Husband Material

London Calling, Book 2

By: Alexis Hall

Narrated by: Joe Jameson

Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

In Boyfriend Material, Luc and Oliver met, pretended to fall in love, fell in love for real, dealt with heartbreak and disappointment and family and friends...and somehow figured out a way to make it work. Now it seems like everyone around them is getting married, and Luc's feeling the social pressure to propose. But it'll take more than four weddings, a funeral, and a bowl full of special curry to get these two from "I don't know what I'm doing" to "I do".

Good thing Oliver is such perfect Husband Material.

©2022 Alexis Hall (P)2022 Dreamscape Media, LLC

I wanted better.

i was expecting better. Ending ruined it for me. Reoccurring issues also weren't the best.

I loved it! (but…)

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It was nice to revisit the characters, explore the societal pressures of marriage and relationships, and have a good laugh. It’s definitely worth the listen despite the reviews on the ending.

It’s so weird because the book is amazing and the ending makes sense but it felt… wrong? Like the events fit the story perfectly and I love it but it really does just kinda… end. It’s almost like someone wrote this beautiful, well-crafted essay on an exam but they got to the conclusion and ran out of space and time so they scribbled their last thought down.

So… yes, definitely read it because it’s perfectly imperfect. Just like Luc & Oliver. They don’t make sense but they also kinda do in a weird way that we all love.

romantic and hilarious as usual

I love Alexis Hall. He has an incredible knack for writing all the kissing books in any permutation of relationship you could imagine-gay, straight, bi, trans and always manages to make you feel like you're more enlightened for having read it while also giving you a huge hit of warm and gooey (or naughty, if you prefer. I recommend the Arden St. Ives series if you like naughty but sweet.) It could easily seem he feels guilty for writing romance and so preaches at you in them, but it doesn't. His characters who are certain about things are usually the "villains" and so you don't feel preached at but like you're figuring things out along with the characters. And, in the end, maybe don't have much more figured out than you did going in but there was kissing and the hit of warm and gooey and it was one of those really cool conversations you have with people who you love but don't necessarily always agree with.

He also, in my opinion, has the disconcerting ability to take a previously done story line (in this case, Four Weddings and a Funeral) and somehow, very gently and with a self-conscious yet confident hand, making it better than the original. (In the case of the Arden St. Ives character, it was 50 shades of grey). I loved Four Weddings and a Funeral so this is saying something.

His books, this one included obviously, are unapologetically romantic while also being unapologetically unconventional. that is a very fine line to walk but he does it so well. in fact, I would say it's his signature style. he's just brilliant.

Ugh

Sequels are always tricky, but I do feel that when you have such an amazing story like Boyfriend Material -5 star read and in my “all-time-favorites” list- two things can happen, you either enjoy it because you get to see more of a couple you adore, or are completely crushed when you kinda lose respect for those characters, get annoyed with the plot, and get a wtf ending.
Unfortunately it was the second for me. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone but this almost felt like a filler book, I wouldn’t have been surprised that most of the events in this book would have been extras. Not only this, but events that were long and quite frankly boring has more pages than Luc and Oliver’s interactions, and most of the time these interactions were conflictive, Luc being extremely selfish and narcissistic, and just all around repetitive.
Do we still get sweet sweet moments? Absolutely! But the ending and seeing all the event happening here I’m just a little distressed for Luc and Oliver.
Narration bumped this to 3 stars, simply because it was absolutely FLAWLESS.

Ignore the negative reviews and read it!

Boyfriend Material might be my favorite book of all time, but this one is close behind. Other reviewers have complained that nothing really happens, and that's basically true. But that doesn't take anything away from the book. In fact, it works perfectly. This is a book about characters and relationships, not action. The situations that drive the character and relationship development are appropriate and frequently hilarious (like, laugh-so-hard-on-the-train-that-people-give-you-funny-looks hilarious). Luc and Oliver's relationship is as swoon-worthy as ever, and the supporting characters are back in full force.

Finally, I don't want to give any spoilers, but if you've gotten this far, you've probably read that people don't like the ending. Don't be afraid of the ending! It was amazing.

omg

this took me up and down , Luke was so infuriating. I would have run for the hills I don't need that headache in my life. Both he and Oliver worked in the book it's not real.life so I'll get over it.

Joe Jameson excellent narration as always.

Did Oliver have a lobotomy?

Joe Jameson continues to be the best narrator around, and he really elevates this book. I’m currently listening to one of his long Spellslinger series books to get over the disappointment from this book. On a positive note, some of this book is similar to the first one, a quite funny rom-com, with an extra dollop of angst, that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, the ending for this book is remarkably bad on so many levels. Essentially, Oliver’s behavior is far too out of character compared to the first book for this to be enjoyable. I recently listened to Love, Hate & Clickbait which shares a similar storyline regarding marriage. Even though the couples in both these books make the same decision as to marriage, I found the ending to Clickbait to be vastly better written.

Surprisingly good

After reading so many negative reviews, I started this book expecting the worst. And instead, I had very pleasant experience.

Yes, yes, the end is not exactly what the title suggests, but it's still a fun story. Some bits are barmy, other bits are moving and very nicely written... many bits are redundant or lack "verisimilitude"... but for me, this combination of elements plus the excellent narration made this story very entertaining. I loved it .

I wouldn't consider myself a fan of the author since I have abandoned and returned one of his books before, but I'm definitely keeping this one!

If you've read the first book and liked it, don't be discouraged by the reviews; give the second one a chance. You might like it.

Ugh

The ending was awful. Did not like the ending at all! It was a terrible ending. 👎🏽

I have mix feeling

Tbh I really liked this book. I loved how we where able to look deeper into Luc and Oliver’s relationship. Spoiler alert: But the ending really got me feeling a bunch of different emotions. Like I kinda New it was going that way by like the lat 10 chapters but I hoped it didn’t. In the end I don’t hate the book but wasn’t all that happy with the ending.