant. J’aurais pu me passer de l’épilogue qui vient apporter une lumière supplémentaire sur ce qui me fait froid dans le dos, mais l’idée est chouette et l’exécution habile.
July 17, 2023
In My Husband, the main character is a wife, a mother, a teacher and a translator. Predominately though, she is a wife who’s obsessed with her husband!
This story takes place over the course of one week and it hooked me right away. As I learned more about the wife, her questionable behavior, and incessant internal analyzation, I began to dread and at the same time, eagerly observe what she would do the following day.
I was very curious to see how things would play out at the end of the week and I was not expecting this ending! I like when a book can surprise me. My Husband is a great debut novel by French author, Maud Ventura, and was translated by Emma Ramadan.
Thank you to Netgalley and HarperVia for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
This story takes place over the course of one week and it hooked me right away. As I learned more about the wife, her questionable behavior, and incessant internal analyzation, I began to dread and at the same time, eagerly observe what she would do the following day.
I was very curious to see how things would play out at the end of the week and I was not expecting this ending! I like when a book can surprise me. My Husband is a great debut novel by French author, Maud Ventura, and was translated by Emma Ramadan.
Thank you to Netgalley and HarperVia for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
September 1, 2023
This book was atrocious.
April 28, 2023
4.5 stars
Wow, this is brilliant portrait of a woman subjected to all the cultural pressures of western love discourses and unhinged by her obsessive love for her husband. Actually, there's something more twisted and chilling about the book than that .
Our unnamed female narrator is beautiful, about to turn 40, has come from a lower social class than her husband, is a part-time teacher and translator from French into English, and the mother of two young children. And she is consumed by her husband, monitoring and analysing his every word, gesture and action. It's exhausting for her but deliciously voyeuristic for us as she charts a week in their life, each day characterised by a colour, and tracking her internal monologue with its compulsive swings from joy to self-doubt to cold manipulations.
Beyond the localised paranoia of bourgeois suburban domesticity - is her husband checking out the young waitress? are other married couples as loved-up and professionally successful as they appear? who is going to compliment another women first on her newly-coloured hair or perfect outfit? are her husband's co-workers flirting with him, seducing him? and the constant, is he going to leave? - this is a nuanced meditation on all the discourses and mythologies about erotic love: act cold to seem mysterious, hide your passionate devotion, treat him mean to keep him keen... as well as an exploration of the asymmetry of love (one loves, the other is loved) and the underpinning power relations that operate between the narrator and her husband.
I've seen this compared to Patricia Highsmith but I'd say there's nothing like that amount of plot here, and would see this springing from writers like Celia Fremlin with their acute antennae to the minute and chilling power shifts in the home. So, for me, this has vague gestures to the psychological 'thriller' but it's far more muted, plotless and internalised than that. There's something too of Forbidden Notebook and even a less dense version of Lessing's classic The Golden Notebook without the external politicised setting. Whatever allegiances the individual reader finds, this is a fantastically crazed narrative with important things to say about the politics of love.
Many thanks to Random House, Cornerstone for an ARC via NetGalley
Sometimes I ask myself whether I should feel guilty about going through my husband's things. But I always come to the conclusion that I should not, for one simple reason: I wish he would do the same. I would finally have the proof of his jealousy and the confirmation of his commitment. Unfortunately, I know he doesn't. Unfortunately, my husband trusts me.
Wow, this is brilliant portrait of a woman subjected to all the cultural pressures of western love discourses and unhinged by her obsessive love for her husband. Actually, there's something more twisted and chilling about the book than that .
Our unnamed female narrator is beautiful, about to turn 40, has come from a lower social class than her husband, is a part-time teacher and translator from French into English, and the mother of two young children. And she is consumed by her husband, monitoring and analysing his every word, gesture and action. It's exhausting for her but deliciously voyeuristic for us as she charts a week in their life, each day characterised by a colour, and tracking her internal monologue with its compulsive swings from joy to self-doubt to cold manipulations.
Beyond the localised paranoia of bourgeois suburban domesticity - is her husband checking out the young waitress? are other married couples as loved-up and professionally successful as they appear? who is going to compliment another women first on her newly-coloured hair or perfect outfit? are her husband's co-workers flirting with him, seducing him? and the constant, is he going to leave? - this is a nuanced meditation on all the discourses and mythologies about erotic love: act cold to seem mysterious, hide your passionate devotion, treat him mean to keep him keen... as well as an exploration of the asymmetry of love (one loves, the other is loved) and the underpinning power relations that operate between the narrator and her husband.
