Husband Material By Emily Belden Discussion Questions (+ my March Book Club Pick!)

It’s time for another Book Club chat!! I’m so excited about February’s pick: Husband Material by Emily Belden! For those of you who don’t know, Emily is a Chicago-based author and I’ve been following her work for YEARS. She is incredibly sweet and smart, and even if you don’t know her in real life, her books always feel like you’re reading about a friend. I think Hot Mess is my favorite out of the three (A novel about the restaurant biz in Chicago? Yes please!), but I also loved Eightysixed and her latest, Husband Material – which we’re going to talk about today!

Below you’ll find 5 sets of questions to get the discussion going. Feel free to print this out and bring it to your local book club meeting, share some thoughts in the comments of this post, or participate in the discussion in my Lake Shore Lady Community Group! And if you’re also local, a bunch of gals have created their own LSL Chicago Book Club! Request to join their Facebook group to find out more about their in person meetings.

My March Book Club Pick

Before we jump into Husband Material, it’s time to announce my March Book Club pick. This month, I’ll be reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng!

I had another book on my mind, but I switched it to this as soon as I saw that Reese Witherspoon is producing and starring in a miniseries adaptation of this book for Hulu – and it comes out this month! So not only can we talk about the book… but we can also talk about the miniseries, what changes we liked/didn’t like, and more. So excited!!

About Husband Material by Emily Belden

Husband Material is about a 29 year old named Charlotte Rosen. She lives in LA, has a great job at a social media company, an adorable dog… and she’s also a widow. Her husband passed away 5 years prior, and she’s done her best not to talk about it, as well as data-crunch her way through life in order to avoid any more risk or heartbreak.

But one thing she couldn’t have predicted was her late husband’s ashes showing up on her doorstep out of nowhere. This sets Charlotte into uncharted territory. She has to face her less than warm ex-mother-in-law, her husband’s best friend comes back into her life, and now her roommate knows WAY more about her than she ever planned on sharing.

As if that’s not enough to deal with, she also discovers a shocking secret about her husband that leaves her questioning everything. Through it all, she discovers that trusting an algorithm doesn’t always work, and sometimes your heart knows best.

Husband Material Discussion Questions

Big thanks to Emily for helping me come up with a few of these questions!!

Discussion 1:

What did you think of Charlotte? What parts of her did you relate to the most?

Have you ever pushed your emotions/grief aside because you didn’t want to deal with it? Did you focus on work like Charlotte or something else?

Discussion 2:

How did it feel reading about death/widowhood in a contemporary commercial piece of women’s fiction?

How do you think Charlotte coped with her grief?

Discussion 3:

What would you have done with the urn?

What did you think of Decker’s big secret?

What does it mean to forgive someone, even after death?

Discussion 4:

What did you think of Brian? Do you think he’s a good fit for Charlotte?

What is your take on dating apps? Can algorithms really create matches?

Discussion 5:

Who would play the following characters on the big screen?
Charlotte:
Brian:
Decker:
Decker’s mom:
Casey:

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I know some of you are getting together to discuss, but I’d love to hear your answers to these questions in these comments here or in my Facebook Group! And don’t forget to pick up Little Fires Everywhere so we can discuss that next month!!!

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PS. You might also like my Book Club Intro, What I Read Last Summer, Big Magic Discussion Questions, and an interview with Emily from 2014!