Book Review: Take My Husband

Take My Husband by Ellen Meister follows Laurel, a woman in her 50s, who has been married to her husband Doug for 30 years. After a few years of feeling stressed and unappreciated, she gets a phone call from the local hospital that her husband has been brought in after a car accident. Laurel immediately begins panicking and thinking the worst – she’ll arrive at the hospital and they’ll tell her Doug was killed. And then, a part of her starts to think of all the positives that could come of it – she wouldn’t have to cook and clean up after her husband who’s lazy and been out of work. She could sell things and afford a plane ticket to California to be there for the birth of her first grandchild. So many exciting things could happen! But, then she arrives at the hospital and finds out that Doug was barely injured at all.

Disappointed, Laurel starts dreaming up ways that she could get rid of her husband and make her dreams come true. Throughout the novel, Laurel goes sort of back and forth on her feelings towards her husband, but during the times where she’s plotting his slow death it’s more unhinged than comical and I think I would’ve liked the book so much more of it was more funny than just crazy! For example, if she tried various things to kill him and they all hilariously backfired rather. Because the book didn’t come off as outright funny, nor is it some dark novel where Laurel is this criminal mastermind and psycho killer so it ends up falling in these weird area in between.

I really can’t make up my mind about this book because at times I did not find any of the characters likable at all and at times I kind of wanted things to just work out between Laurel and Doug!

I gave it a 3/5 stars on GoodReads. I liked the premise, but I definitely think I would’ve liked it more if it was more clearly a comedy.