I've seen this compared to Patricia Highsmith but I'd say there's nothing like that amount of plot here, and would see this springing from writers like Celia Fremlin with their acute antennae to the minute and chilling power shifts in the home. So, for me, this has vague gestures to the psychological 'thriller' but it's far more muted, plotless and internalised than that. There's something too of Forbidden Notebook and even a less dense version of Lessing's classic The Golden Notebook without the external politicised setting. Whatever allegiances the individual reader finds, this is a fantastically crazed narrative with important things to say about the politics of love.
Many thanks to Random House, Cornerstone for an ARC via NetGalley
May 16, 2023
SAFE to READ .....no major spoilers!!!!!
Prologue
“My husband turns on Brazilian music that pairs perfectly with the smell of toasted bread and a peaceful Sunday morning atmosphere”.
“While I am finishing my coffee, my husband leans toward me and whispers into my ear, ‘We need to find a moment to talk’. Then, after a short pause, he adds, ‘It’s important’.”
“I’m frozen, unable to say a word”.
“It’s over”.
One week earlier . . .
“I love my husband as much as the day I met him.
I wish I could text him all day. I imagine telling him. I love him every morning, and I dream of making love to him every night. But I restrain myself, because I also need to be a wife and mother. I’m too old to at love lovesick”.
“For fifteen years, I’ve lived with the permanent and paradoxical affection of being loved back—of passion with no apparent obstacle. I can’t hope for anything more, I can’t hope for anything better, and yet the void that I feel is immense, and I am always waiting for him to fill it. But what could possibly fill what is already full?”
*She* (our unnamed protagonist) has been an English teacher for fifteen years.
‘She’ is also a French English translator for a Publishing House.
‘She’ trembles with pride when she says ‘my husband’ works in finance.
She met her husband at a rock concert. Her husband has no name; he is simply ‘my husband’ as he belongs to her.
‘She’ loves Mondays. People have told her that loving Mondays is a brainiac thing— that only nerds are happy when the weekend is over.
“That might be true. But it comes back to my love of beginnings. I’ve always preferred the first chapters of a book, the first fifteen minutes of a film, the first act of a play. I like starting points. When everyone is in their rightful place in a world
that makes sense”.
How could *She* explain why she has a solitaire diamond that’s practically identical to the one he gave her the day he proposed? She hides it in the false bottom of her jewelry box.
A few months after *She* met *Him* (The unnamed Husband), she ended things with him. A two week hiatus during which she ran back into the arms of a former lover, Adrien.
Then, one day, ‘,She’ left a note on the pillow and returned to the man who would become her husband.
“What happened during those two weeks of wavering is none of his business”.
“When my husband is at home, I lose all ability to concentrate. I jump at the slightest sound in the stairway”……
Get it?
*SHE* . . . is OBSESSED……with love for her husband….[yet is also obsessed with worry if her husband is in love with her]….
So……let the (revenge) games begin . . .
Several headings of each chapter is a day of the week… Beginning with Monday.
*She* has specific rules about what happens on each one of these days or what each day symbolizes. And they all have a ‘color’.
“My yellow Thursday start joyfully”.
Wednesday, for example, is an orange day, like a Clementine.
And, of course… Saturday is red—“for him”.
“It’s the day that has to be reinvented each week, without even the Sunday rituals to cling to”.
Saturday is the day that her husband likes most, but she likes least.
The protagonist is Queen of righteous indignation, and of observations….
“Couples who don’t love each other anymore don’t care about not catching everything. They think of their exchanges as a text with many holes, and are not unbothered by it; they say it’s no big deal, they’ll fill in the gaps later. I think the need to be exhaustive is proof of love: not wanting to lose a single word”.
OR….
“I’ve always found tranquil, partnerships uninteresting. Couples that don’t ever argue come off as inferior, and I’ve always suspected they love each other less. But I’ve also always refused to engage in ordinary squabbles. That my husband doesn’t do the dishes after dinner, or doesn’t know how to iron a shirt is annoying, but those are obstacles I can overcome; on the other hand, I don’t know that I would be able to bear such a banal argument for such trivial a reason”.
A very fast — one gulp read:
A little hilarity…..
A little creepy…
A little pathetic…
A little grating….
A little clever….
…..but with a surprise Epilogue - so good - it raised my rating!!!
4 stars.
Prologue
“My husband turns on Brazilian music that pairs perfectly with the smell of toasted bread and a peaceful Sunday morning atmosphere”.
“While I am finishing my coffee, my husband leans toward me and whispers into my ear, ‘We need to find a moment to talk’. Then, after a short pause, he adds, ‘It’s important’.”
“I’m frozen, unable to say a word”.
“It’s over”.
