Reviews for Not Quite a Husband

The average rating for Not Quite a Husband based on 2 reviews is 1 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-08-05 00:00:00 Michael Plante This book is very nicely composed, with three-dimensional characters and good plotting and emotionally-compelling writing, and it makes me physically sick and I wish I hadn't read it. The book has an official description, but here is the plot of the book that I read, in chronological order as opposed to the order presented by the book: The hero and heroine are betrothed. The heroine has only known the hero for a short amount of time, but she really likes him, they get along great, and he seems like a good guy. The hero, meanwhile, has supposedly idolized the heroine from afar since he was young. And yet, the day before the wedding, the hero sleeps with some other woman. (As one does, when one is engaged to a woman one is supposedly infatuated with!) This is not a misunderstanding, a kiss-and-then-he-comes-to-his-senses, a heat-of-the-moment action, a drunk-out-of-his-mind mistake, a blackmail issue, or anything like that. He purposely goes to this woman's house for exactly one reason: to cheat on his fiancée one day before the wedding. And cheat he does. He has maybe half a second of maybe-I-shouldn't-do-this doubt, but then, sure, what the heck, why not -- goes ahead and does it. (The only reason given for the cheating is that the hero is intimidated by the heroine's competence at her job. Just thought I'd throw that in there.) The heroine happens to see the cheating (the hero doesn't notice), and, instead of being angry, she is embarrassed and ashamed. She totally thought that this would be one of those marriages where the husband would be faithful! How silly of her! She's in fact so embarrassed and ashamed that she pretty much freezes in response. She doesn't call the wedding off, doesn't confront him, doesn't even let it slip that she knows. She resigns herself to living in one of "those" types of marriages, until the day she realizes that she can't live like this, and she asks the hero to have the marriage annulled. Meanwhile, the hero also sweeps this under the rug. There is no guilt here on his part. He does stop sleeping around, so from his perspective, he's good, on the up-and-up, a totally stand-up kind of guy. For some strange reason, his wife doesn't seem too fond of him, though, so he starts having various types of sex with her in her sleep. She asks him not to -- she's okay having to fake it with this philandering liar while she's awake, but she doesn't want him near her when she's vulnerable. Understandable? Understandable. Not to him! "Well, there is just no legitimate reason why she would make this request!" he says to himself. "As if she doesn't trust me! Me! Doesn't she know I'm a totally stand-up kind of guy?" (He doesn't bother rationalizing the cheating to himself at this point -- it's as if his offense is so minor that it doesn't even need rationale. Engaged ain't married!) so he ignores her request -- what rape? It can't be rape if you're a totally stand-up kind of guy! -- and eventually the heroine is forced to bar her door at night for protection. And then she asks for an annulment, and the hero is shocked. (Shocked!) He's such a victim! How could she possibly want to leave him? After all he's done for her? (You mean cheat and then lie about it every single day for their entire married life? No, he means buying her a microscope. Because presents are so much better than fidelity and honesty!) What a bitch! Anyway, two years later, he tells her how angry he is at the way she treated him. (Unironically!) And so finally she tells him, Hey, I know you cheated on me. And all of a sudden, he feels just terrible. "Oh!" he says. "I feel just terrible! Yes, it sure was awful what I did to you! Why didn't you just tell me about it sooner?" Why didn't she tell you? WHY DIDN'T SHE TELL YOU? Because you already knew about it, you big stupid jackass; you're the one who DID it! Why the hell didn't YOU tell HER? This is the first time in the book where the hero shows any type of remorse at all. Apparently, it's not cheating if you don't get caught. Or something. Who even knows, with this guy. Then he says something about how she won't forgive him since she holds people to impossible standards because she hasn't gotten over the death of her late stepmother. And then she chokes the everloving life out of him and smashes his skull to dust with the heel of her shoe. Oh, no, that's the book I wish I had read. Anyway, something about a war and she forgives him and they live happily ever after, the end.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-07-02 00:00:00 Michael Holden This was a Buddy Read Square of different Sherry Thomas books with 3 other hapless victims. (Warning: GIFs GIFs GIFs) PLOTLESS PICTURES PRESENTS... An R U F'ing Kidding Me Production... THE SMASH HIT OF THE CENTURY! Critics Say: "I laughed. I cried. I wanted to kill myself. No, seriously...where's the cyanide?" Not Quite Much of Anything A Husband FEEL your mind expand with hot atlas action! It was 370 miles from Gilgit, where he'd been peacefully minding his own business, to Leh, that much again back to Gilgit, then 220 miles from Gilgit to Chitral. QUAKE with excitement as the hero and heroine play chess! Her king knight leaped over the four pawns that had neatly lined up in e4, f4, g4, and h4. His king knight joined the battle. Her king knight dashed back and took out his king knight pawn. He removed her king pawn. ... She picked up her king rook, set it down, picked up a pawn, set it down, picked up her queen, and set it down. SCREAM with the triumph of the feminist spirit as a wife goes frigid because repeated sleep rape makes her horny and unable to concentrate on her day job as a successful female surgeon! TREMBLE to the heated desire of oral sex and handjobs in a world gone mad! THRILL to the sighting of flares as hordes of the rebellious colonized swarm outside the fortress! The hospital assistant came back a minute later. "The flare has been lit." "What flare?" Leo and Bryony asked in unison. "The Khan of Dir's men promised to light a flare from their position in the hills to warn us of an attack." And now the flare had been lit. Here's your flair flare! WEEP with sorrow as letters are written and read! SIGH with relief as you get that high school anatomy lesson at long last! "I know a great deal about the penis," she said. "I can name its every last component, from the fundiform ligament that anchors it to the pubic bone, to the fascia that covers and binds the entire structure." She laughed. "Now, the column of the penis is composed of three cylinders'a pair of corpora cavernosa and the corpus spongiosum, which is this ridge along the length of the penis." She rubbed her finger along that ridge. His poor captive member jerked with the stimulation. "Blood comes down the aorta, flows into the internal iliac artery, passes under the pelvic bone via the pudendal artery, and finally enters the common penile artery for engorgement. Then, through the corporoveno-occlusive mechanism, the veins are blocked and the influx of blood kept in the penis, thereby maintaining the firmness needed for penetration." EMERGE from this epic story with a smile on your lips and a song in your heart!