What Holly's Husband Did, by Debbie Viggiano

ISBN: 9781786813909
Amazon ID: B07B4DYKSX

Amazon lists this book as "A laugh out loud romantic comedy with a twist!", mainly because that's what's written on the front of the book cover.

• Romantic?
  • I suppose it counts, given that the story revolves around the (mostly sex) lives of three women and their husbands (and occasionally others, who aren't their husbands).

• Comedy?
  • Hardly. The central character Holly is a neurotic, paranoid, disorganised, irresponsible, weak-willed and pathetically submissive woman who over-reacts to almost everything, and evokes no sympathy or empathy for her situation in the story at all. There's nothing funny about her life or the way she goes about living it - it's either "normal, standard life - what do you expect?" or else "what the hell are you thinking? Pull yourself together and do something coherent or at least purposeful for a change." She jumps to unwarranted conclusions on the flimsiest of suggestions and is not funny at all. She's pathetic in the way she lets her imagination go wild, causing trouble mostly for herself, but also for her friends and family.
  • At one point Holly considers that she might be in need of Cognitive Brain Therapy, and I think that's a pretty good summary of what she does need.

• Laugh out loud?
  • No.

• A twist?
  • I don't know yet.

At one point in the story, a dinner party takes place. I do wonder about the author's ideas regarding placing guests around a table, because eight people are present:

• Ray is sitting at the head of the table, and Holly is at the opposite end
• Alex is next to Jeanie, who is sitting on Holly's left
• Jack is on Holly's right, and Simon is next to Jack
• Caro is sitting next to David

Now, it is not clear whether Caro and David are sitting between Ray and Alex, or between Ray and Simon, but either way, there are clearly two empty places opposite them.

This seems like (a) a very odd way of arranging eight people at a table with space for ten, and also (b) a surprisingly large dinner table to have at home.

No, there's nothing special about this chapter (as far as I know, I write this as I've just turned the page to find the heading waiting for me).

It's just that I find myself thinking "oh no, here we go again" (from the end of chapter 40), and really rather looking forward to my plan of reading Ready Player One again, because I've just bought Ready Player Two and I want to read them one after the other.

It's going to be a damn sight better than getting to the end of Holly's story, however I will do that, because I still want to find out how ridiculous the "twist" is that we've been promised all along.

Oh dear.

The "twist" is indeed something unexpected, but that's mainly because one of the characters has been doing a good job throughout the story of acting in a way to deflect suspicion from the truth. When it turns up, it's hardly earth-shattering, and as one of the other characters says, it's perfectly common these days.

It's definitely not worth enduring the rest of the book just to find out what this twist is.

The cover of the book says it's "A laugh out loud romantic comedy with a twist!"

In recent years, especially on the Internet, has become an abbreviation (and amazingly sometimes an acronym) for "Laugh out loud".

This book is NEMA (thanks to Bill Bailey for introducing me to that one).

Not Even Mildly Amusing.

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