One week earlier . . .
“I love my husband as much as the day I met him.
I wish I could text him all day. I imagine telling him. I love him every morning, and I dream of making love to him every night. But I restrain myself, because I also need to be a wife and mother. I’m too old to at love lovesick”.
“For fifteen years, I’ve lived with the permanent and paradoxical affection of being loved back—of passion with no apparent obstacle. I can’t hope for anything more, I can’t hope for anything better, and yet the void that I feel is immense, and I am always waiting for him to fill it. But what could possibly fill what is already full?”
*She* (our unnamed protagonist) has been an English teacher for fifteen years.
‘She’ is also a French English translator for a Publishing House.
‘She’ trembles with pride when she says ‘my husband’ works in finance.
She met her husband at a rock concert. Her husband has no name; he is simply ‘my husband’ as he belongs to her.
‘She’ loves Mondays. People have told her that loving Mondays is a brainiac thing— that only nerds are happy when the weekend is over.
“That might be true. But it comes back to my love of beginnings. I’ve always preferred the first chapters of a book, the first fifteen minutes of a film, the first act of a play. I like starting points. When everyone is in their rightful place in a world
that makes sense”.
How could *She* explain why she has a solitaire diamond that’s practically identical to the one he gave her the day he proposed? She hides it in the false bottom of her jewelry box.
A few months after *She* met *Him* (The unnamed Husband), she ended things with him. A two week hiatus during which she ran back into the arms of a former lover, Adrien.
Then, one day, ‘,She’ left a note on the pillow and returned to the man who would become her husband.
“What happened during those two weeks of wavering is none of his business”.
“When my husband is at home, I lose all ability to concentrate. I jump at the slightest sound in the stairway”……
Get it?
*SHE* . . . is OBSESSED……with love for her husband….[yet is also obsessed with worry if her husband is in love with her]….
So……let the (revenge) games begin . . .
Several headings of each chapter is a day of the week… Beginning with Monday.
*She* has specific rules about what happens on each one of these days or what each day symbolizes. And they all have a ‘color’.
“My yellow Thursday start joyfully”.
Wednesday, for example, is an orange day, like a Clementine.
And, of course… Saturday is red—“for him”.
“It’s the day that has to be reinvented each week, without even the Sunday rituals to cling to”.
Saturday is the day that her husband likes most, but she likes least.
The protagonist is Queen of righteous indignation, and of observations….
“Couples who don’t love each other anymore don’t care about not catching everything. They think of their exchanges as a text with many holes, and are not unbothered by it; they say it’s no big deal, they’ll fill in the gaps later. I think the need to be exhaustive is proof of love: not wanting to lose a single word”.
OR….
“I’ve always found tranquil, partnerships uninteresting. Couples that don’t ever argue come off as inferior, and I’ve always suspected they love each other less. But I’ve also always refused to engage in ordinary squabbles. That my husband doesn’t do the dishes after dinner, or doesn’t know how to iron a shirt is annoying, but those are obstacles I can overcome; on the other hand, I don’t know that I would be able to bear such a banal argument for such trivial a reason”.
A very fast — one gulp read:
A little hilarity…..
A little creepy…
A little pathetic…
A little grating….
A little clever….
…..but with a surprise Epilogue - so good - it raised my rating!!!
4 stars.
October 31, 2024
Gone Girl, if Gone Girl missed the point entirely.
Every Christmas at the bookshop I work at we are inundated by a certain type of middle-aged man looking for a gift for their wife/mother.
The conversation goes a little something like this:
“I’m looking for a gift for my wife/mother”
“I can help you out, what does she like to read?”
“Not sure”
“Okay, know anything she’s read recently?”
“um”
“Or any particular genre she likes? Crime? Literary? History?"
“uhhhh”
“A TV show she’s into?”
“…”
“That’s okay… does she have any particular interests? Any hobbies?”
[Usually at this point they will mention her career/former career or, and this is great, whether she is also a grandmother]
Every year, in fact year-round.
This book is about marriage—the marriage of a French woman working as an English translator and her husband, a man she is obsessed with.
She strains to perfect the role of wife, birthing two children she doesn’t really care for, maintaining her physical and social appearance and punishing him in strange ways that will only improve them both. This is a novel of psychological warfare, as the archetypes of neurotic wife and useless husband are pushed to the limit.
The way a heterosexual couple communicates, how that intersects with various social structures, combined with the protagonist's work as a translator, was the most interesting part of this. The discussion of translating a phrase that has no direct equivalent, the power of choosing words, clearly establishes communication as subjective and throws a very interesting light on the central relationship.
