Thursday 23 November 2023

Book ~ "Would You Ask My Husband That?" (2023) Kathleen Whyman

From Goodreads ~ When Sarah's husband, Will, is unexpectedly fired, her first reaction is shock. Then she gets a call offering her his old job.

On principal, she should turn it down. But their young family needs the money and Sarah can't help feeling like her career has taken a backseat all these years. Now it is her turn to shine.

Overnight, Sarah and Will trade places.

She's now the departmental director commuting into the city five days a week and answering client calls on the weekend. He's doing the school run and the laundry. Or at least trying to.

They've always said they are equal partners so this should be simple right?

Wrong.

This change was supposed to be the making of them as a family but as Sarah fights for her chance to have it all, she might end up losing everything.


Sarah and Will worked for the same company. Will was a director and, though she had been there longer and would like to be a director, Sarah was a senior manager ... she had taken time off to have children so lost some ground plus carries most of the responsibilities of running their home. When Will was fired, Sarah was offered his job. This is an opportunity she didn't want to say no to. With his termination package, Will agreed not to work for the next six months so Sarah accepted the job, figuring Will will take over the household and children responsibilities.

What Sarah discovered was that not only did she now have a more stressful and demanding job, she was still carrying most of the load at home. She didn't want to be a nag but she had enough. Will thought he was doing more than was expected. Needless to say, they had many clashes.

This was the first book I've read by this author and I thought it was okay. I disliked Will and found his character to be over the top. Could he be that selfish and clueless when he was working that he never realized all Sarah did keeping their household going and working? Six months later, with all the time off he had, he thought he was doing an adequate job even though she was still doing everything at home. He was in his mid-40s so it was unbelievable in today's world that he assumed as the man, he should be the breadwinner. And he didn't realize his thinking that he was more deserving than Sarah was wrong ... he had to be told by a friend. Sarah was being treated badly at work by her new employees but never pushed to see why which at her level she should have.

The story takes place in and around London so there were lots of reference that I wasn't familiar with. It's written in first person perspective, alternating in Sarah and Will's voices (the chapters are labeled). I wonder about the relevance of the title of the book since no one ever asked Sarah anything out of the ordinary and made her wonder whether they would have asked Will that. The constant reference to Sarah’s glasses was annoying. As a head's up, there is swearing.

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