Charlotte Rosen is almost thirty, and she has been a widow longer than she was a wife. Her relationship with her in-laws is prickly, so when the California mausoleum where her late husband’s ashes were stored burns down, Charlotte’s in for trouble. She takes delivery of the urn and has to reassess quite a lot about her life. HUSBAND MATERIAL is what the social media analytics lady obsesses about finding – for other women. She codes algorithms to bring social influencers from the big-name sites to the right parties – free advertising – by day. By night she taps out the code to make dating apps for perfect matches.

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If this edgy adventure tells us anything, it’s that we can be and will be stalked on social media. I chuckled as I read this account. Charlotte hunts down friends, possible boyfriends, and work connections. She fakes a profile for herself to get a follower status with access to personal content. And not just the images someone posts are visible; she chases any photo they might have appeared in, with tags and facial recognition programs. In theory, she is just checking how influential their status might be, or whether they were in a web of contacts her late husband Decker knew. But given that she is not a private eye looking for evidence of fraud or bigamy, we have to ask whether this is a healthy lifestyle. Instead of spending time with real people who want to see if she’s okay, Charlotte has gotten all too good at pushing them away to obsess about numbers and links.

The urn is the trigger for a series of events and revelations which show us that Charlotte has not nearly processed all her grief. The tug-of-war with her mother in law Debbie takes comical turns; however, Casey, Charlotte’s flatmate, is even more aggrieved. Casey knew nothing about the situation – the author’s device to have Charlotte talk us through the backstory – and even when it comes out, Casey still gets ignored. Brian Jackson is reluctantly impelled back into Charlotte’s life – he was Decker’s friend – and since he’s meeting with her at Debbie’s request, can Charlotte trust him? Trust is something she can’t program for, any more than grief counselling. HUSBAND MATERIAL might seem an odd title for this story by Emily Belden, but we find a look at who, or what, a good husband really is. I found myself really hoping life would turn out okay. Unless you aspire to be an Instagram influencer, you’ll perhaps button down the privacy settings on your profiles and delete some old photos. But finish the book first.

Book Summary