Unfortunately, this theme, what I found most compelling was dropped in favour of cheap attempts to shock and scandalise, resulting in a literary work that felt more like a cheap Gone Girl knock-off.
The absolute worst part was the GOOFY ASS epilogue. Spoilers ahead:
I had thought this to be about the way male privilege in the form of weaponised incompetence is a legitimate threat to women’s sanity. Not a radical statement, but effectively conveyed.
So to to reveal him to be this conniving, mastermind villain purposefully manipulating his wife? I suppose it could be said that he’s utilising patriarchal perception to his advantage, to get away with this. But to me that is so boring.
Why? Because on a regular basis I have to help men buy a gift for wives they know nothing about. Of whom they cannot name a single hobby, interest, or book read. Cannot, or will not, recognise their spouse in any meaningful way. And this, this slow gradual reduction of identity, no doubt taking place over the span of years IS villainous. To me, it is most villainous. It is what is compelling about Gone Girl, why the cool girl monologue is so iconic.
To then centre his perspective, even for one chapter? I’m not that interested quite frankly, I care about what is confining her, constraining her to this relationship. Her interpretation, her translation, her reality. To then switch languages (to continue this very loose metaphor) is condescending (I can draw my own conclusions thank you very much) and just the less interesting choice.
Nothing pisses me off more than the writer choosing the cleaner conclusion. Any discussion I could have had with a friend about whether we believe the husband’s actions are purposeful or well-intentioned, the opportunity to examine our own biases, what’s left open to debate and process, gone. Girl.
I don’t care to read about heterosexual marriage dynamics at the best of times. An interesting premise spoiled by the least interesting choices. Smh.
Every Christmas at the bookshop I work at we are inundated by a certain type of middle-aged man looking for a gift for their wife/mother.
The conversation goes a little something like this:
“I’m looking for a gift for my wife/mother”
“I can help you out, what does she like to read?”
“Not sure”
“Okay, know anything she’s read recently?”
“um”
“Or any particular genre she likes? Crime? Literary? History?"
“uhhhh”
“A TV show she’s into?”
“…”
“That’s okay… does she have any particular interests? Any hobbies?”
[Usually at this point they will mention her career/former career or, and this is great, whether she is also a grandmother]
Every year, in fact year-round.
This book is about marriage—the marriage of a French woman working as an English translator and her husband, a man she is obsessed with.
She strains to perfect the role of wife, birthing two children she doesn’t really care for, maintaining her physical and social appearance and punishing him in strange ways that will only improve them both. This is a novel of psychological warfare, as the archetypes of neurotic wife and useless husband are pushed to the limit.
The way a heterosexual couple communicates, how that intersects with various social structures, combined with the protagonist's work as a translator, was the most interesting part of this. The discussion of translating a phrase that has no direct equivalent, the power of choosing words, clearly establishes communication as subjective and throws a very interesting light on the central relationship.
Unfortunately, this theme, what I found most compelling was dropped in favour of cheap attempts to shock and scandalise, resulting in a literary work that felt more like a cheap Gone Girl knock-off.
The absolute worst part was the GOOFY ASS epilogue. Spoilers ahead:
I had thought this to be about the way male privilege in the form of weaponised incompetence is a legitimate threat to women’s sanity. Not a radical statement, but effectively conveyed.
So to to reveal him to be this conniving, mastermind villain purposefully manipulating his wife? I suppose it could be said that he’s utilising patriarchal perception to his advantage, to get away with this. But to me that is so boring.
Why? Because on a regular basis I have to help men buy a gift for wives they know nothing about. Of whom they cannot name a single hobby, interest, or book read. Cannot, or will not, recognise their spouse in any meaningful way. And this, this slow gradual reduction of identity, no doubt taking place over the span of years IS villainous. To me, it is most villainous. It is what is compelling about Gone Girl, why the cool girl monologue is so iconic.
To then centre his perspective, even for one chapter? I’m not that interested quite frankly, I care about what is confining her, constraining her to this relationship. Her interpretation, her translation, her reality. To then switch languages (to continue this very loose metaphor) is condescending (I can draw my own conclusions thank you very much) and just the less interesting choice.
Nothing pisses me off more than the writer choosing the cleaner conclusion. Any discussion I could have had with a friend about whether we believe the husband’s actions are purposeful or well-intentioned, the opportunity to examine our own biases, what’s left open to debate and process, gone. Girl.
I don’t care to read about heterosexual marriage dynamics at the best of times. An interesting premise spoiled by the least interesting choices. Smh.
September 4, 2023
ngl as a lesbian on the aroace spectrum this is just what all heterosexual relationships sound like to me
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