My Husband
A Novel
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4.3 • 11 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
In this suspenseful and darkly funny debut novel, a sophisticated French woman spends her life obsessing over her perfect husband—but can their marriage survive her passionate love?
A Belletrist Book Club Pick • An Amazon UK Best Book of the Year • Winner of France’s First Novel Prize • Named a Best Book of the Summer by Vogue • theSkimm • Oprah Daily • The Millions
At forty years old, she has an enviable life: a successful career, stunning looks, a beautiful house in the suburbs, two healthy children, and most importantly, an ideal husband, whose wealthy background allows her to transcend her own social class. After fifteen years together, she is still besotted with him. But she’s never quite sure that her passion is reciprocated.
Determined to keep their relationship perfect, she meticulously prepares for every encounter they have, always taking care to make her actions seem effortless. She watches him attentively, testing him to make sure that he still loves her just as much as he did when they first met.
Until one day she realizes she may have gone too far . . .
“Fans of Caroline Kepnes’ You or Gillian Flynn will find My Husband to be a new, satisfying, and unnerving take on the relationship-suspense genre.” —Booklist (starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ventura's irresistible debut follows a week in the life of a Paris woman obsessed with her husband of 15 years. When the unnamed narrator's husband tells her one Sunday morning that they need to talk, she assumes the worst: their marriage is over. She recounts the days leading up to this moment, detailing her routine as a high school English teacher, literary translator, and mother of two children. Underneath her veneer of normalcy, however, she constantly frets over her relationship with her husband. She's deeply in love but never comfortable—she pretends to be nonchalant around him, but won't let him see her without makeup and keeps a diamond ring from an ex hidden in a box. Her anxiety spirals after a night with friends, during which her husband compares her to an inferior fruit: "How could he have reduced his own wife to the rank of a vulgar clementine? (And why not a banana?)" When he doesn't wish her goodnight, she silently refuses to cuddle with him. As the mystery intensifies regarding what the husband has to say to her and why she thinks it's all over, the narrator's behavior becomes increasingly reckless. Ramadan's exacting translation grips the attention, and what makes this so thrilling is not just the narrator's surprising ruthlessness but how Ventura causes the reader to repeatedly change their mind about who's to blame for the messed up marriage—right up to to the explosive ending. It's a bold and memorable first outing.
